Chapter 35
AUGUST
Father—the Unraveler—still held the room in his immaculate fist, one palm poised above Marigold’s bowed head as if he were blessing her instead of damning her. Candle flames quivered in the draught. A dozen silk fans snapped shut in uneasy silence.
I did not sit.
The chair behind me waited—ornate, gilded, obedient. Exactly what a dutiful son should be.
Instead, I stood at our table, all eyes in the ballroom ricocheting between the condemned girl, the man about to erase her, and me—his heir, suddenly frozen mid-breath.
Lily’s words still rang inside my skull: Your mother wasn’t killed by Weavers—she was a Weaver.
Frost-thin certainty cracked. For the first time in years, I had no script to follow.
A gust smacked the terrace doors—hard—flinging them wide.
Every candle in the ballroom guttered in the same breath, flames bleeding sideways before they vanished.
For a single, lurching heartbeat I swore I saw it: hair-thin filaments of molten gold snapping off Lily’s hands and shivering through the air like struck harp-strings.
Then the world went blind—only the reek of blown-out candles and the ragged hush of two hundred lungs pulling in the dark told me I hadn’t imagined the flash.
Behind us Father barked for lanterns; steel rasped free of sheaths. The filaments were gone, the terrace doors juddering on their hinges as if nothing had touched them but wind.
Lily rose beside me—the necklace stinging the skin of my chest where the hidden hourglass lay. Instinct roared; I caught her shoulder and pushed her back into her chair.
“Don’t,” I breathed, lips almost against her ear. “You’ll be first in the crosshairs.”
Her pulse hammered beneath my fingers. “August—”
“I will get her out.” I tightened my grip; it was the only promise I could forge in this black-lit moment. “But you must stay alive.”
“Why?” she hissed.
“I need the truth about my mother. In return, I bring Marigold out of this mess.”
Beyond us, Father demanded lanterns, order, obedience. Guards fumbled with tinder; flint sparked, failed. Panic writhed through the hall like smoke.
Her pulse hammered beneath my fingers. “If you betray her—”
“I won't.”
I looked past her to Garrick. “Watch her.”
Garrick nodded, his grin sharp even in the dark.
I released Lily and moved.
Father’s vanguard was already converging on Marigold, blades out, shackles ready. Time to choose a side. I chose the girl.
The chandeliers still sputtered, half-lit at best, but Father had already wrestled the silence back beneath his boot heel.
“Secure the child,” he commanded. “Then see to the lights.”
I inhaled—cold, steady—sliding the sword back into its scabbard. Charging him in front of three hundred nobles would help no one; it would only sign Marigold’s death warrant alongside Lily’s.
I pivoted to the guards. “You heard him. The Unraveler’s safety first. I’ll escort the prisoner to the Spire.”
A dozen eyes flicked to Father for confirmation. He gave a curt nod; obedience rippled outward like thrown stones. Chains clicked; the girl swayed on her feet, dazed but still conscious.
As soon as we breached the ballroom door I wrapped my cloak round her shoulders, masking the worst of the blood. “Let’s move.”
The hallway swallowed us—vaulted arches, torch-smoke, the reek of tallow and panic. Whenever a servant scurried past, I barked the same order: “Clear the passage. The Unraveler’s directive.” None paused to argue.
The girl’s small voice trembled. “Where are you—”
“Silent now,” I whispered, just loud enough for her to hear. “There’s a door more merciful than the one behind us. We’ll find it.”
At the foot of the servants’ spiral a figure stepped from shadow—Adeline.
“What do you think you’re doing, August?”
She spoke low, her words sharpened to keep the echo from racing upstairs.
“I’m keeping dinner from turning into a public execution,” I muttered, shifting so the girl was half-hidden behind me. “Now move.”
Adeline’s brow arched. “‘Move,’ he says—while he smuggles a bleeding Weaver past a dozen armed guards and the Unraveler himself.” She folded her arms. “You’re not the only one with a death wish, Hawthorne.”
“Spare me the sermon. I’ll claim I was overpowered.”
“One problem.” Adeline nodded toward my face. “Your nose is still perfect.”
Before I could frame a retort, she drove her fist straight into it.
Stars burst; hot iron flooded my sinuses. I staggered against the wall, biting back a curse.
“There,” she said, flexing her knuckles with a wicked little smile. “Now the story rings true.”
The young girl’s eyes went wide. I steadied myself and met Adeline’s gaze through the haze of tears and copper.
“You—” I swallowed copper. “Was that necessary?”
She wiped her knuckles on my waistcoat. “You were ambushed. They don’t need to know Adeline Wolfe maimed August Hawthorne.”
She reached for the girl’s shackles, producing a pick so slender it looked spun from moonlight. Two quick turns—the irons fell. “I’ll take her.”
“That’s insanity,” I hissed, dabbing blood on my sleeve. Adeline’s tone softened—almost. “You’re already wobbling on a knife-edge, August. Let me bloody my boots for once.”
“Laundry port. Ten minutes. I’ll stall the guards.”
Adeline offered a quick, soldier’s nod, then pressed a hand to my sleeve—strange, gentle. She guided Marigold into the passage, melting into torch-dappled dark.
I straightened, pain splintering behind my eyes, and forced my spine tall. Above, Father’s orders cracked like thunder.
Let him demand explanations.
I finally had one worth lying for.
I did exactly what I told Adeline I would do. Sending the Hunters in a chase in the opposite direction, quickly returning to the ballroom.
The chandeliers were blazing again when I re-entered the ballroom—too many flames, too much gilt.
Father commanded the floor exactly where I’d left him, cane-sword upright, a court of uneasy nobles arrayed like chess pieces at his back. The void where Marigold had knelt was already being scrubbed by servants: blood and child-sized footprints rubbed into nothing.
When the crowd saw me—bloodied nose—conversation died mid-breath. Fans ceased fluttering; whispers calcified into brittle silence.
Father’s emerald stare speared straight through me.
I advanced three measured steps, boots echoing off marble. “A blackout hit as I was escorting the girl. Several people jumped us in the dark.” I lifted my stained cuff. “By the time torches were relit, they were gone.”
A collective hiss rippled through the nobles: ambush, inside of Oxford?
Father's brow barely twitched, but fury coiled beneath his calm like a viper.
“Weavers?”
“The only thing that could explain the blackout, sir.” I let the words hang, implying a leak—anything to steer suspicion away from Lily.
“And the woman you brought, the Wolfes’ cousin. She questioned the unraveling. Where was she?”
Garrick stepped forward, holding Lily by the arm. “She never left my side.”
The ballroom’s hush thickened, ears stretching toward the confrontation forming at the foot of the dais. Garrick’s fingers circled Lily’s elbow in a courteous parody of restraint, but the knuckles were white; he understood exactly how fragile the moment had become.
Father’s gaze slid from my bloodied cuff to Lily’s storm-bright eyes. He took her in—single glance, entire worth assessed—and the temperature of the room seemed to drop.
“So, the spirited guest who dared interrupt judgment.”
Lily lifted her chin, refusing to shrink. “Interrupting murder is hardly a crime, Unraveler.”
A muted gasp feathered through silk and brocade. Garrick’s grip tightened.
Father stepped closer, cane tapping marble, until he stood an arm’s length away from her.
“Bold tongue,” he murmured, tilting his head like a hawk considering a lark. “Some would call that courage. Others. . .” His gaze flicked to the newly lit chandeliers overhead, to the sooty stubs of wicks. “evidence.”
Every word Lily spoke was wrong. Too direct. Too defiant. The demure historian we'd rehearsed would have lowered her eyes, murmured apologies, deferred to male authority.
She was doing none of that.
And Father was noticing.
Lily’s jaw worked, but she said nothing.
Father extended a gloved hand—not to touch her, merely to hover above the space between them. The candle-light bled along the trim of his sleeve; in its glow the hourglass pendant beneath my waistcoat seemed to throb.
“You remind me,” he continued, “of my late wife. I can see why my son is so enamored by you.” His eyes sharpened. “Tell me, Miss Whitmore, have you ever sensed threads tug where no threads should be?”
A pulse of panic rippled through me and Lily’s shoulders stiffened. I stepped forward—I couldn’t help it—but Father’s cane angled across my path, barring me without touching me.
“The question is hers to answer,” he said, still watching Lily.
She drew a breath that sounded like it hurt. “I feel the tug of conscience, does that qualify?”
More scattered gasps; a few nervous titters that died under Father’s silence.
“A practiced deflection,” he observed. “Let us try plain speech. Are you Weaver-born?”
Across the hall a fan snapped shut; whispers spider-webbed behind gloved hands.
Lily met Father’s stare unflinching. “I was born to a woman who read me stories by candle-glow, not by witch-light. If that displeases you, unmake me with your evidence, not your insinuations.”
He studied her another heartbeat, then lowered his cane.
“Very well,” he said, silky and lethal. “Ambushes can be staged, torches quenched by human hands. I will not condemn you on suspicion—yet.” His gaze swept the assembly. “But know this, Miss Whitmore: truth is patient. It always surfaces.”
He pivoted to address the hall. “Seal the exits. No guest departs until the child is found. We will uncover whose treachery shamed this gathering.”
Hunters moved at once, steel flashing. Garrick leaned into Lily’s ear, whispering something reassuring—or warning.
Lily had just stared down the Unraveler and kept her tongue—and her secret—intact.
For tonight, that was a victory. Tomorrow would demand a cost.
And I would pay it.