Page 121 of The Threads Between

Through the bond, Lily's warmth flooded back. Finally.

Finally, I agreed.

When they broke apart, Mira's forehead dropped against his chest. He held her there for a moment, just breathing. His hand cupped the back of her head like she was something precious, something he'd been afraid to reach for.

Then they mounted up and rode to join us.

We rode hard through the Oxford streets, then out through the eastern gate and into the countryside beyond.

The night was cold and clear, the moon bright enough to light our way. Hooves thundered against frozen ground. Wind cut at my face, numbing my cheeks, making my eyes water. I welcomed the discomfort. It kept me from thinking too much about where we were going.

But the landscape would not let me forget.

I had hidden in that copse of trees as a boy the day my father first struck me for crying. I had sat on that stone wall at fifteen, staring at the stars, wondering if there was a version of my life where I wasn't a monster. I had ridden over that hill a hundred times, always toward home, always dreading what waited there.

Now I was riding toward it again. This time, I would not be the one dreading.

Lily rode beside me, her copper hair streaming behind her like a banner. Through the bond she was worried, determined, afraid, but present. The anchor I had never known I needed until I had it.

Behind us, Garrick and Mira rode side by side. Beatrice and Marigold flanked them, the older Bonder keeping close to the younger. Protecting and teaching, even now.

And at the rear, Ruth.

I glanced back and found her watching Lily. Not the road, not the darkness ahead, but Lily. With the look of someone watching a candle burn down to nothing.

I turned back to the road. My hands tightened on the reins.

Through the bond, I reached for Lily and brushed against her awareness. She was focused on the ride, on the cold, on staying in the saddle. She hadn't noticed Ruth's gaze.

But I had.

And I did not know what it meant, but I knew I did not like it.

The Hawthorne estate rose from the darkness. I had hoped, in some buried part of myself, that I would never see it again. But there it stood, the sprawling manor house, the manicured grounds gone wild with winter, the iron gates that had always felt more like a cage than a welcome.

Home. The word had never fit this place, and it did not fit now.

We slowed as we approached, the horses' breath misting white in the air. The windows were dark, no lights, no movement. The whole place looked abandoned, but I knew better. My father was in there. Waiting. He had chosen this ground for a reason.

The place where my mother had died. Where she had tried to save her people and instead created the corruption that had destroyed us all.

He wanted me to face him there, in the house where everything began.

“August.” Lily's voice, soft beside me.

Her hand found mine in the darkness. Behind us, the creak of saddle leather as the others drew close.

This house had unmade me once, piece by piece, in silence and solitude. The silence was the same. The solitude was gone.

And I walked toward the gates of the house that had made me, ready, at last, to unmake what it had done.

CHAPTER 33

LILY

The gates of the Hawthorne estate stood open. Beyond them, the manor rose against the night sky, dark windows, dark stone, dark ivy crawling up the exterior that had witnessed years of cruelty. There were no lights, no movement, no hunters. The whole place looked dead.

It wasn't.