Page 51 of The Blood Queen

“But you know how to kill the one who harmed her?”

Behind me, Samson sucks in a breath. We don’t know how to defeat the High Blade either. “I will find out how,” I say. “And that starts with understanding the weapon that was used against the Faerie Queen. A weapon I hope we’ll be able to use against the High Blade too.”

The Damhan-Allaidh clacks her pointed legs on the throne. “You will not touch the loom” is all she says.

I can look, then, but not touch. I kneel down and get as close to the loom as I dare, leaning over the frame.

I had been intent on the plaid pattern before, but now I notice that the threads are impossibly thin, almost like gossamer.

Like spider silk.

“This is…” I look up at the Damhan-Allaidh in shock.

“I am the spinner,” the Damhan-Allaidh says proudly. “The queen was the weaver. We echo the three.”

My heart thuds hollowly.

This isn’t just a plaid cloth.

Of course it’s not. The fae may parallel humanity and vice versa, but there is magic at play here.

Something higher than just fae—we’re dealing with old gods. She said the three. That must be from the myths.

“I’ve heard of legends like this before,” I whisper to Samson. “In the stories, the spinner makes thread, and life is created. The weaver makes cloth, and a life is lived.”

“And a cutter snips a thread,” Samson finishes for me, evidently aware of similar legends.

“And a life dies.”

The trio of goddesses extends past the mortal realm. I’ve spoken to Norsemen in Orkney who called them nornir. One of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire named them goddesses—Perchta was one, I forget the rest—when he visited at Mary’s court. Here in Scotland, they are the Weird Sisters, prophetic and powerful. The spider and the queen mimicked the old legends, spinning and weaving magic.

But who cut the threads?

The Damhan-Allaidh rises up, extending two long legs over the side of the throne. The tips, sharp as spearheads, point down at the threads without touching them.

“We are the warp. You are the weft,” the Damhan-Allaidh says softly.

And—oh. That’s beautiful. The fae are the foundational threads of the loom, but humans are the vibrant colors of the weft.

The cloth is not complete without both of us.

Working together. Woven together.

There only appear to be a set number of warp threads—forty-two—but this is where the magic comes in. Together, as threads woven, this plaid represents all of existence.

Represents…or controls?

“But life has continued,” I say, “even with the Faerie Queen gone.”

“We weave in her absence,” the giant spider says softly. “But it is flawed.”

I look closer at the plaid on the loom. I can’t really see what’s happening within the woven spider silk, but I notice many of the weft threads are dangling, bits and pieces of various silk strung loosely above the warp, waiting to be tamped down.

Is this why the Scottish and fae courts have been such messes?

Queen Mary’s father died before she was a week old, continuing a long tradition of kings leaving babes and children on the throne to rule after their messy, sudden deaths. Ridiculous spats, minor rebellions, and general chaos have ruled more than any monarch over the last few centuries. And the fae court has been riddled with apathetic princes content to let the concerns of their charges go unaddressed.

Scotland is a mirror of the fae realm; the fae realm is a mirror of Scotland. There’s uneven tension in the loom, making the pattern ever so slightly…off.