Chapter 2
AUGUST
Damp earth and candle smoke. The scents followed me through the dimly lit halls of the Iron Spire, the stronghold of the Witch Hunters.
For twenty years, the fortress loomed over Oxford, its jagged spires cutting the sky.
Father built it as the heart of his crusade against the Weavers—those who twist fate's threads to their will.
This was a place where magic was hunted.
Where Weavers were erased. Where the past was rewritten.
My boots struck the polished stone in measured rhythm. The silence between each step deliberate, as if the walls themselves were collecting the sound like a toll paid in advance.
Father had summoned me this morning. The Unraveler's summons were never casual. I kept my expression neutral, shoulders square, but beneath the discipline carved into me since childhood, one question circled: why tonight?
“You look ready to face a firing squad.”
Garrick Wolfe pushed off the archway ahead, falling into step beside me. His blond hair caught the torchlight, and that familiar smirk played at his mouth, the one that had dragged us into trouble more times than I could count.
“What's the old man planning this time?” He adjusted the revolver at his hip. “Another lecture on duty and the greater good?”
“Watch yourself.” There was no heat in my warning. We've had this conversation before.
“I swear, your father sounds more like a damn priest than a hunter. Someone has to keep you from drowning in all that Hawthorne righteousness.” His grin faded as we approach the study door. “Though I suppose that's what he's counting on.”
The door bore Father's mark—a burning spool of thread carved deep into oak. Fate caught mid-spin. Stories silenced before they begin.
I entered alone.
Father stood before the hearth, firelight carving harsh lines across his face. His coat was immaculate despite the day's work, his graying hair precisely combed. When he turned, his eyes reflected nothing but cold purpose.
“Close the door.”
The command carried the weight of twenty-five years hunting Weavers, unraveling their magic, and erasing them from history.
“Do you know what today marks?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. The day you unraveled your first Weaver.”
“One of your mother's killers. Yet, they still persist.” No triumph in the words. Only cold fact.
My chest tightened. The familiar ache, carefully buried, threatened to surface.
“They stole her from us. Promised her power, then left her a broken shell. Magic has a price, August. It always does.”
The words came smooth, practiced. How many times had he told this story?
A sharp knock interrupts. “Sir?” A younger hunter's voice carried through the oak. “Urgent news from the perimeter scouts.”
Father's jaw tightens. “Enter.”
Samuel Ashby stepped inside, still dust-covered from hard riding. At nineteen, he was the newest addition to our hunting parties, eager to prove himself worthy of the Spire's trust.
“Weavers, sir. A group of them gathered in Thornwick Woods. Our scouts counted at least twelve, maybe more.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Twelve Weavers working together—I've never encountered more than five at once. They were smart. We suspected there to be a group of at least fifty in Oxford. They never came out in large numbers. Something was causing them to stir.
Father moved to his desk, pulling out a map of the surrounding countryside. “Here.” His finger stabbed at a section of forest marked with old hunting trails. “Perfect for an ambush.”
He looked up at me. “Take your team. Hunt them down.”
The order hit like a physical blow. Not because I feared the Weavers—I've been trained for this since I could hold a blade. But something about tonight was different. Like standing at the edge of a precipice I couldn't see.
“Garrick will accompany you,” Father continued. “Along with Ashby, Hayes, Smith and Morrison. Six should be sufficient.”
Six hunters against twelve Weavers—enough to make my palms sweat, though I kept my expression steady.
“If they're up to something,” I said carefully, “shouldn't we wait for reinforcements?”
Father's eyes narrowed. “Are you questioning my judgment?”
“No, sir.” The response is automatic, drilled into me since childhood.
“Good. Because failure is not acceptable.” He leaned closer, the words barely audible. “Should any of you fail me tonight, I will personally unravel one of your companions. Let that weight rest with you.”
He turned back to the fire. “Fear is efficient. Mercy breeds disobedience. Remember that.”
The threat sank like a stone into my gut. I'd seen what unraveling does. Not just stripping magic, but tearing apart the threads that hold a person together—mind, body, soul. Nothing remains but empty clothes and the smell of burned air. A person unmade, as if they'd never drawn breath.
I pressed my fist to my chest. “As you command.”
As I turned to leave, my reflection caught in the window's dark glass. The necklace at my throat gleamed—familiar, weightless, the only piece of my mother that remained. The metal warmed beneath my fingers. For a heartbeat, I heard her—laughter, soft and fleeting. Impossible.
Not everything is meant to be unraveled, August.
The words lingered like smoke. Memory, I told myself. Not magic. But the distinction had begun to blur, and I no longer knew which frightened me more.
“Go,” Father said. “Before they scatter.”
“Well?” Garrick didn’t look up from adjusting his stirrups.
“Twelve Weavers in Thornwick Woods. We rode with Hayes and Morrison.”
“Twelve?” His hands stilled. “That's. . . ambitious.”
“Father seems to think six hunters are sufficient.”
Garrick's laugh held no humor. “Of course he does.” He secured his rifle to the saddle, movements precise despite his casual tone. “And if we fail?”
“He unravels one of us.”
The words hung in the air between us. We had both seen the aftermath of Father's justice. Empty clothes crumpled on dungeon floors, nothing left of the person who once wore them.
“Lovely.” Garrick swung up into his saddle. “Well, then. I suppose we'd better not fail.”
Ashby, Hayes, Smith, and Morrison emerged from the armory, their horses already prepared.
Morrison's been hunting Weavers for twelve years.
Steady, reliable, with scars across his left hand from a Weaver's blade. Smith isn’t far behind in years from Morrison and just as reliable.
Hayes, nineteen, joined when Ashby did. Both trying to prove something.
“Any word on what they're doing?” Morrison asked.
“Unknown.” I checked my revolver's chambers, then secured my father's gift. A blade forged to cut clean through flesh. “We'll know soon enough.”
The city gates creaked open before us. Oxford faded into mist and memory as we rode toward the countryside, six hunters against an enemy we barely understood.
Garrick rode beside me, his hand rested easy on his weapon. But I caught him glancing at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. Whatever he saw in my expression made his own grow troubled.
“You know,” he said quietly, “ no shame in questioning orders that seem designed to get us killed.”
“Careful.” But even as I said it, the words seemed hollow.
The forest waited ahead, dark and full of secrets. And with each mile we traveled, the weight of my mother's necklace grew heavier—not as a memory, but as a question that refused to stay buried.
If Weavers truly destroyed my mother, tonight they would pay for it.
If they didn't. . . then everything I've believed, all I've done in Father's name, has been a lie.
There was no wind, no movement. Only an eerie silence that clung like velvet and sunk into my marrow.
The trees closed around us like a trap, and fireflies drifted through the darkness like scattered stars, beautiful and unreachable.
Rumors had been spreading for weeks. Weavers, rebuilding. Some say they’ve grown stronger. Others believed they had touched older magic. Deep-threaded things that even my father couldn’t erase.
The deeper we rode into Thornwick Woods, the more the world changed.
Moss hung from branches like tattered burial shrouds. The air grew thick—old growth and something else, something that crawled beneath my skin. Magic. It left a taste like metal on the tongue, sharp as the moment before lightning strikes.
The company fell silent. Not the comfortable quiet of men at ease, but the breathless hush of prey sensing predator.
And in that silence, pressure built against my ribs. The woods weren't empty. They were waiting.