Page 126 of The Threads Between

The knife shattered. Metal fragments scattered across the floor.

Lily broke free, stumbling forward, hand going to her bleeding throat.

Constance stared at her empty hand. Then at Lily. Pure rage twisted her features.

"You—"

She lunged.

My father's Unraveling slammed into me before I could help, trying to dissolve me thread by thread. The pain was immediate, threads fraying at the edges of my being.

I severed his attack, cutting it away before it could take hold. But he was already launching another.

And across the room, Constance grabbed a heavy candlestick and swung it at Lily's head.

Lily ducked the candlestick, reached through the bond to the pendant, and created a void pocket. The absence yanked at Constance, pulling her off-balance. But Constance recovered fast, driven by jealousy. She wouldn't stop until one of them was dead.

My father circled me, his Unraveling building for another assault. "You're distracted," he observed. "Trying to fight me while monitoring her. How long can you maintain both?"

He was right. Each wave of his Unraveling came faster. I could sever them, but barely. The strain was building.

Through the bond, I felt the moment Constance found a shard of broken glass and slashed at Lily. The cut was shallow, but blood bloomed across Lily's sleeve. Her pain flashed through me.

Stay with me, I sent.

I'm here, she sent back.

I reached through the connection. Felt Lily preparing to create another void pocket. I reinforced it with my Threadbreaking, severing the air's resistance, making the absence deeper, stronger.

Constance flew backward, crashed into the wall hard enough to crack plaster.

And my father's Unraveling hit me while I was distracted.

Pain exploded through my chest. Threads dissolving, scattering into nothing. I screamed, severed the attack desperately, but the damage was done. Blood trickled from my nose.

Through the bond, Lily's terror. Her guilt that I'd been hurt helping her.

Don't, I sent. We're learning.

We fell into rhythm after that. Or tried to.

I drove toward my father with a combination he had taught me himself, fifteen years ago in the training yard behind this very house. Left feint, right cross, step inside the guard. His body remembered before his mind did. He blocked the cross on instinct, caught my wrist, twisted.

But I knew that counter too. I'd drilled it a thousand times under Morrison's eye. I dropped my weight, broke his grip, and drove my knee toward his ribs.

He stepped back. The faintest flicker of surprise.

"Good," he said. "You remember."

"Everything you taught me." I came at him again, fists and Threadbreaking woven together. "Including how to find the weak point."

His Unraveling surged in answer, and I severed it mid-flight. The force of the collision sent a shockwave rippling through the room. The embroidery frame toppled from its stand and hit the floor with a crack, the half-finished needlework splitting along the frame.

My father's gaze snapped to it. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough for his composure to fracture.

I pressed the advantage. Drove him back toward the window with a flurry of strikes, each one punctuated by Threadbreaking that sheared through his hastily raised defenses. He parried, countered, his hunter training matching mine move for move, but he was retreating now. Giving ground.

I drove him back hard, and he stumbled against the settee by the window. His wife's settee, preserved for decades. His weight cracked the aged frame. One leg buckled, and the whole piece collapsed sideways, fabric tearing along seams that had held for twenty years of careful preservation.