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I am not so haughty as the demon thinks. I do not scorn this place—its rooms of libraries, dazzling gardens, or magnificent loom. How could I? But it’s true, I have not let myself touch anything, or enjoy the slightest of its offerings, as if to do so would be a concession. As if I would be submitting to my fate here.
Now, if I am to believe what Aletheia says, the demon may bring word for me soon of my family’s whereabouts, but how soon, I cannot guess. It strikes me that, since I may be here a while, it would be no bad thing to practice my arts a little, if I can. If the time must pass, it had better pass well than badly. Besides, if—when—I do escape this place, I will be alone in the world, at least for the start of my journey. I will have to live on my skills. So why not practice them?
I go and stand in front of the loom. I am almost afraid to touch it. Almost, but not quite. When I run my fingers over the wood, it is as if I hear music.
I go to the back of the room, where spools upon spools of silk lie waiting. I select my colors one by one. The gold, for how it glints and shimmers. And the red—an irresistible, luscious shade. And white—I have never seen weaving-silk of such a pure,alabaster white. I tease out a thread and run it between my fingers.
Then I thread the loom carefully, and begin.
Chapter Nineteen
The easy motions are so familiar, I could be at home in that little upstairs room once more. It is like a dance I learned in childhood, and my limbs move back into it as easily as breathing. Except that this loom is more powerful, more sure, more effortless, than any instrument I have known. My fingers feel graceful, and my movements sure.
It was Old Lydia, our neighbor, who first taught Dimitra and me to weave when we were young girls. I was fascinated from the first—the movement of the threads, the way the pattern slowly emerged like a shape rising from the sand. I remember Lydia’s calloused hands on mine as she showed me the rhythms of it.Warp, and weft. Warp, and weft. Gently, Psyche. Use patience.
Patience was something Dimitra did not have. She found it tedious, this women’s work. And true, the carding, the spinning, all that is slow and dull enough. But once the thread is on the loom—to me, that is where the magic begins: where a story knots itself to life. It is only fabric, it may not last as long as the glazed pots and ewers that our menfolk get to make, but once those threads knot into place, it feels to me as if nothing can ever truly unknot them. No matter if the fabric is reduced to ash or rot in the years yet to come. Whenever we make something truly beautiful, its story lives forever.
Or at least that’s what I think.
Even so, it surprises me, howrightit feels, to be weaving again—despite all that has happened to me. Everything certain has crumbled. Everything I knew is upended. Butthis,this simple movement, feels like one true thing. I watch my handsmove, shift, adjust, as if of their own accord. Without anxiety, without doubt. And for the first time in days, I allow myself to exhale.
I don’t know how much time passes.
I stop with a jolt when I notice the thread is gone, and I have to return to the wall for another spool. Then I begin again, the tray of the loom sighing gently with each warp and weft, moving with the lightest touch, following the pressure of my hand like some great beast trained to the subtlest command.
When I look up again it’s past dusk.
I stand back from my handiwork and look at it properly for the first time. It’s beautiful—without a doubt the most beautiful thing I have made—but it unnerves me, too.
Sometimes it is like this when I weave. Images come to me, pictures in my head that have no home in my waking hours. Perhaps they are things I dreamed once, I cannot say.
Here I have woven a gold background, overlaid with white feathers. But the feathers do not float gently through the design, the way I had imagined—instead the pattern is turbulent and chaotic, as if it were the result of some terrible skirmish. Except that they are white, they remind me ofhisfeathers, those great and terrible wings.
And the ribbons of red which I’d woven through the design…they are beautiful, like a river of rubies glinting against the gold…but even more than rubies, it makes me think of blood.
I take another step back. The tapestry shimmers, glints. It is beautiful…but part of me is glad to turn away from it.
I close the door with a last look back, and move swiftly down the corridors. It is dinner-hour—but when I enter the great-room, it’s empty and silent. No fire burns in the hearth. I retreat to my bedroom, where I find the bread and water on a tray. I eat it steadily, and try to ignore the unnerving feeling of disappointment. It is nothimI wished to see, I remind myself. Itis only his news I am hungry for.
My dreams that night are feverish and strange. First I dream of Sikyon, and in the dream the streets are covered in smoke, and I glimpse the agora through a canopy of flame. Then when I finally fall back asleep, I dream of something else entirely. I hesitate to admit it.
I dream of him.
I dream that he steps toward me and waits, and in the dream I know exactly what he’s waiting for. And so I reach for the black hood that shrouds him, gathering up a silken handful. I can feel it already, that song of life-blood when my skin meets his. And then I lift the hood back, and—
I wake up.
A moment more, just one moment more, and I would have seen his face.
And it troubles me, just how much I wanted to.
*
The next day I return to the loom again. It’s strange, but it calls to me. I want to feel the silk thread running through my fingers; I want to close my eyes and follow this call that summons me, creating patterns that don’t belong to my waking thoughts. It feels as though I shed the most burdened part of myself, and instead, some great, deep magic is called up from a hidden place inside me. The act of creation brings me release. Relief.Purpose. It gives me a place to live for a few hours where I don’t have to think about Father and Dimitra, and if they’re all right.
Where I don’t have to think abouthim.
But when my fingers are stiff and the light’s growing dim, I stop. I feel a strange fluttering in my chest as I walk along the corridors, and push open the door to the great-room, but once again the room is dark, the table bare.
