Page 6 of The Threads Between

I reached for the thread with my magic, and the void gaped where it had been cut. I pulled the restoration magic up from my chest—warm, golden, familiar—and poured into the break.

The ends began to knit, light flickering along the connection.

Then it unraveled.

My magic snapped back into me like a whip. Air punched out of me. I stumbled back, hit the wall, and tasted copper at the back of my throat.

“That’s eight.” Syra didn’t move. “Want to go for nine?”

I wiped my mouth. My hand was shaking enough that the smear of red trembled on my knuckles.

Syra’s gaze dropped to it.

“I’m fine,” I rasped.

“You’re bleeding,” she said conversationally. “Again.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“And I said you’re bleeding.” She pushed off the wall, crossing the cellar in three strides. Up close, the exhaustion was carved into her—the hollows beneath her cheekbones sharper than they'd been a week ago, the tension in her jaw permanent now. She'd been sleeping even less than I had. “You keep pushing like this, you’ll burn yourself out before we ever reach the opera house.”

“Then stop making them impossible.” I didn’t care that I sounded petulant. “I can restore simple cuts. I’ve done it a hundred times. But these—” I gestured at the space where the thread had been. “These are impossible.”

“They’re not impossible.” Her eyes glinted in the lamplight. “They’re just harder than you want them to be.”

“That’s not⁠—”

“August’s corrupted magic won’t be simple, Lily.” Her voice cut through me. “When Elias forces him to unravel someone, it won’t be neat. It’ll be chaos. Twisted threads. Corrupted edges. Panic.” She stepped closer. “If you can’t handle a deliberately tangled thread in a quiet cellar, you won’t stand a chance when it matters.”

The cellar went quiet. She was right.

“Again,” she said.

Her magic drew a thread from the Weave slowly, like pulling silk from a spindle. It emerged thicker than the others. Stronger. Pulsing like a heartbeat.

Then she destroyed it.

Not a clean cut. Not even a tangle. She shredded it—her magic tore through the thread like teeth, ripping it apart until the ends exploded into dozens of smaller filaments that drifted in the lamplight.

I stared at it, and something inside me cracked.

“I can’t.”

“Try.”

“What if this is it?” My voice shook. “What if this is as strong as I’ll ever be? What if I stand in that opera house and someone dies because I wasn’t enough?”

The lamplight wavered. Or maybe I did.

“What if August—” My throat closed around his name. I pressed my palm against my sternum, where the ghost-thread burned. “What if I can’t save him?”

Silence filled the cellar, heavy and absolute.

I braced for something sharp. Something cutting that would snap me out of this spiral. That was what Syra did—used cruelty as kindness, pushed when comfort would've been easier.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she sank down on the dirt floor and leaned back against the stone wall.