Page 5 of The Threads Between

We all looked at her.

“If he uses that,” she continued, “we’d all just . . . disappear. Like the others. Everyone except Lily.”

The room went quiet. No one looked at Marigold.

“Then the Weavers don’t go inside.” Adeline’s voice was steady, already adapting. “I do.”

“You’d be useless,” Syra said.

Adeline didn’t flinch. “I can observe. Report back⁠—”

“And do what exactly if things go wrong?” Syra demanded. “Wave at August from the audience? Throw your fan at Elias?”

“I’ll go with her,” I said. “I survived Oxford. His magic passed over me. Whatever the reason—luck, my abilities, something else—I’m the only one who might survive if it happens again.”

Syra’s eyes flashed. “Might survive. We’re betting everything on might.”

“We’re betting everything on me,” I said. “And yes, I might fail. But August is in there because of me. Because he chose to help us. I’m not going to abandon him because it’s dangerous.”

Syra studied me for a long moment. Then she exhaled sharply.

“You really are determined to get yourself killed, aren’t you?”

“Only if necessary.”

“Well.” Her mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “At least you’re honest.”

Adeline stepped forward. “We do this properly. Mira and Garrick will be here in a week with Beatrice. We get answers about the pendant, about August’s corruption. We prepare.”

Syra was already nodding. “No half measures. No hoping for the best.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“Good.” She turned toward the stairs. “Cellar. Ten minutes. And bring water—you’re going to need it.”

As she disappeared, Marigold squeezed my hand. “You’re really brave.”

“I’m really terrified,” I admitted.

“That’s what makes it brave,” Adeline said softly.

Three weeks. The ghost-thread pulsed beneath my ribs and somewhere in this city, August was waiting.

Hold on, I thought. I’m coming.

CHAPTER 3

LILY

The cellar smelled of earth and old stone. A smell I knew by heart now, the way you learn the scent of any place where you've failed enough times. Two weeks until the opera house. Cold seeped up from the ground. No windows. No light but the weak glow of two oil lamps, their flames throwing long shadows over bare walls and a floor that hadn't been swept in decades.

Failure had stopped surprising me. That was the part that broke me.

I pressed my palms against my thighs, trying to stop the shaking. Seven failures. The cut thread hovering in the air before me—one of Syra’s creations, deliberately tangled and frayed—glimmered in the lamplight like it knew I couldn’t fix it.

“Again,” Syra said from where she leaned against the far wall, arms crossed.

Her voice held no sympathy. No patience. Just the flat expectation that I would keep trying until I got it right or collapsed.