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“One more thing,” Esther said, her gaze finding mine. “Will your father try to reclaim you?”
The question hung in the air.
I thought of my father's face. The cold certainty in his eyes. The way he had spoken of the pendant as though it were mercy rather than enslavement.
“He will try,” I said. “He believes I am still his. That the bond, the freedom, the choice I have made, all of it is a mistake that can be corrected.”
“And if he cannot reclaim you?”
I met her eyes steadily. “Then I believe he will kill me. That will be the last resort for my own safety.”
The silence that followed was heavy with understanding.
Lily's response hit me a heartbeat later—fierce refusal, absolute and humming through the bond like a struck chord.
I won't let that happen.
I know. Neither will I.
“Then we have our plan,” Beth said. “Get what rest you can. Soon, we end this.”
The room began to empty. Weavers drifted toward whatever sleeping space they could find, faces drawn with exhaustion and anticipation. The coming fight would demand everything they had.
I stayed at the window, watching the fires burn in the yard below. Women moved between them, talking quietly, checking on each other, preparing themselves in whatever ways they needed.
An army. An actual army of Weavers.
My mother would have wept to see it.
Lily appeared at my side, her shoulder brushing mine.
We stood together and watched the fires burn, and somewhere in the darkness beyond the farmhouse, my father was preparing to destroy everything we had built.
He would fail.
I would make certain of it.
CHAPTER 28
LILY
Beatrice found us after breakfast with a look that suggested she had been thinking all night.
“The boy cannot face his father without understanding his own power,” she said without preamble, settling into a chair across from where August and I sat finishing the last of Diana's bread. “He has never wielded it with his own volition. It has only ever been wielded through Elias's corruption.”
August's jaw tightened. Something complicated moved through the bond, shame and fear and a desperate, buried hope.
“I do not know how to use it,” he said quietly. “The corruption simply . . . took.” He stopped. His hands had curled into fists on the table.
“That is precisely why we must practice,” Beatrice said gently. “You have spent your life as a vessel for someone else's will. It is time you learned what your power can do when you are the one directing it.”
I reached across the table and covered his fist with my hand. Through our bond, I sent him steadiness. Certainty.
I'm here. Whatever there is, we face it together.
His fingers uncurled slowly. Turned to lace through mine.
“Where do we begin?” he asked.
