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“Try not to shatter time while I’m gone, Red.”

With that, he vanished into the corridor, boots thudding softly against the marble.

The kitchen fell still. No more accusations. No more firelight flickering over truths we could no longer outrun. Just August and me—and the quiet that settled like dust after something important had been said.

August stripped off his blood-flecked coat like it offended him, flung it across a chair, then swung back to face me. The pendant clutched in one fist as though he meant to crush the hourglass into confession.

He raked a shaking hand through his hair. “Torch-smoke. Screaming candles. I watched you break the night in half, and I still have no idea how. You lied about being a Weaver.”

The kettle shrilled; neither of us moved to lift it.

For half a heartbeat, the kitchen trembled with the weight of those words. Steam hissed from the kettle; frost laced the panes. Something in the Weave thrummed—expectant, almost hopeful.

“I never lied,” I said quietly. Removing the kettle from the heat. “Not about the Weavers. Not about who I am.”

He looked at me, eyes guarded.

“I didn’t know,” I told him. “Not until the Weavers found me. In my version of Oxford—my time—there are no Weavers. No Unravelers. Magic has been erased.”

I hesitated. My throat tightened. “I never had magic. Not until I came here. Not until they untangled what was already inside me.”

August stared, motionless.

“My threads were a mess,” I continued. “Knotted. Twisted up in time and grief and whatever fate thinks it’s playing at. But they helped me see it—to feel it.”

I met his gaze, steady now.

“I can stop this, August. I can stop him. But I’m going to need your help.”

His brow furrowed. “Why you?”

“Because your mother’s necklace brought me here,” I said. “Not to change the past—but to mend it.”

I stepped closer, heart pounding. “She couldn’t stop what she saw coming. But I can. With you.”

August didn’t answer. But his grip on the edge of the table loosened until his hands fell away entirely. The tension in his shoulders didn’t.

“You shouldn’t trust me,” he said. “You still don’t know what I’ve done. Who I’ve been.”

Some small, buried voice still warned me to do just that. But I was so tired of holding it all alone. I let the quiet make space for whatever he needed to say.

August turned, the firelight catching in his eyes, wild and desperate and raw.

“Every rule I've lived by, you've shattered.” The words came out rough, scraped raw. “Every wall I built, you've climbed. I don’t know what magic you’ve used on me, but I'd follow you through centuries if that's what it took to stay at your side.”

My chest tightened.

“I’ve lived in the shadow of a man who made me hate what I didn’t understand. I stood by while Weavers turned to nothing. I believed it was justice.”

His breath shuddered out. “But I see it now. I see you.”

He moved closer—not stalking, not hunting—but drawn like the Weave itself was pulling him toward me. Like all those walls he'd built had finally crumbled and there was nothing left to keep him away.

“I will right my wrongs. I will burn the name Hawthorne to ash if I must. Just. . . don’t ask me to watch you fall.”

He stopped just in front of me.

“You’re the only thread I can never let go.” His words broke on the last syllable.