Rosewing's Arc

Chapter 7 of 3

The glow held. Rosewing's bloom sat inside its pool of blue light while the judges finished their walk. Mystique watched her own display sit dull and dark two tables away. Her petals had faded when the sun cleared the sill, and nothing woke them again. Rosewing saw the moment her rival understood she had lost. Mystique stepped away from her table. She crossed the hall fast, false nails flashing, and stopped in front of the judges' stand. "I demand a rematch," she said. Her voice carried over the whole room. "Pure blooms only. No pots. No tricks. No woven covers or painted wire." She pointed a nail at Rosewing. "She only won because of that boy's gadgets." The hall went quiet. Fairies turned. Magistrate Thornbloom lowered her glasses and looked at Mystique the way she might look at a wilted stem. "The rules are set," Thornbloom said. "You knew them when you entered. Display counts. It always has." She did not raise her voice. "You spread rumors. You reached for frost. Now you want the contest changed because you lost it fairly." Mystique's mouth opened. No answer came. A few fairies near the front laughed behind their hands. The sound spread. Mystique's purple cheeks went darker. She had spent the whole festival looking down at everyone, and now the room looked down at her. She turned, shoved through the crowd, and ran out the tall doors into the dark. Thornbloom watched the doors swing shut. Then she lifted the gleaming trophy from its stand, the one wound with real flowers, engraved fairy of the year. "The ruling stands," she said. "This entry held its light when every other faded. That is craft. That is nerve." She looked straight at Rosewing. "The title is yours." The hall broke into cheers. Fairy lights swung. Rosewing stood frozen, her hands still pressed to the crooked seam of the pot her grandmother would have loved. Two years running. No one had done it in sixty years. She thought of the old fairy who taught her which blooms to trust, and her throat went tight. Threadwick reached her first. He had wire still looped around one wrist. "You did it," he said. "I only held the light. You grew the thing." "You made the light," she said. "You made all of it." He shook his head, then stopped shaking it. He looked at her the way he looked at a seam he could not walk away from. "I ran out of time on a lot of things," he said. "Not this." He leaned in, and she rose to meet him, and their lips touched under the swinging lights. When they parted, the trophy waited on the stand with her name about to be carved beneath the rim. Rosewing had the title. But Mystique had run into the night, shamed and furious, and a fairy like that did not lose quietly for long.