Page 82
Her lips twitched. “You’re lucky I like you.”
She took my hand.
We spun once, then twice, my crown slipping sideways as I laughed. Around us, others danced too—some solemnly, some laughing, their steps keeping time with the drums. It wasn’t about skill. It was about belonging. It was about life still pulsing beneath all the ruin.
And for a moment, I forgot what waited beyond the woods.
Later, as the embers died down and the music quieted into the hush of evening, I stood at the edge of the clearing, watching. Really watching.
A mother braided her daughter's hair by the dying firelight, fingers moving with practiced gentleness. Two elderly women sat close together, sharing stories too low to hear. Marigold helped a young girl practice her letters in the dirt, her patience endless despite her squirming.
These were the monsters August had been taught to hunt.
These laughing, dancing, gentle people who wove flower crowns and sang lullabies and took care of each other with the fierce tenderness of those who knew how fragile safety was.
The Unraveler had told the world they were dangerous. Evil. Corrupting influences that twisted fate and destroyed lives. That they murdered innocents.
But I saw no darkness here. No malice. No threat.
Just people trying to survive. Mothers protecting daughters. Sisters watching over sisters. A community that refused to disappear even as the world tried to erase them.
August thought he was hunting evil. He had no idea he was hunting this.
A hand touched my elbow. Adeline, her expression carefully neutral but her eyes sharp. “We need to go.”
I looked back at the clearing one more time. At Ysella and Syra seated beneath the gnarled oak, heads bent close, Syra braiding thistle petals into the ends of her hair while Ysella hummed a low lullaby against her shoulder. At the quiet, stubborn joy of people who refused to stop living just because someone wanted them dead.
“They're not what he thinks they are,” I whispered.
“No,” Adeline said quietly. “They never are.”
She glanced at the sky, where the stars had begun to emerge through the canopy. “But if we don't leave now, August will be home before us. And he'll have questions we can't answer.”
I nodded, though something in my chest pulled tight. Leaving was betrayal. Like stepping back into a lie.
Because that's what it was, wasn't it? Every moment I spent in August's house, every conversation where I pretended to be just a lost historian, every time I let him believe Weavers were the enemy—it was all a lie.
Sooner or later, he would find out the truth—and when he did, he’d have to choose.
“Come on,” Adeline said, tugging gently at my arm. “Before they notice we're gone.”
I took one last look at the Weavers—my people now, whether I'd chosen them or they'd chosen me—and followed Adeline into the darkening woods. Behind us, the music continued. Soft and defiant. A promise that they were still here. Still fighting. Still refusing to be erased. And as we walked back toward Oxford, back toward August's house and all the lies waiting there, I made a silent vow: Whatever it took, I would make sure they stayed that way.
We walked in silence through the narrow streets. With each step, the anger in my chest mixed with something hotter and more dangerous.
Because I kept seeing August's face. In the clearing—cold, efficient, a hunter doing his job. And then the way he'd looked at me the other night—concerned, gentle, like he cared. And last night when I'd dropped the towel—wrecked and wanting and trying so hard not to show it.
Which version was real?
Or were they both real—the hunter and the man who held me while I broke? The thought should have disgusted me. Instead, it made something dark and reckless stirred in my gut.
“I need a drink,” I said suddenly.
Adeline's eyes cut to me, sharp with warning. “Lily—”
“Just one.” My hands were shaking. From anger or want or the wine still warm in my blood, I couldn't tell. “Please.”
She studied me for a long moment, then sighed. “There's a tavern two streets over. But whatever you're thinking—don't.”
