Chapter 7 #2
“Yes! The day after the night market is always the Book Flood,” Flare said cheerfully.
“Everyone gets books for their friends, and then we all read together that night. That’s why I’m—well.
” She held up a notebook covered in lists of names and book titles, some of them scratched out.
“Some people are just hard to find gifts for!”
Periwinkle nodded seriously. “So true. But that sounds magical!” She grinned, nudging Weaver. “Doesn’t that sound magical?”
He barely looked up from his books. “Flitterific.”
“Anyway, if you aren’t here for the Book Flood, what are yo—oh.” Flare broke off at Weaver’s scowl, tucking a pale braid behind her ear.
“We’re looking at maps,” Periwinkle said quickly. “Of the Mainland! Just for fun.”
“Do you remember the part where we agreed we didn’t want a lot of questions?” Weaver muttered.
“She’s being polite. You ought to try it,” Periwinkle whispered fiercely.
“You should—” Weaver started. But then Periwinkle noticed an empty pine cone chair.
“See you later!” she said to Flare, trying not to collapse in relief. The light-talent waved a confused goodbye as Periwinkle steered Weaver away, hustling him over the ice-tiled floor and toward the cozy reading area.
“Well, I guess that could’ve gone worse,” Weaver said.
“Sure. If you’d, like, bitten her or something, that would’ve been worse.” Periwinkle landed on the woven pine needle rug and set her books gingerly on the giant chair, already exhausted. Poor Flare. “You have got to learn how to talk to people like you’ve done it at least once before.”
Weaver scoffed. “Well, since fluttering around making everyone else happy seems to be your secret second talent, maybe you can teach me. You know, after we’re done saving Pixie Hollow.”
“That would be fine,” Periwinkle said, “except that after we’re done saving Pixie Hollow I was sort of hoping you’d never speak to me again.
” She smiled at Weaver through her clenched teeth as she arranged her bag and books to one side of the chair before climbing up beside them.
“What?” she finally demanded, when he didn’t do the same.
“Where am I supposed to sit?” he asked.
“Um, here?” Periwinkle widened her eyes in irritation and gestured at the space she’d left free for him. “Don’t worry, there’s enough room that you don’t actually have to come into contact with me.” When Weaver still didn’t move, she smiled at him sweetly. “Or you could always sit on the floor.”
Without a word, Weaver gritted his teeth and hopped up into the chair with a thump, keeping as much distance between them as possible. Then they both got started with their books.
Periwinkle ignored Weaver for a while then, and Weaver ignored her right back.
But she didn’t mind. That morning, Periwinkle read like she was eating an elaborate feast. With the maps and atlases piled in front of her like a snowdrift, she studied the history of the Winter Woods and Pixie Hollow one record at a time.
Landmarks of the Winter Woods. The Making of Snowlight Square.
A Talent for All Seasons: Studios and Workshops from Spring to Winter.
The Magic-Making Places of Winter. From Chilly River to Mistletoe Terrace: A Complete Atlas of Winter.
Periwinkle pored over and through them all.
Across years and records, she watched glades become forests, mountains become hills, settlements move from one place to another, depots established and relocated.
Mines were built and abandoned; workshops were opened and closed.
Avoiding even the slightest contact with Weaver, who was pressed to the far side of their chair, Periwinkle read voraciously. But though she squinted over every fraction of every map of her corner of Pixie Hollow, she didn’t see anything about workshops to do with dream magic or dream-talents.
“Nothing,” Weaver finally said, voice sullen as he shut the last atlas. “Hours, and we haven’t found anything. And this was supposed to be a shortcut. There’s got to be a better way to do this.”
“Research takes time,” Periwinkle said with a shrug, trying to pretend she didn’t feel just as frustrated. Wiggling carefully away from Weaver, she jumped down to the floor, stretching her wings. “Let’s get some fresh air.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “We need to think about this differently.” Without waiting for him, she headed back to the atrium and up past the snowflake-shaped platform at its center, then flew up to the second-floor mezzanine.
In a large salon upstairs full of suncatcher chandeliers, Weaver finally caught up with her. “Where are you going?” he complained. Periwinkle flew on, not answering, through an empty sculpture gallery and a corridor echoing with the harmonies of music books.
When they reached a large ice-pane window beside a large, cozy chair, Periwinkle raised the window sash and steered Weaver toward it by his shoulders. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Breathe,” she told him. “Fresh air. Daylight.”
“You are not a spring garden fairy, and I am not a plant,” he grumbled.
“No, you’re a highly temperamental dream-talent, and I’m stuck working with you,” she said.
“Now stand there and enjoy the sunshine.” While Weaver stood with his hands on his hips and an impatient set to his wings, Periwinkle collapsed beside him into her first-favorite reading spot in the Hall of Winter.
The overstuffed chair beside the window had a seat large enough to flop around in and a plush slipcover of quilted snowdrop petals.
It fit Periwinkle whether she sat sideways or cross-legged, because she read here all the time, and she was pretty sure she was the only one who did.
The window beside the chair got the glitteriest morning sunlight of any spot in the hall.
Not to mention—all posted signs and notices aside—the Keeper couldn’t scold her for eating pastries from Lattice’s if she read up here where he couldn’t see her do it.
Periwinkle loved sitting up here. She leaned back in her squashy chair and shut her eyes.
“So?” Weaver prompted a moment later. “What are we supposed to be doing?”
“Thinking,” she said. “If you were a fairy hundreds of years ago, where would you build a workshop?”
Weaver groaned. “You have got to be kidding.”
“No, listen.” Periwinkle leapt to her feet again, gesturing out the window. Juniper Glade lay over to their left, the mountains stood to their right, and the rest of Winter spread out in front of them. “We need to look around us,” she said. “We need to really consider this.”
“Consider what?” Weaver threw up his hands. Legs, who’d also come out to enjoy the sunshine, hopped hurriedly down to the windowsill. “We’re supposed to be looking for books, not thinking out loud.”
“Stop,” Periwinkle said again, with a gentleness that surprised even her.
“Think about it. Would they have put the workshops nearer the borders for the sake of getting or sending things to the warm seasons, or were they getting most of their supplies from Winter?” she asked.
“Would they have built them somewhere easy to reach for bringing in supplies, or kept them somewhere more remote, to keep their secrets?”
Weaver paused. “Oh,” he finally said. “I hadn’t really thought about any of that.”
“I know,” Periwinkle said. “Me either. This is why we needed to take a break and think.”
She’d meant to gloat when he admitted she was right. But staring out the window at the silhouette of Snow Globe Mountain in the distance, Periwinkle sort of forgot to feel smug.
Snow Globe Mountain. It was the tallest mountain in the Winter Woods, with the fiercest winds, just visible from this side of the Hall of Winter. It was also where Selene had disappeared.
Periwinkle had only met Selene in passing before it had happened. The fast-flier had been pale, with a broad, strong build and black hair she kept chopped to her cheekbones. She’d also been the fastest flier in the Winter Woods—and yet Snow Globe Mountain had been too much for her.
There was probably no place more remote in the Winter Woods for a secret workshop, or more dangerous. But no matter where their quest took them—and Periwinkle really hoped it wasn’t there—she and Weaver would have to be careful.
“What about—” Periwinkle cleared her throat, turning away and setting her thoughts on a different track.
“What about woods? Evergreen Overlook, or Mistletoe Terrace? Or even the Pixie Dust Root and the tree itself, do you think? Or—” She stared around the hall’s ice-blue interior.
“Could there have been something here in the Hall of Winter? It’s at least a few hundred years old. As old as—” But Periwinkle hesitated.
“What?” Weaver frowned, waving a hand for her to keep going. “I was following your spoken-word poem, or whatever all that was. Talk some more.” But Periwinkle shook her head and bit her lip.
Her mind was still working. But now she was thinking of her dream from the night before. Of the night market completely obliterated, of the Pixie Dust Root twisting and tearing itself apart.
The days before the First Frost Ball were quickly disappearing. Periwinkle knew she’d find the answers they needed eventually, but they needed to move faster than that.
“You were right before,” Periwinkle said. “There is a better way to do this.”
He straightened. “There is?”
“Yes.” She grimaced, bracing herself. “I’m going to go talk to the Keeper.”