When we stopped that evening to set up camp in a copse of trees, I helped Bloom with our tent and then went to find Vida. She was sitting in the wagon with a notepad and pencil, scratching out notes and mumbling to herself. I dropped to the ground and crawled underneath the wagon until I could reach out and poke her foot. “Hey.”

She screamed and jerked her foot away. I heard the fluttering of her wings before she landed on the boards again. “Destiny!”

I popped out, grinning apologetically. “Sorry.”

“You’re not,” she accused, lips twitching. “Look, I’ve gone and half ruined the page.”

Brushing bits of dead grass from my pants, I stood. “I wanted to show you something. Come with me?” I held out my hand, trying for a winning smile.

“Oh, after you just tried scaring my wings off?” She stepped off the edge of the wagon and drifted down to the grass as light as a butterfly. “Love, I really do need to get this line figured out.”

I glanced at the notebook where she’d scribbled something about flying free. “It might help. Please?” I widened my eyes and clasped my hands under my chin.

Vida shook her head with a smile and took my hand. I grinned and tugged her past the tents, away from the fire Seren and Fiachra had going, and sat down on the grass. I could feel the cold earth through my pants; winter was coming fast.

I didn’t know what we’d do when it got truly cold. Winters where I was from never got dangerously cold, although I’d heard of places where it got so cold people could die from it, and we’d been traveling northward. But growing up, sometimes it’d get cold enough that even inside my mother’s house I spent the first weeks hunting down every blanket and scrap of warm clothing we owned. If it got that cold here, now…

…I hadn’t even brought any winter clothes when I ran away.

“What did you want to show me, love?” Vida sat next to me, crossing her legs under her skirt.

I pointed at the sky, where a handful of stars glittered against darkening blue. “Aren’t they pretty?”

“Ye-es…” She sounded puzzled. “They’re there every night.”

“Do sprites have stories about the stars?”

Vida shook her head. “Why, what are yours?”

Trying not to think about the cold, I traced the same pattern I did every night that I was out past dark– which, until recently, wasn’t many. “See those two? That bright one there is Vasistha, and next to him is his wife Arundhati. He was a sage, and she was the daughter of a different sage and…” I couldn’t quite remember the story the way my mother told it when I was small. “They fell in love and got married, and the legend says they never died but turned into stars instead because of how pure their love was. Mother always said she was the closest thing to a perfect woman that ever walked the earth, and I should always try to be like her.” 

She’d stopped saying that around the same time I had to leave school. I hadn’t heard the story since.

“That’s beautiful,” Vida murmured. Her head came down to rest on my shoulder. “What do you think of the line A love pure as starlight shines brightest at night?”

My heart beat faster. “I love it. Is it for a new song?”

She nodded, the point of her ear brushing my neck. “Seren thinks we need at least five new songs by the new year. Dream thinks that’s overkill.”

“And what do you think?” I didn’t quite dare to stroke her curls, though I could feel an errant one tickle my side.

“I think one of mine is going to be about Arundhati and Vasistha.” Vida yawned. “If you don’t mind that.”

“I’d love that,” I murmured. My heart felt full to bursting, but with no other way to express it I just rested my head against Vida’s. We stayed like that for several minutes, watching the stars together before the cold forced us into our separate bedrolls.

It wasn’t but a handful of nights later that Vida pulled me from my bedroll almost as soon as I’d lain down, her eyes shining with delight. “Come on, Des, it’s cold.”

“I know.” I pointed at my bedroll. “And my blankets will be warm soon.”

Bloom passed by me, carrying her spare blankets, her eyes sparkling. She caught my confused gaze and jerked her head towards the wagon.

“What?”

“Grab your blankets, love.” Vida scooped them up and pushed them into my hands, along with her own. “When it gets cold, we all sleep in the wagon and call it cuddle pile night. It’s a werewolf thing, and it’s much warmer that way.” She shrugged. “You don’t really have to, but you’ll be colder if you don’t, and Seren will worry so much he won’t sleep.”

“Well, if it’ll worry Seren, I’d better not.” I gestured at the tent flap as grandly as I could with an armful of blanket. “After you. Why did we bother setting up the tent?”

“It was sort of an impromptu decision.” Vida ducked out and held the flap for me. “They don’t plan it, it’s just when it gets cold.”

“I see.” I looked at the pile of wolves already in the wagon, flopped haphazardly over and around each other, and at Bloom and Dream climbing in to join them. “How does it work?”

Vida pulled a blanket from my arms and wrapped it over her wings like a cape. “Crawl in wherever you feel comfortable. Keep your face on the outside or all your air will smell like wolf, ask me how I know.”

“It happened to you?”

“Oh, too many times.” She shook her head and pulled herself into the wagon. “It’s worth it, for how warm it is, and they’re all careful of my wings.”

“That’s good.” I eyed the pile of fur, uncertain how to ‘crawl in.’ Then a golden eye cracked open and its owner– dark gold, so it was Fionnuala– shifted to make space. “Thanks,” I whispered. “Can I use you as a pillow?”

Her head lifted to look up at me and she let out a soft yip.

“Is that a yes?”

She dropped her head back to her paws and thumped her tail once. It smacked brown-furred Pryderi in the nose. He didn’t react, apparently sound asleep.

“It’s a yes,” Vida confirmed.

“Thank you,” I said to both of them, and wriggled in beside Fin. She made a pretty comfortable pillow. I pulled the blanket up to my chin as my feet got buried under another wolf. I was half asleep when an arm wrapped over my waist and a familiar honey-rose scent wafted over me.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Vida mumbled in my ear, sounding more than half asleep.

I snuggled into her and fell asleep with a smile on my lips.