Page 76 of Wings of Reverie

Read by Weaver.

Weaver,

I’ll meet you at the ball.

21

The wind cut through the Winter Woods as sharply as a knife. The storm was coming, and it was coming soon.

But in the bits of moonlight that peeked now and again through the clouds, the Hall of Winter looked like it was made of silver and ice and diamonds. Periwinkle, with her magnificent gown and her fluttering heart, felt like she was made to match.

She’d found it in her porch chair just that afternoon. A dress unlike any she’d ever seen.

She couldn’t wait to show the whole Winter Woods.

The purpose of the Hall of Winter was to keep the Keeper’s work, and it was nearly as familiar to Periwinkle as her own home.But that night, she thought even her comfortable blue stacks had a sense of mystery and glamour. The shelves had been pushed toward the wall to create room for the party in the atrium, and the ones facing the dance floor and tables had been draped with intricate tapestries. More hangings had been put up in the arched doorways and on the mezzanine railings and on the walls above, and matching tablecloths covered the banquet tables in the center of the hall.

The tables, of course, held a feast—on the dessert table alone were fruitcake, spice cake, jelly doughnuts, gingerbread, mince pies, and a massive chocolate roll, served with jugs of iced winterberry juice. Musicians played from a frosted evergreen branch suspended by pixie dust near the snowflake platform, which floated just above the ground to act as the dance floor. A light flurry fell from the ceiling, and twelve-pointed lightcatchers encrusted with silver and gems hung in the air, illuminating masks and gowns and robes in a hundred shades of winter—holly berry red, forest green, icicle white, frost blue, midnight blue, and more, embroidered with silver and gold and embellished with feathers and crystals and frost. Periwinkle recognized one as the snowdrop dress she’d seen at the night market.

But there was no dress at the ball like Periwinkle’s.

When Periwinkle had opened the box Weaver had left on her porch, she’d known she had never seen anything more exquisite. The snowdrop gown at the night market, as lovely as it was, didn’t even come close to Weaver’s workmanship.

Her gown was made of ultrafine spider silk, gauzy material that flowed through her fingers like melted ice. The wide, scooped neckline was covered in crystals, ending in a button that fastened at her nape, above the keyhole in the back that allowed her wings to move freely. The gown itself was opaque, but its individual layers were sheer, woven in shifting shades of pink and blue and green—emerald and peridot and sage, blush and rose and sapphire and sky blue and turquoise. The gown wasn’tmadeof dreams, but Weaver had captured the look and the feel of them through pure talent. Tiny crystal beads in the same glowing colors radiated out from the bodice in a frost pattern, and a pink, blue, and green mask was covered with crystals in a matching design. Periwinkle had only ever worked withactualfrost, but she thought the delicate beadwork alone must have taken hours.

The dress was tailored to perfection, every measurement correct; it didn’t constrict her or hang loose. And though the gauzy, iridescent gown was fit for any queen of Never Land, full and delicate and glittering, it was impossibly soft against her skin.

This was what Weaver had been so secretive about in the workshop: He had made her a gown the color of reverie. It was perfect. A perfect gown for a magical ball.

A perfect gown for the night Periwinkle’s dreams and Weaver’s talent would save Pixie Hollow.

She was aware of the way the dancing slowly came to a stop as she fluttered inside the Hall of Winter, of the other fairies’ gasps and stares, of the way the dress’s fabric glowed and its crystals twinkledbeneath the light of the starcatchers. But for once, Periwinkle couldn’t bask in their attention.

She should’ve been searching for Lord Milori, confirming he was there and distracted, wondering how long they would have to wait before they could sneak out to the Pixie Dust Root.

But Periwinkle was just looking for Weaver.

Even hours later, the memory of him in last night’s dream took her breath away. The confidence and strength of his hands as he’d spun her dreams into a magic strong enough to save the Pixie Dust Root. He’d been so calm, so certain as the two of them had wrapped the root in thread, bringing it to life from death.

He was a wonder. She’d never met anyone like him.

As the music and dancing started again a moment later, Periwinkle kept looking for Weaver in the crowd. She couldn’t seem to stop running her hands over the fabric as she flittered through the room, admiring the colors that were just like her dreams and the frost pattern that sparkled in the light. A sparkling dress, for the fairy he’d called Sparkles.

Then, like magic, she heard his voice.

“Periwinkle.”

She turned, holding out her skirts, the joke already on her lips in case he didn’t make it himself. But when she saw him, she couldn’t say it anymore. Weaver’s dark eyes were very, very still behind his mask.

She was used to seeing Weaver in black—plain black spider-silkgloves, plain black raven feathers, as grim as he’d been the first night they’d met. Tonight, though, he glittered.

His clothes were black like always, stark against his lean, pale arms and face. But woven through the raven feathers he always wore were twinkling points of light: gold and silver embroidery, opal and pearl and crystal embellishments in what looked like a floral pattern. There were snowflakes in his black hair.

He looked like a fallen star. All the shimmer and sparkle he’d teased her for—he wore it now, on his own beautifully made clothes.

“Periwinkle,” he said again, softly. But for a long moment, she didn’t know how to speak, either.

“You did a good job,” she finally said, holding out her skirt, letting the crystals play in the light. She wanted to chatter; her wings were fluttering without her permission. “I think I look nice.”