Page 99 of The Threads Between

I smiled against his chest.

“Five more minutes,” I agreed.

Outside, the afternoon light was beginning to soften toward gold. Somewhere downstairs, the Weavers were planning a war. Somewhere beyond the farmhouse walls, Elias Hawthorne was gathering his forces, preparing to reclaim his son or destroy him trying.

But here—in this narrow bed, in this borrowed room, in the arms of the man I loved—there was peace.

I closed my eyes and let myself have it.

CHAPTER 27

AUGUST

We returned to the planning meeting twenty minutes late, and every person in that room knew exactly why.

Lily's hair was slightly disheveled despite her attempts to pin it back. My shirt was buttoned incorrectly, a fact I did not notice until Garrick's gaze dropped to my chest and his mouth curved into something insufferable. The look he gave me said everything words would have ruined.

About bloody time. You absolute disaster of a man.

I ignored him and took my place near the window, though I could not quite suppress the looseness in my shoulders or the warmth that still hummed through the bond. Lily settled at the table.

Through the bond, the warmth of her pressed against me, steady and present. A low hum of pleasure she wasn't trying to hide. The ghost of her laughter, held just behind her teeth.

I forced my attention to the map.

“As I was saying,” Beth continued smoothly, “our scouts confirm Elias has not yet left to return to the Oxford area.”

“He's regrouping,” I said. “Gathering his hunters. Looking for his weapon. He is set to return to the Iron Spire in the next few days.”

Beth nodded. “How many hunters does he command?”

“Directly? Perhaps a hundred. But he can call upon more. There are men who hunt for sport, men who hunt for coin, men who hunt because they have been taught to fear what they cannot control. If he sends word, he could double that number within a week.”

“Then we do not give him a week,” Beatrice said quietly.

A murmur of agreement rippled through the room.

Before anyone could speak further, the front door opened. Diana's voice carried, sharp with surprise, and then footsteps, multiple sets, moving with purpose.

Beth rose. The Weavers in the room shifted, hands lifting instinctively, threads beginning to gather in the air.

But it was not hunters who appeared in the doorway.

It was women.

Three of them, travel-worn and wary, wrapped in cloaks that had seen too many miles. The eldest was perhaps sixty, silver hair pulled into a braid, with ink stains on her fingers that suggested a woman who kept records of things other people preferred forgotten. The youngest could not have been more than sixteen, and she entered the room the way a cat enters an unfamiliar house, one careful step at a time, cataloguing every exit before committing to the space.

Between them stood a woman of middle years, dark-skinned and steady-eyed, who carried herself like someone accustomed to being obeyed.

“We heard,” she said without preamble. “The Hawthorne heir has turned.” Her gaze found me across the room, measured and unhurried. “We came to see if it was true.”

Beth stepped forward. “It is true. Welcome, sisters.”

The woman's expression did not soften, but something in her shoulders eased.

“There are more coming,” she said. “From London. From the coast. From places that have been silent for years.” She paused. “Word travels fast when hope returns.”

Hope. The word landed strangely in my chest. I had spent my life being the thing that destroyed it in others. And now women were traveling miles, risking exposure, because they had heard that weapon had been turned against the hand that wielded it.