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.

Crystalia found the little shop by its snow-dusted roof. Weathered wood, a red door, a swinging sign that read THREADRICK'S. She pushed inside with her sewing bag clutched tight. She had the neck size. She had the color. But she had never dyed enchanted ice-silk before, and she carried only one length of frozen thread. One wrong pour would waste it, and Whinter's gift would die on the workbench. Threadwick looked up from a half-built wing-panel. He was a builder and a tailor, blue-skinned, black hair a mess, a measuring tape looped at his hip. Crystalia knew him by name only. He set his tools down without being asked. "You look like someone about to ruin something expensive," he said. "Sit. Show me." She laid the clear ice-silk on his counter. "I need it snow-sky blue. Moonrock dust does it. I've never tried. I have one thread." Threadwick didn't waste words. He crossed the shop and took down a delicate bottle. Moonrock dust filled it, glittering cold, catching the lamplight. "This is the real stuff," he said. "I sell it. But dumping it on silk gets you gray sludge. You have to bind it first." He tapped the glass. "Dust needs a carrier. Frost-water. Warm the water, dissolve the dust slow, then chill it back before it touches the thread." Crystalia frowned. "Chill it back?" "Ice-silk hates heat. Warm dust unravels it." He was picking up speed now, pulling a shallow dish, a stirring rod. "You cool the mix to a breath above freezing. Then the silk drinks the color without melting. I've dyed panels this way. Trust the cold." They worked side by side. Threadwick heated a cup of frost-water over a low flame. Crystalia tipped in the shimmering dust, one careful pinch at a time. The water turned the deep blue-gray of a sky before snow. Her chest ached at the sight. It was his color exactly. "Cool it," Threadwick said. He set the dish on a slab of ice. The mix thickened, still glowing faint. "Now the thread. Once it's in, you don't stir. You wait." Her hands shook. She lowered the clear ice-silk into the dye. For a moment it stayed white, and her heart dropped. Then the color climbed the thread like frost spreading on glass. Slow. Even. Snow-sky blue, edge to edge. She lifted it out. The thread held. It hadn't melted. It hadn't gone gray. It shimmered the color of Whinter's dream. "That's it," Threadwick said. He almost smiled. "That's the one." Crystalia held the dyed thread to the light and breathed. She had her color. The bowtie could finally be finished. Then she noticed the faint glow along the silk, cold and steady, and a new worry settled in. Moonrock shimmer faded when full dark came. If the thread's magic dimmed the same way, Whinter's gift might only glow for a single dusk.