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Finally, he nodded. “At first light, we move.”

As he spoke, I felt something shift in the threads around us. Not the gentle adjustments of Mending or the exploratory touches of Seeing, but something deeper. Something that whispered of severed connections yearning to be restored, of possibilities that existed beyond the normal bounds of fate.

My unique gift stirred, responding to the moment's significance. Soon, I would have to decide what I was willing to sacrifice to bring back what had been lost.

But for now, I pushed that knowledge aside. One Weaver at a time. One thread at a time. And prayed that would be enough.

CHAPTER 47

AUGUST

The cabin had always been a quiet place. A refuge from the suffocating weight of expectation, from the legacy that clung like a second skin: Elias Hawthorne’s son. This wasn't a sanctuary anymore. This was the eye of a storm. Deceptively calm while chaos gathered at the edges, waiting to tear everything apart.

Maps and scraps of parchment littered the table, their ink smudged beneath my palms. I leaned over the drawings, tracing lines that might lead to salvation—or to slaughter. Each stroke of ink carried the weight of lives, and the burden pressed against my chest.

Garrick stood at the window, eyes fixed on the tree line as though he expected it to shift. He hadn’t spoken since the others arrived, but I could feel the heaviness of his thoughts, mirroring my own.

What if we fail? What if I lead them straight into ruin?

Outside, Mira and Thessaly hauled water, their cloaks bright threads against the dark wood. Adeline paced by the hearth, her aristocratic composure fraying with every turn, like fine porcelain showing its first cracks.

And Lily. . . Lily sat cross-legged before the fire, her thumb worrying the silver button on her coat. I’d come to know that gesture—it steadied her when the weight of centuries pressed too hard. Firelight caught in the auburn of her hair, turning it to flame, and for a moment I let the maps blur from my vision. For a moment, she was simply the woman who had unraveled everything I thought immutable, and I was grateful for it.

Garrick finally broke the silence. “The tunnel exists. Just like she said.”

Lily’s head lifted, her eyes bright in the dimness.

Garrick turned, producing a folded page from his coat. “Original servant blueprints from when the Spire was first raised. The passage runs beneath the greenhouse at Adeline’s estate, then threads through the old foundations until it surfaces in the courtyard—exactly where the Unraveling is staged.”

Lily rose, moving to the table. Her presence steadied me, as it always did. Even displaced in time, she carried herself with a purpose that made people lean toward her without realizing.

“What of wards?” she asked. “Traps?”

“Nothing magical,” Garrick said, shaking his head. “Elias believes he crushed the Weavers long ago. His arrogance blinds him.”

“Then his arrogance will be his downfall,” she murmured. The words slid soft as silk, but I heard the steel beneath.

I tapped the map where the tunnel met the Spire’s foundation. “We go in at dawn. He’s planned a ‘special unraveling’ tomorrow evening—a spectacle meant to remind the city who holds the blade over their throats. While he prepares his theater of cruelty, we’ll be beneath his feet, ready to take Ysella—and any others he means to destroy—back from him.”

I met Lily’s eyes. “If something goes awry⁠—”

“We adapt,” she interrupted, her chin lifting with determination. “We do not abandon those who depend upon us.”

Garrick snorted. “Spoken like someone who’s never been locked in a cell three stories below a man who carves out souls.”

“Don’t test me, Garrick,” she snapped.

“I’m not,” he said. “I am attempting to preserve your life. All of your lives.”

“So am I,” I added, quietly, understanding the weight of responsibility that pressed upon us all.

She looked between us, her jaw tight with the stubborn courage that had first drawn me to her. Then, finally, she nodded—not in surrender, but in acknowledgment of the gravity we faced.

I turned back to the architectural drawings, forcing myself to focus on logistics rather than the fear that threatened to overwhelm me. “We extract the prisoners and exit through the same passage before first light. Father will conduct his ceremony in the Spire's courtyard tomorrow afternoon. If fortune favors us, he will not discover Ysella's absence until he unveils an empty cage to his audience.”

“And if we’re not lucky?” Mira asked, stepping inside with a pail of water, droplets catching the firelight.

“Then we improvise,” I said.