Page 15 of The Threads Between

When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. Almost hollow.

“Whatever you think you lost here—in Oxford—let it go. That world is dead.”

He turned then, and something in his expression made me go still.

Grief. Not for the women erased, not for the city harmed, but for the woman he lost. Then his face smoothed back into its familiar mask.

“You made sure of it,” Elias said.

The thread pulsed warm in my chest. He did not know. And I would die before I gave her to him.

The next morning brought grey skies and Constance Sterling.

She arrived precisely at eleven, because Constance was always precise. Always proper. Always exactly what a woman of her breeding and station should be. She entered the sitting room as if the world were a stage built for her and she had learned her marks by heart.

I stood because the pendant wouldn’t let me do otherwise.

Her dress was expensive but modest—deep blue silk with a high collar, her blonde hair arranged in elaborate coils that must have taken her maid an hour to perfect. Every detail was a declaration: controlled, clean, impeccable.

“August.” She offered her hand.

I took it, pressed the expected kiss to her gloved knuckles. Her perfume was pale and floral, the sort of scent meant to suggest purity. It sat wrong in the room, like a hymn sung at the gallows.

“You look well,” she said.

A lie. I looked like something dead that had not yet been informed.

“Constance.” I released her hand and gestured to the settee. “Please.”

She arranged herself with careful precision, spine straight, hands folded in her lap. The sort of woman who would make an excellent Mrs. Hawthorne—decorative, compliant, and completely untouched by anything as unseemly as magic.

“Your father tells me the announcement will run in the paper this week,” she said. “Mother has already begun the guest list. We are thinking three hundred. The Sterling connections alone account for at least⁠—“

“Constance,” I cut in.

Her pale eyes flickered—surprise, perhaps, or irritation at being interrupted.

“Do you actually want to marry me?”

A pause.

She smoothed her already-perfect skirts.

“What an odd question,” she said, and her smile was practiced, empty. “We have been promised to each other since we were children. Our families⁠—“

“That is not what I asked.”

Another pause, longer this time.

When she spoke again, her voice had shed some of its pleasantness, becoming firmer, truer.

“Want is irrelevant, August. We have duties. Responsibilities. Your father is doing important work—protecting England from magical threats. The Sterling family is proud to support that mission.” She met my gaze directly. “And I’m proud to be part of it. To help build a future where proper English families don’t have to fear corruption and darkness.”

The thread burned warm in my chest—a reminder of exactly how much darkness I carried, and how little she understood of it.

“You know what I am,” I said quietly. “What I can do.”

“I know what your father has told me.” Her expression remained serene. “That you were born with an unfortunate . . . affliction, due to your mother’s weaknesses. But that you are being treated. Controlled. The pendant keeps you stable.”