Alex let out an amused huff in response, crossing his arms and turning his attention back to the magic happening before them.
“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” Rose asked. “Without Celesta, the process would take at least a week. With her here, we’ll be able to start rebuilding by later this morning.”
Her frank, open demeanor encouraged him to ask the question that had been burning in his mind since the night before. “How are you able to not be bothered by all of this?” he asked. “Your homes were destroyed. You lost everything.”
“Not everything,” she corrected him. “No lives were lost. And homes can be rebuilt.”
“Is that what it is, then? You knew that your magic could just regrow everything and so it wasn’t a big deal?”
She was quiet for a moment, considering her words. Alex watched as Celesta spun in a series of pirouettes and vines seemed to leap from the ground and twine around the trunks of several trees.
“Perhaps,” Rose finally answered. “I will admit that for those of us with growing magic, it is a simple enough thing to simply start over and replant or regrow. But more than that, what else could we do? Stahlmaus chose violence, but that has never been our way. We nurture, not destroy. The world is full of enough brokenness and death as it is. When it happens, we move forward and start again.”
Alex wrinkled his brow. “But how are you not angry? Don’t you want to make Stahlmaus pay for what he did?”
“Oh, I’m certainly angry with the boy,” Rose declared. “But revenge is not mine to claim nor justice mine to serve out. I forget sometimes that your realm is young, and mortal life is short. Our lives in Faerie are long, and our memories longer. We know the Almighty has this and all realms in the palm of his hand. He will see that justice is done.” She leaned towards him conspiratorially. “Though I will be perfectly honest in saying that a part of me hopes that I can be there to see it.”
His thoughts were churning as he took in all of this information, but before he could fully process everything that had been said, Celesta came running up to him. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes bright with exertion and excitement, and her wings still glowed and sparkled with the dryads’ magic. In her hands she held a piece of mirrored glass, as wide as her palm at one end and tapering to a point.
“Alex, look!” She held it before him breathlessly. “When we were finishing the dance, I saw the light reflecting off something underneath the trees and I found this! I think it’s one of the mirror shards.”
Alex looked at her skeptically. “Are you sure? This place was just razed to the ground. Is it possible it’s just a piece of broken mirror that managed to escape the fire?”
Celesta shook her head. “No. There’s magic inside. Here, feel it.”
She grabbed his right hand and placed the shard carefully on his palm. The glass, rather than being cold as he expected, was warm and he could feel a slight buzzing sensation. A faint hum seemed to reach his ears, but as soon as he strained them to try to hear it more clearly, it was gone.
“It’s definitely magical,” Celesta asserted. She wiped her palms on her tights, leaving dark streaks of dirt across the white. “That means we only have three more left to find! At this rate, we’ll have you home before the week is out.”
She danced away, back towards the treehouse, leaving Alex behind. He watched her leave, suddenly unsure if returning home that quickly was really what he wanted.
Rose laughed beside him and pushed the bag of chocolates at him. “I know that face,” she said slyly. “You’ll need a lot more of these.”
Now that they had the first piece of mirror, the revised plan was that they would make their way to Autumn next. Celesta was hopeful that if Stahlmaus’ men caught wind of their appearance in Arboris, they would follow her letter to Summer, leaving Autumn relatively safe for the time being. “And if they do go to Summer, Drosselmeyer will be able to deal with them,” she said confidently.
Alex stood outside the treehouse waiting for Celesta to appear. His hair was clean and damp from bathing, but his clothes were still dirty and wrinkled from their travels. Though Oaken and Sage were both as tall as he was, their builds were so slim and wiry that none of their clothes could hope to fit him.It’s just as well, he told himself as he shrugged into his jacket.This way I don’t lose my head or forget where I really belong.
Celesta finally emerged, descending the narrow steps and leaving him speechless. Her hair was no longer pulled up into a tight bun, but rather hung around her shoulders in long, soft waves. Her dress was a light sage green that brought out the gold flecks in her eyes. It hugged her tight around the waist, then flared out to her knees. The sleeves were made of a gauzy material, gathered at the wrist, and her ballet slippers were a matching shade.
Alex’s eyes widened and he swallowed nervously. He had known objectively, of course, that Celesta was pretty. But he had also seen her first as a doll. Though her previous clothes had been much more form-fitting than the dress she was currently wearing, it was still easy to think of her as the toy ballerina that little Sadie had handed him that cold night in the garden. In this dress, however, she no longer resembled a toy.
Celesta looked like a woman.
A woman who was eyeing him with concern. “Are you alright, Alex?”
He shook his head to force his thoughts into submission.Eyes on the goal, Monde. You are a wooden soldier. You don’t feel, and you can’t get hurt. And you definitely don’t get distracted by beautiful women. “Y-es,” his voice caught, and he cleared his throat. “Yes. Isn’t that dress a little impractical, though?”
Celesta looked down at herself in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“We’re going to be walking through the forest, not going to a dance.” In his efforts to be unaffected by her, his voice came out a little more harshly than he intended.
But Celesta just looked up at him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. “Alex, I’m a dancer. Everywhere I go is a dance.” She gave him a pert look as she sailed past him. “Let’s go.”
Eight
Celestakeptupalively stream of mostly one-sided conversation as they traversed the narrow road leading east away from Arboris. It was a longer walk to the nearest waypoint, but both Rose and Oaken had encouraged them to take the longer road rather than risk being seen again in the city. Recalling the strange reaction of the two fae they had encountered on the street, Alex had to agree with them. It was a long walk, but the sun was warm and the air was fresh and he found himself rather enjoying the exercise. It was a far cry from the cold, tense marches of the war.
He waited until a slight lull in Celesta’s chatter. “What did you mean last night when you said that Drosselmeyer thinks I’m ‘the one’? Does this have to do with the reason you were both at the hospital that night? With my music?” Alex patted the pocket that held his harmonica to reassure himself it was still there.
