Page 51 of The Threads Between

I positioned August in a chair near the window and knelt beside Beatrice, pressing my fingers to her wrist the way I’d seen Mira do. Her pulse was weak but there.

From the bedroom, Adeline’s scream cut through the house.

Even with laudanum. Even with preparation.

I closed my eyes.

“Lily?”

Marigold’s voice. Small. Uncertain.

I opened my eyes to find her standing in the doorway, still in her nightclothes, her face pale.

“Where’s Syra?” she asked again.

The question I’d been avoiding. The one I had no answer for that wouldn’t shatter this eleven-year-old girl who’d already survived too much.

“Sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down.” Her voice went higher. “I want to know where Syra is. Why didn’t she come back with you?”

Another scream from the bedroom. Adeline’s agony carried through the walls.

“Marigold—“

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Marigold’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s why no one will answer me. That’s why everyone looked like that when I asked.”

I couldn’t lie to her. Couldn’t soften it. She deserved the truth.

“Yes,” I said.

The word hung in the air between us.

“How?” Marigold’s voice broke.

“She saved August. Intercepted Elias as he was fleeing with him and hit him with a brick, then dragged August away while Elias was down.” I pressed my palm against my chest where the ghost-thread burned. “A hunter followed her. Shot her.”

Marigold stared at me. Then at August, sitting motionless by the window, empty-eyed and unaware.

“She died for that?” Her voice went sharp. “For him? And he doesn’t even know? Doesn’t even care?”

“He can’t,” I said quietly. “The pendant—the corruption—he’s still trapped inside his own mind. He doesn’t know where he is. Who he is. Or what happened.”

“Then it was for nothing.” Marigold’s tears spilled over. “Syra died for nothing.”

“No.” I stood, moved toward her. “She died saving someone who couldn’t save himself. That’s not nothing.”

“It is if he never wakes up!” Marigold’s voice cracked. “It is if he just sits there forever like—like a corpse that forgot to stop breathing!”

I had no answer to that. Because she was right.

What if August never came back? What if the pendant had eaten too much of him, left too little to recover?

Then Syra had died for nothing. Five Weavers had died for nothing. Adeline had been maimed for nothing. Beatrice had nearly killed herself for nothing.

And I would have failed at everything that mattered.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Marigold, I’m so sorry.”