Crystalia Frost's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Crystalia Frost had woven a bowtie from enchanted ice-silk, and she still didn't know if it would fit the baker she loved. She stood outside the Frosted Crumb Bakery with a warm loaf pressed to her chest. The thread shimmered in her sewing bag, unfinished. She needed his neck size and his favorite color before she could set the final stitch. But Whinter Whiskint blushed if she so much as smiled at him. Asking him straight would ruin everything. She pushed the door open. Whinter stood behind the counter, arranging little frosted cakes with careful blue fingers. He wore a crisp white bowtie, snug at his throat. When he saw her, he dropped a cake. "Crystalia. Hello. Um. Cake?" "Just visiting," she said. She set her elbow on the counter and studied his tie. "That's a lovely bowtie. Did you tie it yourself?" He touched it and looked away. "I make them. This one's too tight, honestly. I always cut the band the same length. Twelve fingers around." Twelve fingers. She held the number in her mind like a snowflake she mustn't melt. One measurement, freely given. "Twelve," she said lightly. "That's a good honest neck." He laughed, surprised, and the pink in his cheeks deepened. She pressed on before her nerve failed. "If you could have any color tie in the world, what would it be? I'm curious what a baker dreams about." He went quiet. He glanced at the frost on the window, then at the pale blue icing on his cakes. "White gets flour on it. Dark hides the flour better." He paused. "But if it didn't matter, I'd want the color of the sky right before it snows. That deep blue-gray. My mother's shawl was that color." Crystalia's heart squeezed. She had her answer, and she had far more than she'd hunted for. Twelve fingers. Snow-sky blue. She almost thanked him too warmly and gave herself away. "That's a beautiful color," she said instead. "You should wear it someday." "Maybe." He handed her a cake she hadn't ordered, ears pink. "On the house." She took it and left before her face could betray her whole plan. Outside, the cold hit her hot cheeks. She sat on a crate and unrolled her sewing bag. The ice-silk lay ready, plain and clear. Twelve fingers. Snow-sky blue. But she had no thread in that color. Her silk froze white or clear, nothing more. To dye enchanted ice-silk the deep blue-gray of a snow sky, she needed a rare pigment, and she knew of only one source. Somewhere in Midwiddleton, someone sold moonrock dust that shimmered at dusk. She would have to find it. She folded the silk away and stood. The bowtie now had a shape and a shade. It just needed a color she couldn't yet make.