I wanted to paint myself in the tar destroying their lives and disintegrate into soft loam with them. What good was it to be a threadmender if I couldn’t protect my own family? My fingers ached as I mindlessly pressed tighter against their trembling bodies. The blight was everywhere, crawling over every thread, and my magic did absolutely nothing to stop its progression.
Another wail escaped my chest as I squeezed my eyes shut.
Pain had started to bloom through my limbs, and my vision blurred for entirely new reasons as the side effects of threadmending settled into my bones. Heat flushed my skin, and a vile, brackish substance coursed over my tongue. If I kept up this outpouring of power, it wouldn’t be long before I faded. My heart squirmed. I’d rather slip away with them than watch as they left this world forever.
As I prepared myself to pull more of my magic to the surface, the front door banged open. The sound snared my focus, and my gaze snapped to the man—the Ever—standing in the dim light of my foyer. Orin surveyed the room in a breath and froze.
“You’re a threadmender.”
I glowered at him from my place on the floor. “What are you doing here?”
“I was hoping to convince you of dessert or a stroll since you didn’t have time for tea...” His throat bobbed as his brows drew sharply together. “They have blight.”
Absolutely asinine.I nearly laughed at the ludicrous notion of an evening walk withhim, but instead I hugged my brothers tighter. A puff of yellow clouded around us as I accidentally ruptured some of the spores now dotting their arms. Pain clawed at my skin, and a fresh wave of nausea roiled through me. Time was not on my side. Or theirs.
“You should go.”
Something flashed in his hardened gaze. “I have magic that can slow the progression, but I can’t heal it.”
“I know.” I looked away to study the faces of my brothers. Their eyes had rolled to the backs of their heads and sweat dampened their hairlines. Bubbling splotches of black mold had formed in the creases of their elbows, the lines of their stomachs. They were rotting from the inside out.
“Work for me at Fernglove, and I’ll stave off the blight.” Orin stared not at my brothers but at me. A quiet sadness was etched into his gaze along with something else. Concern? Compassion? It felt so foreign when even my neighbors struggled to offer condolences each time my family faced loss. I was nothing to Orin, so why?
I swallowed thickly as I grappled with the grief rising in my throat. “I can’t cure blight. Prolonging their fate helps no one.”
“But maybe you could, with the proper instruction,” he said, inching closer. “You don’t have to die here. I can help you harness your power.”
Unease trickled across the back of my neck. The light of my magic wavered. I was a waning moon heading toward a starlessnight, and even if I didn’t drain every ounce of my power, I’d still find myself unconscious from the effort alone.
“Is that what you promised Rowena all those years ago?”
A flicker of surprise coursed through his expression, and his eyes widened. Understanding dawned in his gaze. “I remember you. As I said earlier, she was myfriend.” His voice dropped an octave as he lowered his gaze. “She was loved by all in my household. When I told her that we’d been working with threadmenders for years to rid the earth of this horrendous disease, she decided to help. We’re close to finding answers because of her.”
A lump formed in my throat, and I pressed my cheek against the crown of Noam’s head. Rowena had given up a large portion of her life to save my mother from death. Who would I be if I didn’t risk everything for my brothers?
Orin nodded toward the alabaster glow framing my body. “Don’t expend yourself for no reason. Save your energy, your life threads.” His words were so damn soft, his gaze too sorrowful. Slowly, he turned his stare to me. Pleading. He was pleading. Why? “Will you work with me? Like she did?”
Keep dyeing your hair. Cure no one.
My heart pounded in my ears as I recalled my aunt’s warning. She couldn’t have known that my life—my brothers’ lives—would come to this. And yet, despite Orin’s downturned lips and solemn eyes, I couldn’t fully trust him. What would Rowena have done?
A flicker of gold pulled at my focus, and I watched as the beetle from earlier scuttled across the wooden rafters of my ceiling. Despite everything, despite the warring, roiling emotions colliding in the pit of my belly, that tiny glimmer was like a spark of hope. It wormed its way into the crevices of my mind, sprouting with the same ravenous appetite as the blight consuming my brothers, the last part of my family.
When Orin drew nearer, my hold on Noam and Nohr loosened. “I can’t promise that you’ll be able to cure them, but don’t let them die without trying. I’ll encase them right now in magic, I swear it to you. It’ll control the spread of blight so you can let your own power go. Just say you’ll work with me.”
I was missing something. I had to be. Evers were master wordsmiths and rarely saw the raw end of a deal. I didn’t want to end up like that tongueless traveling merchant, but what choice did I have? I knew I wasn’t strong enough. Already my limbs were trembling, and sweat had dampened the collar of my blouse. I could keep going. Keep uselessly sacrificing my own threads, or...
“Please, Edira,” Orin said. He reached for me but never actually made contact. He simply let his hand hang there, palm up to the ceiling, as his fingers beckoned softly toward him. “Let me help you.”
Eternity passed in the span of seconds. Finally, I found my words. My resolve. “My brothers stay with me.”
A look of pure relief filled his expression. “Of course.”
“Then I agree.”
A sudden chill ravaged my skin as a weight separate from the blight settled into my bones. Power thrummed through the air as the soft clink of a lock slipping into place filled my mind. Magic. I was bound to Orin’s words, to his contract, and there was no escaping now.
The moment the vow solidified around us—invisible and yet somehow tangible, like metal links in a chain—Orin spread his arms wide. The ground trembled as thousands of minuscule green particles fell off his body in waves. The scent of the earth, of freshly bloomed flowers and pine trees and the rich aroma of soil, filled the room. And then he flicked his wrists, and the particles flew through the space to cocoon my brothers in magic. Power, heady and deep, rolled through the room. Orin had held true to his word, because once the magic had settled over Noamand Nohr, it solidified into a see-through casket and lifted them in the air.
