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She studied me then, something bitter crossing her face. “I have spent a lifetime in careful pretense. And you—you stride into our town as though truth never caused anyone suffering.”

I straightened, meeting her gaze. In my time, we'd called it “privilege”—the ability to speak truth because you had less to lose. But here, now, I was learning that truth always carried a price. “It does cause suffering. But silence causes more.”

A long pause passed between us.

Finally, Adeline stepped forward and pressed a folded piece of parchment into my hand. “These are names. Quiet sympathizers. Some occupy positions within Elias's councils. Others serve in the chapel, the schools, the courts. They will not act openly—not yet—but they are listening now.”

Her eyes flicked to Mira, then Thessaly. “Do not permit yourselves to be killed for the sake of proving a point. Please be smart.”

“Let’s give the town something to talk about—something they cannot ignore. We’ll meet August at dusk, rally the remaining Weavers, and at first light. . . we liberate Ysella and the other Weavers.”

Mira shed her hood first, stepping into the open square as though she belonged there. The morning light caught the edge of her linen cloak, shimmering faintly with threads of gold that pulsed like breath. A baker glanced up from sweeping his stoop. A girl carrying water slowed mid-step. Eyes lingered, curious rather than fearful. Whatever magic we did here we needed to be quick. It would only be a matter of time before the Hunters learned we were here.

Thessaly’s eyes clouded, silver glimmers flickering like candlelight on water. She pressed her palm to the cobblestones, and the air seemed to ripple. For a breathless instant, the townsfolk saw not us—but themselves. A mother glimpsed her husband staggering home tonight with news of wages cut; a young apprentice saw the lash that would meet him for stealing coal to keep his sister warm; an old woman saw her empty cupboard tomorrow, her bread already claimed by Elias’s tax men. Gasps and cries broke the hush as the visions faded, leaving them shaken, staring at one another with the stunned recognition of shared suffering. A woman clutched her neighbor's arm. A man wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, refusing to meet anyone's gaze.

Thessaly broke through the silence, low and unwavering: “This is not sorcery. This is the truth of your own lives. And Elias would rather you blame us than him.”

Here we go, I thought, feeling the threads of the moment crystallizing into something significant.

Mira turned toward a man limping down the alley, his hand pressed to bloodied cloth wrapped around his thigh. Without invitation, she approached. “Might I be of assistance, sir?”

He hesitated—as any sensible Victorian would when approached by a strange woman—but pain overcame propriety. He nodded.

Her palms hovered over the wound, and light unfurled from her skin like mist catching sunlight. The man's eyes widened as the bleeding slowed, then stopped. Flesh knit back together beneath her touch.

“Good Lord, what manner of person are you?”

“We are not what they have told you,” Mira said quietly, rising with practiced grace. “We never were.”

The square grew still. People emerged from doorways, corners, alcoves—not fleeing, not shouting alarm, but watching. Whispering. The threads of public opinion were shifting, and I could feel it in the air like electricity before a storm.

Witch. Healer. Weaver. Miracle.

The words rippled through the crowd in the way only gossip could travel in a city where information was currency.

Adeline stepped forward with the authority of a woman accustomed to being obeyed. “What you witness is not heresy,” she declared, her breeding evident in every syllable. “It is truth—stripped bare of fear.”

Heads turned. In Victorian society, when a woman of Adeline's standing spoke publicly, people listened.

“She healed that gentleman before your very eyes,” Adeline continued, lifting her chin with aristocratic authority. “No blood spilled. No curses whispered. Merely mercy, and a manner of magic we ought never to have been instructed to fear.”

A seamstress on the corner drew her child closer—protection, not panic. A priest's apprentice stood frozen beneath the chapel's eaves, his worldview clearly shifting. No one moved to stop us or summon the Hunters.

Progress.

Thessaly handed the man a strip of clean linen. “Tell others,” she said. “Let them see with their own eyes what the Unraveler sought to bury.”

We continued moving.

By the time the sun reached its peak, we’d passed through the marketplace, the outskirts of the industrial district, and the edge of the university. A trail of murmurs followed behind us like smoke—tales of hands that mended what was broken, of Weavers who healed instead of harmed, of a society lady who walked beside them without fear.

Adeline never once looked back, her spine straight with the kind of resolve that only came from finally choosing truth over comfort.

We were halfway through the university quarter when the first stone hit the wall behind us.

It cracked loudly against the brick, scattering dust into the air like a punctuation mark ending our peaceful demonstration.

Mira froze. Thessaly’s fingers lifted subtly, magic twitching at her fingertips.