Chapter 7
When Periwinkle finally reached the Hall of Winter in Juniper Glade the next morning, she found it busier than she’d expected.
Which was pleasant, considering that when the sunshine coming through her skylight had woken her up earlier, she’d found herself alone.
She and Weaver hadn’t talked about when he’d be leaving the night before, so she could hardly blame him, but still.
She’d woken up with questions. She’d wanted to know what he’d gotten from her dream. How much material had there been? Had there been more nightmare than dream for him to work with, or was it the other way around?
The Pixie Dust Well had looked fine when she’d gone first thing—a relief, after her nightmare about the destroyed market. But if the dream had made one thing clear, it was that they had no time to waste. So Periwinkle had decided to get started alone.
She’d been surprised to find Juniper Glade so crowded when she showed up.
The Hall of Winter’s ice-blue doors glinted with morning light as they opened and shut, and fairies streamed in and out through the carved-ice pillars on the threshold, threading around one another with their arms full of books.
When she finally got a clear shot at the threshold, Periwinkle landed, shifting the bag on her shoulder and wondering what was going on.
But before she could reach for the hall door handles, Weaver stepped from around the corner, hands in his pockets, Legs on his shoulder. “Look at you.” He cocked his head. “Almost didn’t recognize you all by yourself.”
“All by myself? What’s that supposed to mean?” Weaver had startled her again, and Periwinkle was annoyed with both herself and him. “Hi, Legs,” she added, slightly less grumpily, and the spider seemed to twinkle at her before scuttling into Weaver’s pocket.
Weaver pulled open the hall door, gesturing at Periwinkle to duck inside beneath his arm. “You’re always surrounded by such an entourage,” he said. “It’s bizarre to see you alone.”
“I don’t have an entourage, I have friends,” she ground out. “Also, I was alone all afternoon yesterday. I’m frequently alone.”
“The absolutely absurd number of invitations stuck up around your mirror would suggest otherwise.”
“Well, when I woke up alone this morning, I spent some time thinking about where we should start our research.”
“You did?” Weaver looked surprised.
Periwinkle huffed a breath out her nostrils, trying to tamp down her frustration. “Yes, Weaver. I know how to plan. Sometimes I even know where I’m going when I leave the house.” By the second star, could the dream magic have sent her anyone more annoying?
“Look.” She gestured around them at the hall’s cool blue atrium, airy from floor to high ceiling, more crowded than she’d ever seen it.
Dozens of arched doorways opened to corridors branching in every direction, and hundreds of towering bookcases were angled in the shape of a snowflake.
“The Hall of Winter contains thousands of records. We can’t just walk in and start opening books, especially since it’s weirdly busy today. We have to have a plan.”
“I agree,” Weaver said. He gestured as she had, still looking bewildered. “Well, lead on, then.” And when Periwinkle began to make her way toward the first-floor stacks, he followed.
“So,” she said. “I already mentioned how the research I did on dreams—”
“Keep your voice down,” Weaver warned her.
“Sorry. About how my research turned up information on human dreams and nightmares, and there wasn’t much of that, either,” Periwinkle whispered. “Obviously, it would help if we could tell the Keeper everything—”
“But we can’t,” Weaver interrupted.
“But as we obviously can’t,” Periwinkle said, talking over him, “because anything I tell Dewey, he will tell Lord Milori—”
“Dewey?”
“That’s the Keeper’s name,” Periwinkle said. “Dewey. Keeper of All Fairy Knowledge. Try to keep up.”
Weaver frowned. “How do you know so much about the Hall of Winter?”
“I like the Keeper. I like finding things out. This place is full of all sorts of secrets and surprises.” Periwinkle shrugged.
“Anyway, since I haven’t found anything out by researching dreams themselves and we can’t talk to Dewey, I think the fastest, simplest way to find the tools is to start looking for records of old fairy workshops where they might have done dream magic. We can look through maps and atlases.”
“That’s…a good idea,” Weaver admitted, looking almost surprised. Still, he hesitated.
“But?” Periwinkle prompted.
“Nothing. I’d like to know more about the dreaming and dream-talents, is all,” Weaver said. “I was hoping for journals or encyclopedias. But cutting straight to searching maps for the workshop sites would save us time. Let’s start there.”
Their plan was a shortcut, but their path to the map section couldn’t have involved more detours.
Periwinkle had expected the hall to fill up for the First Frost Ball at the end of the week, but she didn’t know why, on this morning, a group of off-duty scouts was giggling and sneaking books behind their backs as she and Weaver flew past. (The books themselves were much less sneaky, giving whistles or birdcalls any time they fell open.) The Hall’s ground floor teemed with fairies flitting around with bags and armfuls of books, whispering and laughing and hiding their choices from their neighbors.
When they finally reached the right section, a set of shelves with snowflake labels engraved Maps and Atlases, Weaver stuffed his hands in his pockets, swallowing hard as he ran his eyes up and down the tower of books. “Are you all right?” Periwinkle asked, surprised at his expression.
“Oh. Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Just ready to get going.”
Fair enough. “Okay. You start down there at the bottom. I’ll get to work up here. How’s that?” When Weaver gave a silent nod, she fluttered to the top of the bookcase and started her research.
Periwinkle made her way across the bookshelf slowly, careful not to miss anything. There were scores—hundreds—of atlases and maps, some capturing the whole of Pixie Hollow, others focusing only on the Winter Woods. Periwinkle made herself a pile slowly, checking titles and tables of contents.
She didn’t worry if she was coming at their search from the right angle, or if she was casting too wide a net, or too narrow.
Beginnings weren’t the time for endless strategizing; they were for actually beginning.
Plus, by collecting as many found things as possible, Periwinkle usually realized later she’d grabbed exactly what she needed.
“I think I’m done,” she called down to Weaver about an hour later. “How about you?”
“I guess so.” Weaver sounded hesitant. “I don’t really know what I’m doing. But some of this will help, maybe,” he said, nodding at the pile he’d created on the floor.
Periwinkle fluttered down to join him. “Don’t think about it too hard,” she said bracingly. “Let’s just go find somewhere to sort through it all.”
“If you say so,” Weaver mumbled under his breath.
“Ever the optimist,” she muttered right back.
The first-floor reading area, down through one of the atrium’s many arched doorways, was only Periwinkle’s second-favorite place to read in the Hall of Winter, but not because it wasn’t impossibly cozy.
Half of it was full of smooth pinewood tables with sturdy, straight-backed chairs made of oak twigs.
Small pronged lampstands held bright suncatchers at the tables’ centers, perfect for careful, focused studying.
The other half of the reading area was dotted with huge pine cones, each with a side hollowed out and filled with snowy owl or green mallard feathers to make soft, comfy seats—spacious for one fairy, snug for two.
Small end tables here and there were piled with books, and starcatchers hovered overhead to provide soft lighting.
And just in case the readers made themselves too comfortable, signs everywhere were meant to remind them they were still in a library.
Return All Reading Material to the Shelf or Collection Cart was posted to several bookshelves, and Maintain a Respectful Volume; This is not the Frost Forest was propped on one or two tables.
No Eating or Drinking reminders were hung almost everywhere, and one or two reminders that Retrieval of Books Gone Adrift Due to Pixie Dust Exposure is the Responsibility of Every Reader had been placed on balconies and the ceiling.
Periwinkle had come to the reading area ready to sit down and work. The problem, of course, was that this part of the hall was just as packed as the rest of it, and the fairies who weren’t busy reading were all delighted to see her.
“What if they ask what we’re studying up on?” Weaver whispered, grimacing and shuffling the books in his arms. “We don’t want a bunch of questions. Why do you have to be so popular?”
Periwinkle rolled her eyes. “I have a rare condition called being nice to people. You’ll have to investigate,” she said.
“Anyway, I actually don’t think anyone’s asking questions today.
” The whole time they’d been searching, she’d been trying not to act secretive about their books.
But at some point, she’d realized that secrecy was the rule in the Hall of Winter just then, not the exception.
“Peri!” Periwinkle glanced around. Flare, the light-talent fairy she’d seen at the Juniper Glade prep party, waved at her from behind a stack of books she’d turned around to hide their titles. “I heard you stayed behind. I can’t believe it. Are you all right?”
Periwinkle shoved her maps behind her back. “Oh, I’m fine!” she said breezily. “What are you up to? What is everyone here up to?”
Flare looked confused. “Picking gifts for the Book Flood. Aren’t you—oh, wait.” She stopped herself, waving a hand. “I forgot. You’re never here for the Frost Festival.”
“This is a Frost Festival thing?” Periwinkle asked. She tried very hard not to glare at Weaver, who would probably have known this if he’d ever willingly participated in a group activity before.