Page 85 of Wings of Reverie

Haunted. It was the only word for the look on Weaver’s face. Periwinkle wiped at her eyes, wondering if she could lie down beside the Keeper and sleep until everything stopped hurting.

She thought of the day she’d jumped into the border river between Winter and Spring, of the weight of her wings, the strength of the current.

Here, once again, she was drowning.

Weaver had found that she was kind and then used her like a tool. He had taken her belief and treated it like foolishness.

He had made her a dress the color of dreams and spun her nightmares with his own two hands and the magic they’d found.

Periwinkle felt flushed, almost nauseated. “So the dream magic didn’t find me. I tripped over your mistake, and you used me, because it was easy for you,” she said. “I thought you were just a cynic, Weaver. But what you really are is a manipulator, and that’s much, much worse.”

“But you need to know—” Weaver sounded like he was choking.

“No.” Periwinkle cut him off. “No. I don’t want to hear any more.”

She stared around the Hall of Winter again, at the fairies who’d done nothing wrong, at the dully shining aftermath of the ball. Misery rushed at her, a drowning wave, a rising blizzard. Periwinkle gave Dewey’s forehead one last brush before she lifted into the air.

“Periwinkle.” He called her name like a plea. “Please talk to me. Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

Periwinkle fought to keep her voice from breaking. “I’m thinking about Fletcher,” she said. “About every time you told me I deserved better.”

Weaver drew back, stunned.

“Turns out—” Periwinkle’s eyes welled, and she wiped them furiously. “Turns out being bored feels better than being betrayed.”

Then she pointed herself toward the door to the Hall of Winter, and raced out into the storm.

Found in the Hall of Winter:

Excerpt from “Stella and the Magic Drum,” Found inStories of Never Land and the Mainland

Gifted from Periwinkle to Weaver for the Book Flood. Read by Weaver and Periwinkle.

Morpheus’s talent was dreaming. But the hearts of fairies are large enough for many, many loves.

All his life, Morpheus took joy in crafting the dreams of others, and in dreaming, himself (when he could; dream-talents are notoriously poor sleepers). But he also looked after the animals of the Winter Woods and the Mainland, who were among the dearest of his friends.

His skill with them, in fact, was known from one end of the Winter Woods to the other, and every winter, when Morpheus traveled to the Mainland, his magic was unparalleled in settling the animals down for their rest. No animal-talent fairy could help them to sleep as he did. Chipmunks, hedgehogs, groundhogs; to one and all, Morpheus brought his dreaming magic, and they loved him with the simple, gentle love of beasts.

But one winter, he flew too far to the north.

The animals were fiercer there than he had seen before, and only a few animal-talents could coax them to their winter nap. When a huge bear snapped at his wings and nearly caught them, Morpheus was determined to return to the North again the next season—but not empty-handed. When he returned to Pixie Hollow, he asked his friends for help.

Stella and Orion were both dream-talent fairies, as renowned in their craft as Morpheus; more importantly, their friendship ran long and true. Both of them agreed to help him, and while most of the winter fairies rested through spring,beginning to prepare come late summer and autumn, Stella and Orion worked all the while.

Orion brought forward his idea first. As adept at music as Morpheus was with animals, Orion carved a lute and strung it with dream-thread. Morpheus turned out to be a pleasant singer, but his first attempts on the lute sent animals and fairies alike running. His latter attempts with the instrument were, unfortunately, no better.

Orion’s next idea was a harp. A harp, he reasoned, would be simpler to play.

Alas, it was not.

Orion tried to help Morpheus practice, encouraging his singing, testing their efforts on the animals of the Winter Woods. All the while, Stella stared out her window at the second star, thinking how to use her talent to help her friend.

The night before Morpheus was due to return to the Mainland, she disappeared into her workshop and worked without stopping at her legendary loom. From sunset to moonset, the click of her shuttle was the only sound inside Snow Globe Mountain.

And the next morning, she brought her friend a gift. It was, in fact, a magic drum.

“The frame is made of birch,” Stella said. “And the head is woven of gentle dreams. When you sing and play, the creatures of the Mainland will go gladly into hibernation.”