Page 53 of The Blood Queen

Something to make her cease to be.

I huff a sound caught somewhere between being impressed and disgusted. Who would consider this weaving tool a weapon? You couldn’t fight with it. But it’s not designed to be used against a person, human or fae.

I have to give the High Blade credit. A weapon like this was designed to kill a high fae, one that would normally be nearly immortal. Attack not the queen’s person but the magic she weaves.

We cannot kill the High Blade by attacking her directly.

But maybe, with this loom and this shuttle…

“How can you tell which thread is which?” I ask. “The Faerie Queen’s thread broke, and she ceased to be. Can you tell me which thread is the High Blade’s? Or—Samson, can you see any differences in them?”

Beside me, Samson sucks in a breath. “They’re all glowing the same to me.”

If we can find her thread, we could end this all right now. Snip one thread, the High Blade disappears, the war is over before it starts.

“Do you ssssssssee?” the Damhan-Allaidh says softly.

“The loom, the threads? Yes. Tell me which one to cut!”

The giant spider pulls herself back into the throne, gangly legs tapping on the hard wood. “You don’t sssssssee,” she says mournfully. “You don’t see which thread is cut, which thread is not.”

“I—”

The Faerie Queen’s thread is snapped, but the plaid is still attached to the loom. The warp threads are all unbroken. But that doesn’t make sense. The Damhan-Allaidh said the warp threads were fae, and the queen’s broke, but—

Damned fae magic.

I see auras. The Faerie Queen must have been able to see the threads—not the literal threads of spider silk that make this fabric but the magical ones that weave life and fate.

And I can’t see like that.

I curse under my breath.

“Why did your spiders say you were waiting for us?” I ask, frustration making me impatient. “I cannot see which thread to cut and stop the High Blade. What use are we to you?”

Samson makes an irritated sound in the back of his throat, and I know he’s not happy with the way I’m speaking, the implication that I’m worthless. But it’s true, no? I can do nothing with this weapon of the High Blade, this tool of the Faerie Queen.

“We do not know,” the Damhan-Allaidh says. “We have woven the threads to the pattern. Your thread is where the pattern endsssss.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “That I break the pattern?”

I had thought the tangle of threads at the top of the loom indicated nothing more than the fact that spiders might be good at weaving cobwebs but had no skill for magical plaid. I wonder which thread there in the knotted mess is mine.

It’s plaid though. There is no end to the pattern; the threads should just repeat over and over.

The Damhan-Allaidh just looks at me. Watching. Waiting.

“Right, but,” Samson interjects, “if we can figure out which thread connects to the High Blade and then we cut it, will that kill her? Or,” he adds quickly, “will that make her cease to be?”

The Damhan-Allaidh clacks her fangs at us. “Perhapsssss.”

“So how do we find the thread that’s hers?” Samson asks. “I’m guessing it’s a bad idea to just cut them all.”

The spiders all scurry and hiss, raising their front legs at Samson threateningly.

“Bad idea,” I confirm.

“You are Leth,” the Damhan-Allaidh says, her voice resonating throughout the throne room. “If you cannot do the magic of fae, you can do the magic of humans.”