Time was a funny thing in Otherworld. It jumped and flowed, froze and rushed. Like the chaotic world itself, minutes and moments paid no mind to the structured rules of the human realm. Lost humans might return home to find hundreds of years had passed in heartbeats or to have a gray-streaked homecoming to an unchanged paramour.

Siofra did not concern herself with time. Each moment inched her closer towards inevitability, closer towards unbending limbs, closer towards a frozen heart. Time was her shroud. She had spent years trying to ignore its touch.

And yet, she found herself greedy for more moments with Faolan. As the solstice neared, she daydreamed about their conversations, imagining something witty to make him laugh, asking about his dreams and plans. When alone, she begged for the hours to fly until his return. Unlike the wild, fey magic of Otherworld, Faolan's brand of magic was steady and sure and whole.

For that's what it was: magic. He cracked the frozen angle of her smile, eased the stiff ache of her wooden joints, made the fresh branches that sprouted from her shoulders seem human. Siofra felt foolish and childish, hungry for his affection, for their days together weaving in the Dreamweaver's cottage.

He has a princess, she reminded herself as they passed the fibers of the moonflowers through the loom. The shaft of moonlight that pierced through the cottage set the delicate threads to a quivering glow. He doesn't need you.

"How is your princess?" she asked quietly, pulling the thread back towards him. Once nimble, her petrified, broken fingers no longer possessed the dexterity to weave. Faolan sat at her side, her new left hand, patient and listening, as always. Despite the new skill, he was quick and clever. With Siofra's careful supervision, only a scrutinizing eye might notice the differences in their weave.

He frowned, his slight shift away creaking their shared bench. Siofra mourned for the lost contact. She ignored the irony of thanking the fates that her sliver of human face was turned from him. Apologetic rejection would be too much to bear.

"She still won't see me," he answered. His dark eyebrows furrowed, the corner of his mouth pulled in a thoughtful frown. "She wants to arrange the funeral on her own."

The weaver supposed it was fortune protecting the winsome princess. The temptation to exchange her soul for freedom had kept Siofra from sleeping nearly every night since the journey to the moonflower meadow. It was easier to ignore that siren call when the princess remained locked away in her castle.

With the same breath, Siofra wished the princess sat with them in the cottage, filling the corners with her chatter. She missed the questions and the conversation, the teasing and the wit. The princess thought of herself first, but she wasn't always selfish. She lived for laughter, but she recognized injustice. Siofra, despite Faolan's infatuation, could not hate the lovely girl. Just as she could not hate fire for burning bright.

"It's hard," Siofra conceded. "To lose a loved father."

The Dreamweaver had stolen her from the human world, but she had loved him despite it. She loved his husky chuckle, how he swore when a delicate thread broke at the loom. His loss had been more painful than realizing she would sink deeper and deeper into her curse, more heartbreaking than the years of unwavering loneliness.

"I guess I wouldn't know."

The hollow tone startled her. Faolan always held so fast to stubborn cheerfulness. The angry sorrow was an untuned string, a discordant note.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Borrowing his words and inflection, Siofra realized that Faolan was always the one to offer, always the one to listen. It wasn't fair that no one did the same for him.

Even more surprising than his sorrowful tone was that he continued to speak. In the softness of moonlight, the words seemed to rush with frantic momentum, a river freed from its steadfast dam.

"I mean, I love my father. I suppose. It's just—I wish he was more than he is. He was always this great chief according to my brothers. He was strong and proud and mighty and brave," Faolan said. Eyes fixed on the floor, his hands trembled at the threads. Softly, he added, "I never knew that man."

The unspoken words sang through his hard posture, the hint of shame in his eyes, the taut tendons of his fists. Siofra had spent so much time alone, with only her own emotions and thoughts and memories. It was hard to piece Faolan's body language together, but she was learning.

"I'm angry at him. At them," he continued, voice cracking with emotion. The pause between them held until it shifted and transformed into a fragile whisper. "Why didn't they stay?"

"Your brothers?" Siofra prompted, her voice as soft as his.

"They all left me. I've done everything to try to fix it. Nothing's worked."

A melancholy floated between them, so haunting and familiar Siofra wondered if it was her own. She had spent years hating herself for falling prey to a cruel queen's curse, and yet it seemed asinine for Faolan to blame himself for the actions of others. Revelation cut, sharp as a blade. The reflected self-hatred poured from every line in his body.

"It's not your fault." As the words fell from her splintered mouth, Siofra wondered if they were for Faolan or for herself.

"How could you know that?"

Siofra shrugged, turning on their shared seat to gaze into his moonlit eyes. "Do you blame me for being cursed?"

Aghast, Faolan shook his head, speechlessly scrambling to find the right words.

But she flattened his attempts with gentle firmness. "Then why blame yourself for the same?"

A flash of confusion.

"You're so kind to everyone but yourself," she added quietly.

The slow understanding came. His face was so near to hers, she read each expression as it whispered into being. Siofra wondered if she could count the flecks of deep ochre in his eyes. Their golden-brown was soft. They trailed the path of the curses' ragged edge, focusing on her eye, her mouth.

She wondered if he might kiss her.

She realized she would let him.

She realized she wanted him to.

He has a princess, her mind hissed.

A wicked thought intruded, singing and whispering. Break your curse and have him for yourself. Her soul is a small price to pay for happiness.

Siofra stood, heart racing, nearly unseating Faolan in her haste for distance.

Covering her shame with brusqueness, she gestured to the long swath of fabric on the loom and snapped, "This should be enough. You can take it to your princess."

He rubbed the back of his head. She expected him to look away, chastised. Instead, he reached for her.

Just as she had taken to learning Faolan's language, he was learning hers. The sharpness did not deter him. The brush of skin as Faolan reached for her hand sent a bolt of longing through her.

It isn't fair, her heart moaned. For years, the weaver had refused to dream of a life beyond the curse. With the taste of possibility, fierce yearning boiled in Siofra's chest.

"Do you need help with the stardust?" Faolan asked, breaking the silent conflict within her. "I can help."

There was an unspoken question, an offer to stay.

Robbed of her ability to fully smile, Siofra s guilty pleasure still warmed her cheeks. It wasn't the candlelight of giddiness or the raw fire of passion, but cozy embers in a well-loved hearth. Like a cat lazing in the sunshine, she wanted nothing more than to lean into that heat, to soak in the warmth he radiated.

The scalloped strands of fabric suddenly seemed bright to her, the hearth inviting. After years of dusty isolation, Siofra truly looked at the place that had become full of company and conversation. The cottage was intimate in the firelight. Faolan was intimate in the firelight.

Stay, she wanted to beg.

"I'll manage," she said instead. Reason bullied heart. Though she ached for his presence, she risked temptation in keeping him near. If she barred him from burrowing under her skin, from making a home in her lonely heart, then maybe she could resist sending his princess to the Winter Queen's court. For what would a broken curse be worth if he hated her for it? These last days of conversation were enough.

Faolan smiled, releasing her hand to collect the woven moonbeams. The strands themselves had been the lightest silver, but as they intertwined, the fabric darkened and darkened. A handsome swath of violet and sapphire, slate and midnight. As he held it in his arms, the subtle lines of worry vanished from his face. He looked to her in wonder and shook his head disbelievingly.

"And you said you weren't a dreamweaver."

"You helped," she reminded him, shooing him towards the mirror. "Perhaps you're the dreamweaver."

He laughed at that, sharing one last look before disappearing through the mirror.

She waited, watching the mirror with a determined eye. It would be like him to return despite the refused help.

Just one last time, Siofra promised herself. One last weaving and then she would destroy the mirror and leave the cottage. She would brand the happy memories into her soul and wait for oblivion.

Once certain he would not return, the iron bars of indecision and fear returned to coil around her chest. Her breaths felt trapped, her body a cage. Faolan had taken her hand on that night in the meadow, and the pain and fear and darkness disappeared. The tinkling clatter of crystalline leaves had imprisoned her in memories. Faolan, her idiot boy, had simply reached in and pulled her from them. Each moment with him made it harder to reject the chance at their future, and each moment apart made it difficult to breathe.

"I won't repay wickedness with wickedness," she whispered, a mantra, as she left the cottage, basket in her trembling hand.

Her untouched skin tingled in the night air—there was so little left that shivered in the chill, all Siofra noticed was the gentle touch of starlight. It whispered against her, cool and comforting.

Alone in the clearing, the shadows of mossy trees did not frighten her. Darkness stretched toward her from the forest, but it was consoling. A blanket of stars and night, trimmed with soft moonbeams, washed away fear and doubt.

Without the fire of Faolan's affection rattling her thoughts, she trusted herself. She trusted that she cared for him enough to be strong, to make the right decision, to face her fate alone.

The stars winked with the same cheeky grin the Dreamweaver used to flash when he wove nettles into the clothes of rude patrons. They twinkled with the same joy in Faolan's laughter after he finished a project. They shimmered with the princess's burning passion. Alone in the clearing, but not so alone, Siofra wondered if anyone would someday see her in the stars.

Stardust, the Dreamweaver had crooned years ago. Plagued by nightmares, he soothed her to sleep with tales of his weavings. Stardust is trust and memories and sacrifice and hope. Stardust is love, dear one.

She had but one eye from which to cry—but as the tears carved silvery trails into her cheek, Siofra smiled. In a haze of twinkling light, stardust rained from the heavens.

Word count: 24,012