Chapter 23
LILY
The air was crisp, the kind that bit at your cheeks and carried the scent of woodsmoke and frostbitten earth. Afternoon sun filtered through the canopy, casting flickers of gold across the mossy path as Adeline and I walked in silence toward the ruins of the old bell tower.
I had insisted on going alone. Adeline had pressed harder.
“If you’re going to keep sneaking off like a woodland sprite, I might as well make sure you don’t get yourself killed.”
Fair enough.
Neither of us spoke for the first stretch. My thoughts were still tangled in the threads Ysella and Lorien had awakened—threads I’d never known belonged to me. Magic I’d never asked for now hummed at my fingertips, ancient and waiting.
Adeline, by contrast, moved like someone who belonged to these woods. I watched her from the corner of my eye. “How exactly do you help the Weavers?”
She exhaled, slow and steady. “Quietly. I get them supplies—food, medicine, maps. I pass along word when patrols head too close. Sometimes, that’s enough to keep them alive. Sometimes it’s not.”
My brow furrowed. “And no one suspects you?”
Her smile was sharp, laced with bitterness. “Men rarely suspect women of subversion. We’re supposed to be too delicate for treason.”
I snorted despite myself, then fell quiet again.
“You risk a lot,” I said after a while.
Adeline shrugged, but her jaw clenched. “I owed Nicolette. I couldn’t save her, but I can make sure others don’t vanish the way she did.”
Her gaze flicked to me. “What about you, Lily? What are you going to do with what you’ve learned?”
I hesitated. “I’m not sure. But ever since they untangled me, it’s like the world cracked open. Like I’ve been staring through a keyhole, and now I finally see the door.”
Adeline let out a low breath. “Saints. August is going to have my head.”
I grinned. “Then let’s not tell him.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t argue.
The forest thinned. Waiting in the clearing were the Weavers.
Ysella stood at the center, tall and soft-eyed, her silver curls falling down her back like ribbons of starlight. But it was Syra who caught my gaze first.
She stood just beside her sister, arms crossed, expression unreadable. She had the same storm-gray eyes, the same silver in her braid—but where Ysella was moonlight, Syra was flint. Familiar now, but no less formidable.
“You’re late,” Syra said.
Adeline scoffed. “And you’re still terrifying. Look at us, unchanged.”
Syra gave her a look, but Ysella stepped forward before they could get into it.
“You came,” she said to me, hands clasped in front of her. “I’m glad.”
I nodded. “I said I would.”
“You brought her?” Syra arched a brow at Adeline.
Adeline shrugged. “She’s stubborn. I’m just here to make sure she doesn’t get struck by magical lightning.”
“Unlikely,” Ysella murmured, “but not impossible.”
A ripple of amusement passed through the small group. It surprised me—this undercurrent of quiet affection, even between the brutality. There was something sisterly in the way they all moved. Like a coven. Like a family that had burned and reformed and kept burning.
They led us to a glade behind some ruins, where mats had been laid in a circle, candles flickering at the edges. Moss carpeted the clearing like velvet. The air seemed different here. Thicker. Stitched with magic.
“This place is hallowed,” Syra said. “Old threads still cling to it. Not enough to hide us forever, but enough to begin.”
Ysella gestured to one of the mats. “Sit, Lily.”
I did, my knees bending with more reverence than I expected. The others settled around me—Marigold, Syra, Ysella, and two others I hadn’t met. I couldn’t help but notice Lorien’s absence. Adeline lingered near a tree, arms crossed but watching.
Ysella’s eyes met mine. “Tell me, what do you know of your lineage?”
I hesitated. “Not much. My grandmother never spoke of it. Just stories.”
“Not stories,” Syra corrected. “Survivals.”
Ysella’s fingers lifted, brushing the air. Suddenly, threads shimmered into view. Trailing between her hands like light caught in water.
“The Weave remembers everything,” she said. “But your family was buried. Hidden so well, even the threads forgot how to find them.”
Syra stepped forward. “Elowen didn’t just disappear. She severed your line intentionally—to protect you.”
“To protect me?” I blinked. “You think I’m her descendant?”
“No, not her descendant. That's what's strange.” Ysella's brow furrowed. “You're not connected to her bloodline at all. But your power—it rivals hers. Perhaps even surpasses it. You're the first Weaver born with this much raw strength since Elowen herself.”
Silence fell. Even the leaves held their breath.
“You carry more than threads, Lily,” Syra added. “You carry a key.”
My stomach turned. “A key to what?”
“To restoration,” Ysella answered. “Or ruin. That choice has not yet been made.”
Marigold sat down beside me, her presence warm. “You saw it, didn’t you?” she asked. “What happened to Lorien?”
I nodded throat tight. “I saw him. The Unraveler.”
The clearing stilled. Threads shimmered faintly in the air, like the Weave itself remembered.
“I watched her be taken,” I whispered. “And I ran.”
Syra didn’t speak. Ysella only said, “Good.”
I blinked. “Good?”
“You survived,” Syra said. “You don’t understand what it means yet—but you will. Soon.”
Ysella’s voice softened. “The Unraveled leave no legacy, Lily. No body. No memory. Not even grief.”
“Then why do some people still remember?” I asked. “Adeline remembers her friend.”
“Because some threads are stubborn,” Syra said. “Tied in ways even the Unraveling cannot fully sever.”
“It’s like a scar,” Marigold added. “Even after it fades, the skin remembers.”
A hush settled over us again. If I could master this gift before August noticed, maybe I could save them all.
Ysella extended her hand. “Come. Let us begin.”
I stood. The others moved closer, forming a circle. Candles flared slightly, as if stirred by an invisible breeze. Ysella nodded.
“Close your eyes.”
I did.
“Breathe.”
I drew in the scent of moss, smoke, and something older—like the pages of an ancient book. A hum stirred in my chest. The threads were near.
“Now,” Syra murmured, “listen.”
At first, there was silence. Then—
A flicker.
Light coiled beneath my ribs. Threads shimmered behind my eyes, golden and bright. Woven through the air. Through me.
When I opened my eyes, they were still there.
Marigold grinned. “You’re part of it now.”
I exhaled slowly. “And this is just the beginning?”
Ysella’s smile was bittersweet. “No, Lily. This is the return.”
By evening, the tension had soothed into something looser, steadier.
A fire crackled in the center of the clearing, its orange glow casting dancing shadows against the trees.
Someone had conjured instruments—hollowed drums, a stringed lyre, something that clicked rhythmically like carved bone.
The air thrummed with a quiet kind of joy, the kind born not of certainty, but of hope.
They were celebrating.
Marigold balanced a crown of wildflowers on my head—half daisy, half fern—grinning like she’d won a bet. “It suits you,” she said, tugging a curl into place.
“I look like a woodland sprite,” I muttered.
“That’s the idea,” Ysella teased, plopping a crown of wildflowers onto Syra’s head. Syra rolled her eyes skyward and yanked it off, scattering petals across the ground.
“You’ll hex the blossoms with that attitude,” Ysella scolded lightly, her smile curving as she reached into her own hair and plucked free a sprig of rosemary. She dropped it into a steaming mug and pressed it into Syra’s reluctant hands. “Here. Drink before you sour the mood entirely.”
Syra sniffed the concoction and made a face. “This smells like bog water.”
“That’s the rosemary talking. Calms the temper,” Ysella said serenely, already weaving another crown from the fallen flowers.
Syra took the smallest sip, grimacing. “I’m here, aren’t I? That should count for enough merriment without you poisoning me.”
“Nonsense,” Ysella chirped, sliding the new crown back onto her sister’s curls. “A touch of poison is good for the constitution.”
Across the fire, someone began a low, humming chant, and others joined in—voices layered like threads woven into music. The kind of sound that tugged at memory and marrow. My chest ached with it.
Adeline stood off to the side, arms folded, clearly trying not to enjoy herself. Her eyes darted between the dancers and the flickering treetops, always alert. I understood now: she scanned the branches the way she once failed to for Nicolette.
“Come dance with me,” I said, offering my hand.
She gave me a look. “Absolutely not.”
“You’re already here,” I coaxed. “You might as well pretend to have a soul.”
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.”
I didn't answer. Because I wasn't sure what I was thinking anymore. Only that I wasn’t ready to see him.
I knew I needed to look him in the eye and feel something other than this impossible tangle of fury and desire.
Needed to know if the man who'd held me while I broke was the same man who'd dragged Lorien away in chains.
And if he was—if they were both real, both true—I needed to know which one would win. But first, I needed to calm down.