Page 17 of The Threads Between

Constance’s expression shifted.

“Oh.” Her breath caught. Then a laugh, sharp and brittle. “You think she survived.”

I said nothing.

“You actually believe,” Constance went on, voice rising, “that girl somehow escaped what you did to the rest of them.”

“Watch yourself,” I growled.

“Or what?” she snapped. “You will glower at me? Sit there looking tragic?” Her composure cracked. “I have been patient, August. Patient while you played hero to those people. Those Weavers. Patient while you made excuses to be in her company.”

Color rose in her cheeks. Anger, humiliation, something uglier beneath.

“She was nothing,” Constance said. “Some nobody with delusions of intelligence and no sense of propriety. No connections. Claims she is from Yorkshire but speaks like she is from nowhere at all.” Her hands clenched. “And worst of all, she was one of them. A Weaver. I could practically smell the corruption on her.”

“That is enough.”

The pendant flared cold, clamping down, but something in me pushed back—not strength, exactly, but a refusal sharpened by need. If the pendant took everything else, it would not take this.

Constance’s eyes widened as I stood.

“She was more intelligent than you could ever hope to be,” I said, and the words tore free before I could stop them.

She looked struck.

“She asked questions because she thought,” I continued, voice tightening. “She challenged things because she was not content to swallow whatever she was fed. She had courage you cannot understand because you have never had to fight for anything in your life.”

“August—“

“No.” The pendant tightened again, trying to pull me back into silence, but Lily’s thread burned steadier “You stand there talking about bloodlines and propriety as if they make you clean, good even. But Lily was worth ten of you. Twenty. She saw the world clearly and did not flinch.”

Constance stared at me, pale except for two bright spots of color on her cheeks.

“You love her,” she said, the words strangled. “You love that Weaver.”

“She is dead,” I said flatly, the lie tasting like ash. “So it does not matter.”

“It matters to me!” Constance’s voice cracked. “Because apparently it does not matter that I am everything a proper wife should be. My bloodline is pure. My connections are impeccable. I know how to behave, how to run a household, how to be the kind of woman that builds dynasties.” Her hands clenched. “But none of it matters because you are still pining after a girl who is ash.”

The thread burned. Proof she was wrong.

“The wedding is in six weeks,” Constance said, smoothing her skirts with shaking hands, reclaiming control. “And you will stand beside me and smile and play the dutiful groom.” Her eyes met mine, cold and certain despite the fracture of emotion. “Because the alternative is that everyone discovers what you are. What you have done. And I do not think either of us wants that.”

A threat, delivered in the same tone she used for lace and lilies.

“Get out,” I said.

My voice was quiet, but something in it made her step back.

“August—“

“Get out.”

She stared a moment longer, then turned and left in a rustle of expensive silk and barely contained fury. The door closed with more force than was proper.

I sank back into my chair, breath shuddering out of me. Pushing through the pendant’s control had cost me. My hand closed over the cold weight at my chest as if I could hold myself together by sheer will.

I could not.