Page 87 of Wings of Reverie

Through her tears and behind her closed eyes, Periwinkle saw the needle flying alongside her, the thread clinging to her hand. She saw the web stretching itself to catch her friends before they fell.

Those pieces of her dreams—the lights—hadn’t come from Weaver. And they hadn’t come from her, either.

She knew, in a deep and certain place inside her, that the lights had come from someplace else.

They had been the dream magic at work. And the magic that had guided and watched over her so relentlessly was not false, or dark, or hollow.

It was real, solid, and good. Relentlessly, fiercely, beautifully good.

Weaver might have lied to her. But Pixie Hollow? The magic?

They had always run true.

Periwinkle opened her eyes, dragging the backs of her hands over her cheeks, and for just a moment, the wind gentled. The snow fell cool and soothing against her skin, and a deep breath brought her the scent of the river close by and the junipers back in the glade. It was the smell of the junipers that reminded her.

Back in the Hall of Winter, the fairies were still trapped inside their nightmares. She had to get them out. But how? She stared at her hands in her lap, exhausted and out of ideas.

And then Periwinkle’s eye caught on the shimmer of the bracelet still tied around her wrist.

She’d thought it was just a pretty gift from Weaver, at first, and that its color was more of his clever work—not actual dream magic. But Dougal had worn one, too. Remembering how the nightmare magic had flinched away from her in the hall, Periwinkle was certain: the bracelet had been made with real dream-thread. Because somehow, something had made Weaver suspect that dreams could protect them from nightmares.

The scissors had failed them tonight because the magic tools couldn’t destroy nightmares. But dreams—Periwinkle began to wonder if dreams might be able to.

Exploring the dream-magic workshops, looking for the magic tools, she and Weaver had seen the work the dream-talents had left behind. She couldn’t remember anything in the Bobbin Wood or the Sapphire Mine workshops that would help destroy the nightmare magic in the Hall of Winter.

But there was still the Snow Globe Mountain workshop.

Dewey’s notes hadn’t told them much about it. But Periwinkle knew what the storybook had told them.

Stella had been more than bright; she’d been extraordinary. Up in her mountain workshop with her magic loom, she’d woven dreams into things no one had thought possible. Maybe Stella had left something behind that would help.

Periwinkle raised her eyes to the horizon and swallowed hard.

The storm devouring the world around her might not be a warning from her dreams, but it was still strong, and the winds on Snow Globe Mountain were already known to be dangerous. If Seleneherself hadn’t made it home alive from flying there, what chance did Periwinkle have?

Periwinkle sniffled, then stopped, listening hard. Somewhere in Juniper Glade, the wolf and fox pups were barking in their kennels. After a moment, she got to her feet.

Periwinkle had a choice: to let her dreams win, or her nightmares. To trust the truth of the web and needle and thread, or let the lie of the rot fill her heart.

She could choose to believe in the dream magic, or her own terrible doubts.

She didn’t understand where her dreams had been leading her. But they had never let her down. So Periwinkle did as she always did.

Periwinkle chose magic.

27

Weaver could hardly breathe.

Again, he told himself.Pick it up, and try itagain.

His head pounded, and his hands burned with a terrible, freezing fire that intensified when he touched the scraps of nightmare-thread. Legs had tried to bind up the fragments when Weaver had first gathered them up, but they’d burned through his spider silk, and he’d gone to hide in Weaver’s pocket.

Nothing was working.

“I can’t,” he panted, dropping the threads again. No one wasawake to hear but himself, but the words spilled out anyway. “I—” But he broke off with a shout of pain.

Weaver turned his hands over. His palms were red and blistered. When he pressed them to the icy hall floor, hoping the cold would help, he had to stifle another shout.