Page 84 of The Threads Between

Then died.

The absence hit harder than the presence ever had.

I gasped—a full breath for the first time in months. My lungs expanded properly. My ribs didn't feel compressed by invisible hands. My consciousness settled into itself the way a dislocated joint snapped back into place.

No longer scattered.

Whole.

And through it all, constant as a heartbeat—her. Not just a thread anymore. The bond. Forged in firelight and moonlight and ancient magic. Permanent as bone.

I opened my eyes.

Lily stared down at me—we were still on the ground, her hands framing my face, tears streaming—and she was smiling through it. Joy and relief and exhaustion braided too tightly to separate.

"It worked," she whispered.

"It worked."

My voice sounded strange. Lighter. As if something I had been carrying for years had finally been set down.

She collapsed against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and held on.

Around us, the Weavers lowered their hands. Magic faded slowly. The forest settled back into itself after holding something too large for its branches. The circle of stone glowed faintly now—as if our bond had burned bright enough to leave a mark.

The pendant still lay against my chest. But it was quiet now.

Beatrice stepped forward. Tears shone on her face.

"The binding is done," she said quietly.

Then her gaze dropped to my chest. To the pendant.

"The necklace," she said. "Give it to me so I may free it of the corruption."

My hand rose to the stone before I could think. Fingers closing around metal that had been cold for months and now merely . . . warm. I had not removed this pendant since the day I put it on as a young boy, hoping it would somehow make me feel closer to my mother.

"August." Lily's voice was soft. Her hand covered mine where it gripped the hourglass. "You don't have to⁠—"

"Yes," I said. "I do."

I reached behind my neck and found the clasp. My fingers trembled. The metal parted.

I lifted the pendant away from my skin for the first time in twenty-seven years.

The absence was staggering. Not pain—the opposite of pain. A lightness so profound it was gravity-releasing.

I held the pendant in my palm. The hourglass caught moonlight, no longer pulsing, no longer cold. Just dust. Just metal. Just memory.

"She would be proud of you," Beatrice said quietly. "Elowen. She would be proud of the man you've become despite everything he tried to make you."

My throat closed.

I placed the pendant in Beatrice's waiting hands.

She cradled it gently, and golden threads began to wind around the hourglass—drawing out the last traces of corruption like drawing poison from a wound. The sand flickered once, twice, then settled into stillness. Clean. A focusing stone again. Not a weapon. Not a cage. Just my mother's final gift, restored to what it had been before my father twisted it into something monstrous.

Beatrice held it out to me.