Chapter 20
“Periwinkle. Periwinkle, wake up.”
Periwinkle opened her eyes. Her vision and her memory took a moment to adjust. But she sat up with a gasp as she remembered her dream.
“Weaver!” she said. “I just realized. Weaver—they’re all going to be trapped.”
Weaver cupped her cheek, swallowing. “It was just a dream,” he said. “Whatever it was.”
“It won’t be just a dream if we can’t save the root, though,” she said urgently. “If we can’t save the Pixie Dust Tree, spring will never come to the Mainland. My friends will never come home. I’ll never see any of them again.”
Life without pixie dust, without flying—she could picture it, if she was brave. The thought of it ached, but she could imagine life moving forward somehow. She didn’t know how they’d care for the Mainland. But they would do it.
They would still be themselves, and Pixie Hollow would still be itself, and somehow, everything would be okay.
But life without Spike? Gliss? Sled, Slush, the others?
She couldn’t even fathom such a thing. She couldn’t even imagine the Winter Woods half empty, the Mainland permanently trapped in what was only ever supposed to be one beat of its yearly rhythm.
It would be lost in reverie forever, never moving forward. The frost and snow that laid it down for a season’s rest would become its prison. It would be like being trapped in a dream, and never waking up.
Weaver sat beside her, his chest rising and falling heavily. A lock of hair fell into his eyes. “Tell me the rest of the dream.”
“I dreamed you came,” she said. “The web appeared again, and protected the tree. And you spun my dreams, and we saved it.”
“Well, there you go,” he said. But his voice was strained.
“I just don’t understand,” Periwinkle whispered.
“Why are my dreams sometimes so wonderful and sometimes so terrible?” There had been the touch of Weaver’s hand, and then there had been her friends falling from the sky.
The tree dying in front of her eyes, and the web that had wrapped it up just like it had saved her friends.
“Why are some days terrible if others are good?” Weaver asked helplessly. “I know so little about dreaming. I wish I understood more. But bad dream or good dream, bad day or good day—you know I’m here. You aren’t alone.”
Periwinkle reached up slowly and swept the hair out of his eyes, letting the heel of her palm brush his temple.
She barely knew what she was doing. But did Weaver know how instinctively he tilted his cheek into her hand? Or was he as defenseless as his expression said he was, like he’d made space for her in his thoughts just like she had for him in her room, and she was welcome inside whenever she pleased?
For just a moment, Weaver shut his eyes, and Periwinkle wished she had the time to count every single one of his lashes.
She kissed him, instead.
It was softer than their first kiss—slow, tentative, burning with the dregs of her nightmare.
Sitting forward, Periwinkle traced her fingers lightly over Weaver’s face, from the corners of his eyes to the space between his mouth and his jaw.
Weaver cupped her neck and kissed her back, slanting his mouth over hers, leaning in to her like even the barest brush of her hands was an irresistible pull.
There was a desperation to his touch, though, that she couldn’t read.
The heat of his kiss made her stomach bottom out. But his shoulders were rounded like her nearness was hollowing him out inside.
When Weaver pulled back, he touched his fingers to his lips, like the kiss had stung him. Periwinkle watched him, thinking he might say something, but he only squinted past her at the door. “What is it?” she asked.
Weaver got to his feet, pressing his lips together. When he spoke, his voice sounded far away. “Come on.” He pointed toward the mine shaft. “I think I see a light.”
Getting out took time. It took time to move rocks out of the blocked workshop entrance, and it took time to squeeze their way outside into the early morning air, bringing only the spindle and the dream-talents’ journal with them.
It took time after that to stop at the Pixie Dust Well and fly home.
The wind was biting and the sky was a bitter gray, just as it had been in Periwinkle’s dream.
That she’d dreamed at all told her she’d slept a little back in the mine.
But Periwinkle could barely keep her eyes open as they made their way south from the Chilly River.
Weaver had to jostle her awake to keep her out of the downdrafts near Snow Globe Mountain, and again to keep her from flying right into a fir tree as they passed over the Frost Forest. And when they finally reached her home, it was a good thing he’d walked her inside, because Periwinkle tripped over her own feet as she crossed the threshold.
“What now?” she asked. Her eyelids were drooping again.
“For you, sleep,” Weaver said firmly. “I’ve got to finish up at Floss’s. I’ll meet you at the ball tonight.”
“I thought you were finished.” Periwinkle yawned.
“Almost. But there’s always something to do,” he said. “And I have to spin your dreams, now that we have the spindle.”
“Almost. All right. Well, you go tie up loose ends.” Periwinkle laughed at her own joke. Weaver gave a small smile. “Do you need any help? I know I can’t help with the spinning, but I can do something else.”
But Weaver shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ve got everything I need.”
There was no distance in his voice. But there was something shuttered—troubled—in his expression as Periwinkle slid clumsily into bed.
“All right,” she said, uncertain. “Then I’ll see you tonight. Once we find Lord Milori at the ball—”
“Then we’ll move.”
“Yes. And then…”
But then, Periwinkle’s voice trailed off.
She hadn’t thought about what would happen after they’d healed the Pixie Dust Root. Would they tell the other winter fairies? Or would they keep what they’d done a secret? And then—what about them?
When the tree was saved, would Weaver go back to being a stranger at a workshop in Snowlight Square? Would this be nothing but a strange week to tell her friends about when they finally came home?
Would whatever it was that had sprung up between them keep growing, or would it die like a Summer seedling in the frost?
“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, brushing her hair gently off her forehead like he’d done before. “Your mask and gown will be here soon.”
Her gown! Periwinkle wanted to ask more. But Weaver gave a gentle squeeze of her hand, and then he was gone.
Somehow, as he left, Periwinkle was afraid he’d been saying goodbye for longer than the afternoon.