“I know what I can and can’t handle, thank you very much.” Her doubt only fueled my determination to duplicate the dream. I avoided her disapproving glare as I shoved my journals back into my bag.
“Rather than copy another’s dream, why don’t you create your own like everyone else?”
“Shh, not so loud.”
I glanced over at my friends to see if they’d heard. Angel sketched snowflake patterns in a sketchbook and Iris hummed while she created a crown from the winter blossoms. Thankfully, neither seemed to be paying me any attention. I leaned closer to Stardust and lowered my voice.
“Coming up with an original idea takes too long, and my time is already at a premium due to my annoying need to sleep.” As if to reinforce my point, I stifled a yawn.
Stardust mumbled something indiscernible under her breath.
“Pardon?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.
“Finally you ask.” Stardust swelled up in preparation for what promised to be an endless lecture. “I think you’re trying too hard to prove you belong here, and in doing so you’ll lose the Weaving and not prove anything. You’re a beginner going against a Weaver with much more experience. Just keep it simple.”
By simple she meant boring. After many years of dream-watching I was well-versed in which dreams were most interesting, and the dull ones were usually the most basic. I couldn’t afford to create a mediocre dream, not when facing a self-proclaimed weaving prodigy.
“Dusk is soon. Can you take me to the Cultivating Fields?”
Stardust pursed her lips and said nothing, but disapproval rolled off of her in waves the entire flight.
Soft sunset shimmered across the endless sea of flowers, rainbows of color against the surrounding winter wonderland. The blossoms’ sweet perfume tickled my nose as I examined each carefully. “Be on the lookout for any garden details.”
“Oh great, now I’m being roped into your first defeat because you fail to see sense.”
I ignored her and paused next to a flowerbed whose bulbs harbored various species of butterflies swirling gently in their auras. This area was already crowded with other Dreamers scouring for details, so I simply leaned down to pluck the closest one.
“Why are you choosing the holly?” Stardust demanded. “That’s a winter flower, a direct contrast to the summer dream you’re creating. Honestly, I think I paid more attention during your magical studies than you did.”
I released the flower mid-tug and reached for the pink oleander instead.
“Not that one,” Stardust protested. “According to The Language of Flowers, oleanders mean caution, which is not the emotion you’re striving to create. Are you just plucking the first flowers you see?”
My cheeks prickled with heat. “Don’t you have anything better to do than point out everything I’m doing wrong?”
“I thought you wanted my help, but if you want me to stand idly by and watch you fail, I will.”
Before Stardust could object, I picked the golden daffodil, whose aura featured a monarch butterfly; it curled its stem around my wrist as I tugged it from the soil. One down, a dozen more to go.
Over the next several minutes of ignoring Stardust’s intrusive advice, I managed to gather a small bouquet of details fitting a garden theme—sun dappling the leaves, a clump of wildflowers and clover, the perfume of lilies, and several species of butterflies. Finally, I plucked the last flower and held my bouquet out to Stardust.
“Finished. What do you think?”
She eyed the wriggling flowers warily. “You do realize you only have a single night to create your dream, right?”
“It won’t take long to stitch these together; it only took me half an hour to weave last night’s dream.”
“But didn’t that pattern only require three flowers?”
“Only because Angel insisted.”
“Yes, what could she possibly know that you don’t?” Stardust muttered dryly. “You’d think you’d take her advice more seriously considering how much you respect her dreams.”
I busied myself with rearranging my bouquet and didn’t answer, but a pinprick of doubt entered my heart. Was I being foolish to disregard Stardust’s advice? But what did she know about my abilities? I’d grown up seeing hundreds of dreams from different Weavers. Surely, I could duplicate their work without any trouble.
Stardust shook her head. “You’re being extremely foolish, especially going against your more experienced weaving partner.”
Darius. A shiver rippled over me at the thought of facing him. “He’s just trying to intimidate me.”
Stardust looked like she wanted to say more, but above us the moon dial chimed, signifying the hour the newborn mortals residing on our section of earth would be falling asleep. It was time for my first Weaving competition.
I waited outside in the chilly night for Maci’s mother to rock her to sleep. As I shivered, I silently cursed the fact that I had to hide to avoid detection since I was the only Dreamer who could be seen by Mortals—yet another distinction I didn’t want to claim. I slipped through the window the moment her mother gently placed her in her cradle and left. In the faint light from the fire’s dying embers, Darius was nowhere to be seen.
“Nervous?” Stardust asked.
“I’m partnered with a Nightmare who thinks he’s the greatest Weaver the Universe has ever seen. Of course I’m nervous.” But my apprehension went deeper: it was also the way he made me feel, my strange need to trust him, that made me wary.
“Don’t worry, it’s a well-known fact Nightmares’ heads are filled with nothing but hot air.”
“No, just brains.” Darius stepped from the shadows, already gloating, but there was also a strange friendliness in his eyes and his smile. “Are you ready for the Weaving?”
Before I could answer, something blue-grey darted from Darius’s hair across the spiderwebs lacing his cheek. I leapt back. “What was that?”
“Bolt,” Darius said. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite.”
A small head with eight milky-grey eyes poked out from behind Darius’s neck to whisper in his ear.
“Yes, she’s the one I told you about,” Darius said.
The tarantula-sized spider
