Chapter 46 #2
We were halfway through the university quarter when the first stone hit the wall behind us.
It cracked loudly against the brick, scattering dust into the air like a punctuation mark ending our peaceful demonstration.
Mira froze. Thessaly’s fingers lifted subtly, magic twitching at her fingertips.
“Oi!” a man called from the alleyway behind us. “You lot!”
We turned slowly.
One clutched a rusted blade that looked like it had been stolen from a butcher's shop. Another held a length of chain. All wore the red armbands that marked them as Hunters-in-training—not yet licensed, but zealous enough to act without orders.
“She healed a man,” one spat. “That’s sorcery. You think we haven’t heard the stories?”
Adeline stepped forward. “And what tales might those be? That women who mend bones and show a future that can be stopped are to be hunted like common criminals?”
“We know what Weavers are,” he snapped back, though I noticed he didn't quite meet her eyes. “Witches. Traitors to God and Crown. My brother disappeared because of their kind.”
Thessaly took a careful breath, her Seer abilities no doubt reading the tangled threads of his grief and misdirected rage. “Your brother vanished because Elias wished it so. If Weavers held such power, do you think we’d be skulking in alleyways avoiding boys with kitchen knives?”
But reason was not what they had come seeking.
The boy with the blade lunged forward with more enthusiasm than skill.
Mira caught his wrist mid-swing with reflexes honed by necessity, twisting sharply as light sparked along her palm—not to harm, but to overwhelm his senses with sensation. He yelped and stumbled backward, stunned but unharmed.
Thessaly lifted her hand, threads sparking faintly at her fingertips.
The second boy froze mid-charge, his eyes going wide as three illusory figures bloomed around Mira—each identical, each moving in perfect unison.
He slashed at one, then another, his chain cutting only empty air.
Confusion broke his momentum, and his bravado faltered as he stumbled back, unable to tell which target was real.
Around us, the crowd erupted. People screamed. Doors slammed. A window shattered in the distance—whether from thrown stones or panicked flight, I couldn't tell.
“We must leave,” I said, already turning toward the nearest escape route—a skill I'd unfortunately developed during my time here. “Immediately.”
Adeline did not argue.
We ran.
Through winding alleys slick with coal soot, over fences, past startled horses and overturned carts. Behind us, voices shouted, boots scrambled. Someone blew a whistle—probably a constable, though whether to help or hinder us remained unclear.
My lungs burned with the effort. Whatever conditioning I’d maintained in 2025 had not prepared me for sprinting in a corset through Victorian Oxford.
My skirts snagged on a nail, tearing with a sharp rip that drew startled glances as we barreled past. My heel caught on a loose cobblestone, and I nearly went down, catching myself on a rain barrel that reeked of fish and rot.
Ahead of me, Adeline’s hat came loose, tumbling into the gutter. She didn’t slow, didn’t look back. The emblem of her polished life lay abandoned in the dust, and still she ran.
The moment the forest closed around us, it felt like the world exhaled. The canopy swallowed the city's noise, and the dirt path narrowed beneath our feet. Even the threads of fate seemed calmer here, away from the tangle of human emotions and competing interests.
We did not slow until the cabin came into view, shadowed and still. Smoke trailed from the chimney in a way that suggested warmth and safety.
August stood on the porch, rifle slung across his back, eyes scanning the woods with the systematic attention of a man trained to hunt dangerous things. Relief crashed through me when I saw him—followed immediately by a sharp twist of guilt.
He'd been raised to hunt people like me. Like us. And here I was, dragging him deeper into treason with every choice I made.
He stepped forward as we approached, his gaze taking in Mira's torn cloak, Thessaly's mud-stained boots, and Adeline's disheveled appearance with the quick assessment of someone accustomed to reading signs of trouble.
“What happened?”
“Trouble,” I said, still breathless from our escape. “The sort that wear red armbands and carry iron blades.”
“They pursued us,” Mira added, sinking gratefully onto the porch steps. “Someone must have sent word ahead—or perhaps our demonstration was more effective than anticipated.”
August's jaw tightened, and I caught a glimpse of the threads connecting us—strained with his internal conflict between duty and feeling, between the son he'd been raised to be and the man he was becoming.
“Then this just became considerably more dangerous.”
“We achieved what we set out to accomplish,” I said, though even as I spoke, I wondered at the cost. “They saw us. They heard us. Some of them believed. But now. . .” I met his eyes, seeing my own doubts reflected there.
“Now we must move before Elias transforms our small victory into another excuse for purging.”
He looked at me for a long moment, and I saw him making the same calculation I was—weighing the lives we might save against the lives we were certainly endangering. The arithmetic of revolution was never clean.
Finally, he nodded. “At first light, we move.”
As he spoke, I felt something shift in the threads around us. Not the gentle adjustments of Mending or the exploratory touches of Seeing, but something deeper. Something that whispered of severed connections yearning to be restored, of possibilities that existed beyond the normal bounds of fate.
My unique gift stirred, responding to the moment's significance. Soon, I would have to decide what I was willing to sacrifice to bring back what had been lost.
But for now, I pushed that knowledge aside. One Weaver at a time. One thread at a time. And prayed that would be enough.