Chapter Eighteen #3
“A Letter-threader.” Ezzy’s tone is so soft, almost distant.
“I didn’t think there were any left. It’s...
” Pushing herself up from the bed, unsteady at first, she crosses the small space toward us.
“It’s beautiful.” She lifts a hand and brushes her fingertips over the gold petals before starting to ease them open.
Panic catches in my throat, the instinct to stop her hitting me hard and fast.
I haven’t opened it in over a month and I don’t know if Talen has written.
I could snatch it back, keep it hidden, keep all of this shoved safely under my bed where no one can touch it.
But Ezzy is talking. Really, actually talking.
So I bite my tongue and force myself to stay still, because if this is what keeps her here with me, hell, I’ll let her pull the whole damn thing apart.
“Before the Treaty they were used as a way of communicating without people knowing.” Ezzy goes on, turning her bright blue eyes to me for the first time as the Letter-threader slowly unfolds. “Where did you get it?”
“Talen gave it to me.” I try to keep my voice calm, careful not to scare that spark back out of her. “Said he and Merrin used it as a way to keep in touch when Talen was younger, before he joined the Citadel.”
In front of us the last petal locks into place with a soft click and the central stem ignites.
“So cool,” Neeve mutters.
For a moment, nothing happens, and the space inside my chest contracts as I nervously wait.
Then, one by one, notes start to slide free, fluttering down from where Neeve holds the device and landing softly across the ground between us.
“Wow.” Neeve’s mouth falls open, watching them fall. “Are they all for you? From Talen?”
Shit.
My stomach hollows out and I’m back on my knees, fingers rushing to scoop them up as fast as I can before I turn and shove them beneath my pillow.
There must be at least twenty. Maybe more.
When I stand, Neeve is watching me with both brows raised, mouth twitching like she’s already pieced together far more than I want her to, but I ignore her completely and turn back to Ezzy before she can say another word. “Do you know how it works?”
“I... I think so.” Ezzy runs a hand over her short blonde hair, smoothing it down. “So we know everything contains Threads, and most of the time those Threads appear fixed to one particular place at any given moment.”
“But Threads aren't fixed,” Neeve cuts in, “they move, we can release them.”
“Well, yes.” Ezzy nods, her sparkly hairpin catching in the candlelight.
“They can move and shift between things, but if you could somehow freeze a single instant in time and look closely enough, you’d still find each Thread anchored to one specific location—whether that’s inside us, released into the air around us, or attached to other elements.
” She hesitates slightly. “But there’s a theory that maybe Threads don’t always want to stay fixed to only one place. ”
My forehead creases in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Well, instead of existing in one exact location, it’s more like Threads want to occupy a haze of possible positions, but they’re held in place by an anchor.
Most of the time that anchor keeps them fixed strongly enough that they appear stable.
But with enough force—enough magic—that anchor can loosen, and for a moment the Threads stop being fixed to one place and could exist across multiple possible places all at once.
” She glances at the Letter-threader. “From what I’ve heard, the magic in the flame breaks the letter’s current anchor, and the paired device gives the Threads somewhere new to settle. ”
“Holy shit, like teleporting?” I ask.
“I guess, sort of.” Ezzy’s mouth twists. “But not like a magical portal. Think of it like this: your device breaks the letter down into its smallest parts, and the twin device that Talen has forces new Threads to take the exact same shape somewhere else.”
“Wow,” Neeve gasps. “So the note doesn't move, the original is destroyed but a new one is made somewhere else?” She passes the Letter-threader back to me. “Could people do it?”
Ezzy hums, and I can’t help the smile that tugs at the corner of my mouth. It’s so good to see her mind working again. “I mean, in theory, I guess it’s possible, but I’m not sure they could survive being unanchored.”
“Why?” I press, taking the golden device, the metal cold in my hands.
“Well, a letter’s simple.” She continues.
“Paper, ink, a few fixed patterns, but a person... a person is thousands of anchors all holding at once, blood, bone. Memory. Threads moving through Threads moving through Threads... To unanchor all of that at the same time and expect it to settle somewhere else in the exact same shape…” She shakes her head once.
“Threads could tear, or tangle, or reform wrong. You might get the body and lose the mind. Or move the mind and leave half the body behind.”
A chill slips down my spine. “That’s kind of creepy...”
“Yeah, and even if they did survive, the person who left might not be the person who arrives... they may have your face. Your memories. Your voice. But whether that would still be you…” She swallows. “I don’t know...”
“Stars, you're smart.” Neeve shakes her head in disbelief. “How do you know all this?”
Ezzy smiles, and my heart practically sings as I watch it spread across her face.
“Thanks,” she whispers, lifting a shy shoulder. “But actually, it was my friend Brian who—”
She stops.
Just stops.
The smile slips from her face so quickly it feels like watching a candle go out. “Sorry,” she mutters, her throat bobbing. “It’s been a long day.”
Brian.
Guilt slams into the fragile warmth that had been building under my skin, crushing it flat as she lowers herself back down and turns away from us.
I don’t push.
I don’t try to coax the rest of the sentence out of her—because I’m the reason he’s gone.
Wood creaks beneath me as my shoulders fold inward and I sink onto my own bed.
“That’s a good sign.” Neeve whispers as she sits down beside me, nodding toward Ezzy.
“She will come around.” I pull my mouth into a half smile and for a moment we sit there in silence, but then Neeve turns her attention back to me.
“I know what you’re doing,” she gestures to my pillow, where I’ve done a terrible job at hiding the letters, still half-poking out.
“And what’s that?” I turn away from her, shoving them farther under.
“Punishing yourself for everything that’s happened.” She shifts closer, her arm brushing against mine. “You think that if you stop hurting, then losing them—Finn, Rowan, your friends back home in Ashvale—won’t mean anything.”
My fingers freeze against the pillow.
Ouch. I didn’t realise how much the truth would sting.
“Look, Darren does the same,” she continues.
“Since his family died. He pushes me away, works himself into the ground, and acts like he’s fine when he clearly isn’t.
” I glance over at her and catch the unease in her jaw.
“It’s like he thinks he’s not allowed to be happy.
Like if he is, he’ll forget them. Or like the pain is the only thing keeping their memory alive. ”
I chew on my lip, not sure what I’m supposed to say to that, but Neeve doesn’t seem to expect an answer, she simply lets the words settle. Then the mattress dips as she gets to her feet.
“I’m here if you need to talk.”
“Thanks.” I flash her a pathetic attempt at a smile, which she definitely doesn’t buy, but she smiles back anyway before slipping out of the tent.
“You sure you still want to do this?” Reya asks the next day over the roar of the crowd, one brow lifting as she reaches for the cage door—the cage holding Dave the fucking Dick.
Glancing up, I spot Ahria, perched above us, her beautiful emerald scales shining in the afternoon light in a way that pulls my Threads impossibly closer toward her even as she viciously tears into a small rabbit she picked up on the way here.
With a dry mouth, I swallow and nod before I can think too hard about it.
“Yes. I want this. I want to be pushed. I only have two weeks left before the Blood Moon and I can't keep losing my shit around dragon-fire.”
“Oh, you’ll be pushed today, alright.” Reya laughs as I step inside and slams the door shut behind me with a clang that rattles through my bones.
God, what the hell am I doing?
But there’s no time to answer. No time to panic. Forcing my feet to stay planted, I pivot toward the latch, keeping my arms locked at my sides, fists curled enough for my nails to bite into my palms.
Okay. Twenty seconds. That's what I'm aiming for. Just last twenty seconds without passing out.
But when I look across the cage, everything inside me drops so hard I have to clap a hand over my mouth to keep the fear from spilling out.
Dave isn’t there.
The man who usually opens the latch isn’t there either.
Someone way worse is. Someone who sends my pulse slamming straight into my throat.
He lifts both hands, and the sides of the cage burst into flames, fire climbing the metal in bright, violent lines, licking through the bars, sealing us in until the crowd beyond disappears into heat and noise.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
No way in.
No way out.
But it’s not even the fire that has my heart crawling for my throat. It’s the smile he gives me, hooking left before pulling wide.
“Hello, Thorn.” Talen’s voice cuts effortlessly through the roar of the flames. “You’ve been avoiding me.”