Page 19 of The Threads Between

“But Ysella told me something once.” She looked up. “She said being scared means you understand what’s important. That people who aren’t scared don’t really see what they’re fighting for.” She took a breath, like the next part mattered most. “She said fear is just love wearing a different face.”

The words landed deep, settling under my ribs.

Fear is just love wearing a different face.

“You saved me,” I said quietly. “In the woods. You could’ve run.”

“You would’ve done the same for me.” She said it without question or doubt.

“What if I can’t save him?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. “What if I’m not strong enough?”

“Then you’ll try anyway.” No hesitation. No false comfort. Just truth.

She took my hand. Her fingers were icy, small, bird-boned, but her grip was steady—the kind of steady you only get from surviving too much too early.

“I know what Beatrice told you in there,” she said. “But you look the same as you did before her words. Like Lily. Like the person who taught me to fight for what is just. Whatever you learned, it didn’t change that.”

My breath caught.

She was right.

Knowing about bonds and cosmic necessity didn’t change who I was. It didn’t rewrite my choices. It didn’t erase the fact that I would do this even if he weren’t bound to me by magic.

It just explained why walking away was never an option.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“For being brave enough to come out here.” I squeezed her hand gently. “For reminding me I’m not alone.”

She gave a small, proud smile. “Are you coming back inside?”

I looked at the door. At the thin barrier between this quiet moment and the chaos waiting on the other side.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m coming back.”

Her smile widened. She tugged my hand, pulling me toward the door. “Good. Because Syra was about to come get you, and she looked annoyed.”

I laughed. “She always looks like that.”

“Extra this time,” Marigold said gravely. “The kind where she starts using big words to make people feel small.”

We stepped inside together, warmth wrapping around us. The house smelled faintly of tea and wood smoke—ordinary, domestic smells that seemed impossible after everything.

Voices murmured behind the sitting room doors—low, urgent, the sound of people trying to plan the impossible.

I pressed a hand to my sternum, then pushed the door open.

Everyone looked up. Beatrice, impassive. Syra with her arms crossed. Garrick still in his chair but sitting straighter now, one leg no longer hooked over the arm. Adeline by the pocket doors, gloves off for once, her bare fingers laced together. Mira at the window.

“Sorry,” I said. “I needed air.”

“Understandable,” Beatrice replied. “What I told you was considerable.”

“That’s one word for it.” I moved back into the room. “But it doesn’t actually change anything.”

Syra arched a brow. “Doesn’t it? You just learned you’re magically bound to someone.”