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CHAPTER 46
LILY
The gates creaked open like a warning. Adeline’s estate loomed at the end of the drive, regal and unbothered by the rot spreading through the city. It looked untouched—immaculate even—but I could feel the tension in the air.
Here I was, a woman from 2025, walking up to a Victorian manor to plan a magical prison break. If my dissertation advisor could see me now.
Mira walked silently beside me, her cloak drawn tight against her shoulders. The threads of fate around her pulsed steadily—the familiar rhythm of a Mender maintaining her emotional equilibrium. On her other side, Thessaly moved with quiet grace, her pale braids looped intricately atop her head. Where Mira's threads hummed with gentle constancy, Thessaly's sparked and danced—a Seer reading currents of possibility in the air, searching for signs of immediate danger.
I tried not to look too closely at the threads. Each glimpse reminded me how different I was from them. Where they saw neat patterns to mend or futures to glimpse, I saw, severed ends that called to me. Empty spaces where something should have been. The weight of what I might be able to restore—and what it might cost me—pressed against my chest like a stone.
Focus on today, I told myself. One crisis at a time.
We reached the steps, and the door opened before we could knock.
Adeline stood in the doorway, not a hair out of place. Her dark eyes swept over me, then the Weavers, then back again—calculating, composed. Yet there was something different in her gaze. Relief, perhaps. Or fear of what we represented: the moment she'd have to choose a side publicly.
“I was beginning to think you’d never return,” she said, stepping aside with the practiced grace of a woman accustomed to receiving callers. Even in crisis, her breeding showed.
The inside of the house was polished wood, gold-framed portraits, and the faint scent of roses. But beneath the elegance, tension simmered like a crack in fine porcelain. I'd seen enough disaster documentaries to recognize the calm before everything collapsed.
She led us to the drawing room, where the light spilled through tall windows onto the polished floor. The china tea set was already laid out, as if she’d known we were coming.
“We need to talk,” I said, not bothering to sit.
“Indeed. The town fairly hums with speculation.” Adeline moved to pour tea despite my refusal to sit. “There are reports of Weavers in the streets—healing the sick, mending broken things. Word travels with remarkable speed for such. . . delicate matters.”
“That is precisely our intention,” Mira said softly, accepting the offered cup. “The more they witness us offering aid, the more difficult it becomes to credit Elias's accusations.”
Adeline gave her a measured look, but her attention flicked quickly back to me. “You’ve stirred the hornet’s nest, Lily. Surely you comprehend this?”
“I did not come here to preserve the status quo.”
“No,” she said, almost wistfully. “That much is abundantly clear.”
The mantel clock ticked like a heartbeat behind the silence. I found myself counting the seconds—a nervous habit from my old life when I'd present research to skeptical professors. Some instincts transcended time periods.
“Elias has learned of August's. . . recent actions.”
My heart stuttered. “He killed a hunter protecting us.”
Her expression sharpened. “Elias no longer merely harbors suspicions. He is preparing something decisive.”
My breath caught. Around me, the fate threads in the room trembled—Mira's with alarm, Thessaly's with grim confirmation. “Another unraveling?”
Adeline nodded once. “A private gathering at the Spire. He terms it a cleansing. Only his most devoted adherents received invitations.”
Mira set down her teacup with the soft clink of china against china. “Then we cannot delay further.”
“We extract Ysella before he transforms her into a public spectacle,” I said, my modern sensibilities recoiling at the thought of what Victorian “cleansings” might entail. “We demonstrate to the city what he truly represents.”
Adeline moved to the fireplace, her back to us. “There exists a tunnel beneath the greenhouse. Father employed it during his. . . hunting expeditions. It provides access to the lower levels of the Spire and ends in the courtyard.”
I blinked. Even after months in this time, I was still surprised by how much deadly infrastructure lay hidden beneath polite society. “You would provide us with entry?”
Adeline watched from the window, one hand resting on the embroidered back of her chair, the other clutching a teacup she had not touched. Her expression had gone distant—cool, unreadable—but I could see the war in her eyes.
She turned back around. “Of course I will. I maintained silence for far too long. I refuse to witness another Weaver perish because I declined to stand openly beside them.” Her gaze found mine, sharp and certain. “I have chosen my allegiance out loud.”
