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She slumped. “For a moment I thought you were going to be helpful. No matter, I must persevere with the investigation.” She carefully scooped up the dust into a vial she’d somehow pulled from her frothy body, popped back into a magnifying glass, and continued combing the flora, creeping closer and closer to where Alice’s dream had shattered. My palms became sweaty with nerves. Would she figure out the magic had been created by me?

Sure enough, Stardust paused just above the tree branch I’d perched in to dream-watch and sniffed suspiciously. I tensed when she glanced back at me, eyes narrowed, before she zipped over to search my pockets with a wild frenzy.

“Stop it.” I tried to push her away but it was too late—she triumphantly held up my dream jar and my bundled handkerchief.

“Evidence. I knew you were behind this. And you thought you could trick me by claiming the magic occurred far from the real scene of the crime, but I can’t be deflected that easily; I’m a clever cloud.”

“Give those back.” I tried to snatch them, but she darted into the air and out of reach.

“As if I’d hand over invaluable evidence to my prime suspect.” Humming to herself, Stardust peeked inside the handkerchief. “Dream dust; I knew I smelled magic on you.” She lifted the handkerchief up and down, weighing it. Though I’d been certain it had been completely empty, it was bulky once again. “Hmm, barely over two ounces. For a Dreamer, you sure are powerless.”

My cheeks flamed. “I’ve told you already I’m not a Weaver or a Dreamer. I don’t even know what those are.”

Stardust ignored this. “This is the most inefficient way to store dream dust; any magic not sealed within a dream locket can easily slip out. Didn’t you realize you’ve slowly been losing magic? You’re right, you can’t be a Dreamer; you must be a Nightmare, because you have no brains.”

“I’m not a Nightmare either,” I said through clenched teeth.

“A likely story. Don’t think I’ll fall for your sneaky lies. Please. I’m a first-class detective and nothing gets past me.” Her brow crinkled as she turned her attention to my bottled dream. “What’s this?”

“A jar, obviously.”

She rolled her eyes. “Since that’s what you claim it is, I seriously doubt it’s a merejar. Besides, why would anyone carry an empty jar around?”

Empty? Did that mean Stardust—someone who obviously also possessed magic—couldn’t see the dream the jar harbored?

The jar twirled in her invisible grip as she examined every inch. I stiffened. “Be careful with it.” If she dropped it, then the dream I’d worked so hard to capture would be lost. I wasn’t sure what would happen if the dream escaped, but it was probably nothing good.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” Her rainbow eye magnified in the glass as she held the jar up. “Although it appears empty, I feel magic pulsing inside, but as far as I know there’s no way to bottle magic. This is a new form of power I’ve never seen before.” Her eyes widened, as if all the pieces to the puzzle before her had just assembled in her mind. “Of course…why didn’t I see it before?”

I shifted beneath her now hungry look and was relieved when she tore it away from me to scribble frantically in her notebook.

“All the clues make sense—an unusually large burst of power, an unidentified Weaver lurking on Earth, and an unrecognized form of magic…you’rethatWeaver.”

“Who?”

“Everyone knows of the infamous Weaver who, after performing devious deeds with never-before-seen powers, was banished to the Mortal World by the Council, only to simply disappear. As the only unrecorded magical being here, that Weaver must beyou. How exciting that I, Detective Stardust, was the one to discover what has previously eluded the entire Investigations Team for the past twenty years. Just imagine.” She quivered with excitement, starry-eyed.

“I have no idea who you’re talking about, so how can I possibly be the one you’re looking for?”

“Oh please, the evidence is clear,” she said dryly. “One simple comparison of the dust found on you with the record of this legendary Weaver’s magical fingerprint I ‘borrowed’ from the classified files will reveal the truth.”

A worn parchment file that looked to have been handled by dozens of hands materialized out of nowhere. Stardust opened my handkerchief just a sliver and bright magenta dust twirled out. She studied it intensely—going back and forth between the magic sample and the file—before a frown settled on her face.

“That’s strange. I was sure…but if she’s not, then how did she…I don’t understand.” With a heavy sigh she morphed back into her normal cloud shape with a deflatedpop. “Although this study was informal and the results aren’t yet conclusive, I can’t deny the magic isn’t exactly a match, so I may have been too hasty in assuming you were the Weaver everyone’s been searching for.”

My heart lifted. “I told you I wasn’t a suspect.”

Stardust avoided my eyes. “I suppose it did seem too good to be true for me to have solved an unsolvable case so easily, especially considering the Investigations Team hasn’t yet managed to do so.”

“Since I’m obviously innocent, can I have my jar back?”

Once again Stardust darted several feet into the air and out of reach. “Not so fast. Just because you aren’tthatWeaver doesn’t mean you’re not connected to the crime that occurred fourteen minutes and forty-three seconds ago. Besides, there’s still the matter of this mysterious jar you claim is empty.”

“Itisempty.”

“I highly doubt that.” A wicked glint filled her eyes. “But if that’s really true, you wouldn’t be opposed to me opening it…” With a mischievous grin, she started to twist off the cork.

I leapt forward. “Don’t!”