After Noah handed her his spindle, Anne signaled to the group of fairies who had only been selected three days earlier. They hadn’t yet mastered kneading silver sugar or using spindles. However, when it came to handling silver sugar, they had a good instinctual sense for it. There was no reason not to have them put that to use.
At her signal, the three fairies came over. Anne led them out of the workshop, carrying the spindle with her.
More than a few of the crafters noticed Anne and the three fairies, but all of them were mesmerized by the skills on display, their eyes drawn to the fairies’ hands at work.
I knew they’d be amazed to see this technique in person.
Even Anne and the other crafters who had instructed the fairies had been astonished by how quickly they had picked it up. They had never expected that half of the fairies would have mastered how to use the spindles in such a short time.
Carrying the sugar thread that Noah had spun, Anne went out into the entry hall and looked up at the lesser hall’s railing. A plain wooden rod had been affixed there, running parallel to the railing.
Anne ascended the gently curving stairs and handed the spindle to the three fairies.
“Could I get you to do the thing I asked you about yesterday?”
“We’re not used to kneading or spinning the silver sugar yet, but this is easy as can be.”
The fairy who took the spindle laughed. Anne felt like she could trust her smiling face.
“What’s easy for you is difficult for humans,” she said. “We really have to train to master it. I envy how quickly you were able to learn.”
Anne spoke from the heart. Then she started to return to the workshop alone. But suddenly, she stopped. She saw Challe coming toward her from the hallway leading to the west wing.
Challe approached Anne in no particular hurry, then glanced at the fairies with the spindle.
“Everything going well?” he asked.
“Yeah. I think so,” Anne replied. “Watch this, Challe.”
“What do you intend to show the crafters?”
“We’ll show them what we can do. So stay and see.”
“Sure.”
The fairy king crossed his arms and leaned against a nearby wall with his usual blunt attitude.
Anne wanted Challe to see what she was going to show the candy crafters. If she could get everyone to appreciate that the fairies were working for their futures, that ought to make Challe happy.
“Keep watching.”
Anne ran down the stairs and went back to the workshop.
I’ve got to make more colors. More, and more still.
Just as Anne returned, Hugh addressed the other crafters with a sidelong glance.
“What’s the matter? As long as you don’t get in the way, you can get up close to check how they’re working.”
The crafters looked at one another and seemed unsure of what to do.
Of all people, Jonas slowly wandered over to the fairy nearest him, as if drawn there. Staring at the fairy’s hands, he mumbled, “As you draw the thread…”
The fairy looked at him, and he continued.
“Aren’t you putting any force into your fingers?”
“No, my fingers are just supporting the sugar,” the fairy answered. “The weight and rotation of the spindle naturally produce the thread.”
“But doesn’t that make the thickness inconsistent? Yours is perfectly even.”
At that, the fairy tilted his head thoughtfully and looked at his fingers. “I wonder why. It’s just the gap between my fingers. I simply try not to change the space between them…or something like that.”
“Interesting. So you’re not pulling the thread out with your fingers. It’s more like you’re passing it through the gap between them?”
“Yeah, that’s the idea.”
Jonas fell quiet again, staring intently at the fairy’s fingers.
Jonas certainly was different than before. Anne could see that as she watched him from a distance.
As if inspired by Jonas, the other crafters scattered about the room, taking a peek at the fairies’ work. The fairies were busy, but the observers were crafters themselves, and they walked around nimbly, careful not to impede the fairies’ movements.
Kat and Keith were watching the fairies’ progress as they continued pacing and adding color to their sugar.
Whenever they finished spinning a spindle’s worth of silver sugar thread, the fairies carried it over to Keith or Kat. Then they took the spindle out to the entry hall, just as Anne had done.
Anne watched the fairies and crafters bustling around the spacious workshop, and she noticed that the ones who had remained by the wall to the end were John Killean, Stella Knox, and Marcus Radcliffe.
Anne approached the three of them. “Mr. Killean, Stella. Good to see you. Don’t you want to take a closer look?”
As he replaced his monocle, Killean replied with a stiff expression, “I already know how talented they are.”
Stella answered sluggishly, still leaning against the wall, “I’m not here because I want to be. Marcus told me to come, so I did—that’s all. I don’t need to go out of my way to watch what they’re doing. What a pain.”
Anne smiled wryly at Stella’s typical response, then turned to Marcus and bobbed her head. “Mr. Radcliffe. I’m sorry it’s been so long. Won’t you take a closer look at the fairies’ work?”
Marcus frowned and answered sullenly, “I am impressed that you’ve trained them to use such an advanced technique.”
“We didn’t train them. They decided on their own to acquire the skill and have been working hard. As proof, you’ll notice that we’ve given them all back their wings.”
“What did you say?!” Marcus asked loudly. He, Killean, and Stella looked at her in shock.
“Won’t they run away?” Stella asked.
Anne shrugged. “They haven’t, have they? They put many times more effort into their work when they set about the job of their own free will, with their wings in their possession, than if someone else is holding on to them.”
“However, just being able to perform the skill to a certain degree doesn’t mean anything,” Marcus insisted. “When it comes to that technique, the fineness and uniformity of the thread matter more than anything else.”
Anne nodded in agreement with Marcus’s words. “They have acquired the technique perfectly,” she said. “Please, take a look at the threads they’ve spun.”
“I can’t judge the quality just by glancing at a bunch of thread wound onto a spindle.”
“That’s why I’m inviting you to take a better look. To see the level of skill that they possess. To see how talented they are as candy crafters.”
Hugh gave her a look as if to say What are you planning? Anne nodded to him, then shouted across the room.
“Keith. How are things going in the entry hall?”
Keith, who had been walking around with his vials of colored powder, stopped and answered her.
“Mr. Hingley is out there now,” he said. “Though based on what I saw a moment ago, I think they’re doing quite well.”
“Great, then I’ll show our guests the way.”
Keith raised one hand, telling her to go ahead.
Anne turned to face Marcus once again. “Mr. Radcliffe, come take a look in the entry hall. This way, please.” Then she raised her voice again and addressed the rest of the room. “Please come into the entry hall. There’s something we’d like you all to see.”
Anne turned around and headed for the entry hall.
Marcus was first to go, then Killean and Stella, followed by the rest of the candy crafters. Even Jonas came along, though he looked reluctant to leave the fairies spinning their threads.
The moment Anne opened the door leading to the entry hall and stepped through it, she could hear Marcus and the others gasp.
Even Anne, who had known what was waiting there, stopped in surprise.
From the second-floor banister of the lesser hall, their candy hung down to the floor of the entryway. It was a large, flowing thing, rippling and swaying in the light.
It looked like an enormous curtain in pale rainbow colors. Or perhaps like an aurora, the kind that showed up in the night sky in the far north.
Despite how it looked at first, as it swayed with the slight air currents, each strand rippled, revealing its construction. The movement of the threads had a beauty like quivering harp strings.
Countless threads of silver sugar had been carefully hung together in a delicate arrangement.
The colors on the far left were red. From there, moving toward the right, they gradually became oranges, then shades of yellow. The yellows turned to greens, and then blues. Those blues steadily increased in redness until they became purples, then finally returned to red. It was a color gradation depicted in pale hues. The beautiful, shifting colors were as natural and flowing as if they had been done with watercolor paint.
They were the colors that Anne, Keith, and Kat had mixed.
Every single thread was just one color. However, each and every one of them was a slightly different shade. When they were put together, they formed a splendid gradation.
Light shone through the rainbow colors as they elegantly swayed and undulated.