Page 27 of The Threads Between

“Then you complete the bond whether either of you are ready or not.” Beatrice closed her eyes. “Which is why we're going to practice until you can control the instinct. Until you can stop your magic from bonding until the right moment.”

“I almost killed you,” I said.

“You didn’t.” But her voice was weaker than before. “Though I’ll admit, that was closer than I’d like.”

Syra stood, and I saw fury in her dark eyes. “This is insane. You’re asking her to learn in mere days what should take months. She’s bleeding out every session, barely sleeping, and now you’re telling her she has to fight her own magic’s instincts?”

“Yes,” Beatrice said simply.

“She’ll die.”

“Possibly.”

“And that’s acceptable to you?”

“No.” Beatrice met Syra’s glare with clinical calm. “But it’s necessary. August has days—maybe a week—before the corruption is complete. Before there’s nothing left of him to save. And Lily is the only one who can stop it. So yes, I’m asking her to do something nearly impossible. Because the alternative is watching us all die.”

Syra’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t argue. Just knelt back down beside me and pressed her sleeve harder against my nose. “You’re an idiot,” she said. “You know that, right?”

“I’ve been told,” I managed.

“Good. Because only an idiot would keep doing this after what just happened.” She wiped blood from beneath my ears with her cuff—rough, efficient, the same no-nonsense tenderness she'd shown in training. “And yet here you are. About to get up and try again.”

She was right.

I pushed myself to sitting. The cellar spun slightly before steadying. Everything hurt. My chest ached like it had been torn open and stitched back together wrong.

My magic burned—hot and fierce and hungry in a way it hadn’t been before. Like it had tasted what bonding could be, even with the wrong magic, and now it wanted more.

Wanted August.

“Tomorrow,” Beatrice said quietly. “We’ll try again tomorrow. After you’ve rested. And this time, I’ll know to stop you before stage three.”

Syra helped me stand. My legs shook, but they held.

Three days until the opera house. Three days to learn how to control something that had just proven it didn’t want to be controlled.

The hunger coiled in my chest, patient now but not sated. Waiting.

When I touched August—if I touched him—my magic wouldn’t ask permission. It would take. And I had three days to learn how to hold the leash on something that had already slipped it once.

CHAPTER 9

AUGUST

The carriage moved through Mayfair, wheels whispering over damp streets, the world sliding past in pale, indifferent shapes. I had not been outside the townhouse in three days. I had not missed it. Elias had insisted on the outing—appearances mattered. Opposite me, Constance and her mother spoke of cakes.

“ . . . St. Paul’s will require something suitably magnificent,” Mrs. Sterling was saying, her gloved hand conducting the air as though the wedding were an orchestra she alone could hear. “Nothing vulgar, of course. Refinement rather than ostentation.”

“August.” Constance’s voice brushed the air, light as lace. “Are you listening, darling?”

“Yes.”

“How reassuring.” Her smile deepened. “Then perhaps you can tell us what Mother just said.”

I searched my mind. Found nothing. Words slid away as soon as I touched them, like fish beneath dark water.

“Cake,” I said.