Page 82 of Wings of Reverie

“My nightmares,” she whispered. “In all my bad dreams, there’s a huge storm, and the rot’s destroyed the Pixie Dust Root. The tree is dying and the wind is tearing at it, ripping up roots, ripping off limbs, and it’s—”

“It’s what happened to Selene. The storm. Her death,” Weaver said quietly. “All of this, from the very beginning—it’s all always been for Selene.”

24

Periwinkle covered her eyes with her hands. The world was turning inside out, outside in.

“The dreams were really about Selene,” she said slowly. “But what about the black mark you showed me by the well? It was a sign. The Pixie Dust Root was rotting.”

Weaver shook his head. His dark eyes were pained. “I made the mark with one of my nightmares,” he said. “There’s no rot in the root, and the tree’s not in danger. Never was.” Periwinkle thought of the sick feeling the mark had given her—the direct echo of the feeling of the nightmare-thread inside the hall.

“And the storm tonight?” she asked. “What about that?”

“Just a winter storm.” Weaver grimaced. “Your nightmares about the storm came from me. That’s what I had to do, bend your dreams toward nightmare so I could spin them when they left your mind. But I didn’t know—”

“Stop,” Periwinkle said. She pushed her hands against her chest, like she could make her thundering heart slow down. “Just stop.”

Weaver stayed quiet, watching her, looking miserable. With his mask pushed up on his forehead, Periwinkle could see the exhausted lavender circles beneath his eyes.

Her nightmares had been tinted lavender, too. That hazy violet fog had infiltrated her dreams, poisoned her sleep.

She’d been so afraid. And it had been all his fault.

“So the tree was never in danger,” Periwinkle repeated hollowly. “And Lord Milori was never keeping it all a secret. And you, who lectured me about not pretending and telling the truth—you lied through yourteeth.”

Lord Milori, who she’d blamed for hiding the truth, who’d been innocent all along. And the Pixie Dust Root—safe.

How could good news feel so awful?

Periwinkle leaned dizzily against one of the ice pillars on the hall threshold. As Dougal pressed his ear to the hall door and listened, he gripped his wrist, and Periwinkle noticed a bracelet peek from beneath his sleeve.

It was a match to the one Weaver had given her, shimmering with dream light.

“So all of this is for Selene, butwhy?” Periwinkle asked. She couldn’t keep the shake out of her voice; she felt like she was fighting the current in the border river all over again. “Dougal, Selene was lost in a storm. Her death was a tragedy, but it was an accident.”

“No.” Dougal turned away from the door, jaw set hard as ice. “That storm was out of our control. But the rest of it?” He shook his head, seething. “It’s Milori’s fault that Selene was sent out in the storm, because he waited too long to ask for supplies. It’s his fault for giving up on the search for her after onlya week. It’s the Keeper’s fault that he couldn’t find a way to locate her, even with the whole Hall of Winter at his fingertips. And it’s everyone else’s fault for carrying on with their lives when ours stopped. For agreeing to abandon the search for her, after almost no time at all.”

Periwinkle reeled. “Who says Lord Milori didn’t get the flu supplies as quickly as he could? And who says the Keeper didn’t try?” she said. “Lord Milori called the search off because winter was already late. The Mainland couldn’t wait anymore.” Even Periwinkle knew Lord Milori hadn’t had a choice, there. There was a balance to the timing of the seasons. The fairies could only tinker with it so much before something was well and truly damaged.

Periwinkle looked to Weaver, then, thinking of how they’d talked about Selene only the night before.You never told me you were friends, she’d said.

You never asked, he’d said back. He’d let her think she’d been inconsiderate and self-centered, while he’d been the one hiding something all along.

All around them, the storm howled, the wind whistling high and eerie, matching pitch with the horrors inside the hall.

Periwinkle leaned her back full against the pillar, feeling suddenly exhausted. “So your wife is gone. And this is your answer. The fairies inside are in agony, Dougal. And you’re a healer,” she said desperately. “You just wanted to find Selene. You don’t want to hurt people.”

“Don’t you think I tried?” Dougal exploded. “I researched constantly. I read everything on the magic offinding. I read new, popular books and books gathering dust in corners. Dewey even let me into his secret corner of the library. That’s how I came across that story about the children and their dreams that he translated. And that’s where I got the idea for all this.”

Periwinkle felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.

Weaver had told her about the legend. She’d just never thought to ask where he’d discovered it.

With everything else happening, it shouldn’t have hurt so much that Dougal had found Dewey’s private library first and misused it, but the knowledge stung.

“So Dewey let you use the private section,” she said. “He said some of the books were sensitive, and he didn’t trust everyone with them. Now I see why.”

Dougal waved this away. “Well, it failed at first, anyway. Weaver couldn’t spin his own dreams. We couldn’t believe our luck when we found you,” he said. “And then we came up with the story aboutthe Pixie Dust Root, and a way to make everyone understand.”