I glared at her. “Should I be carelessly threadmending whomever I see?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, of course not. But you haven’t usedhismagic. Because he hasn’t taught you. No one has. If someone were to waltz into your kitchen right now and proclaim they could make a healing tonic as well as you simply because the ingredients are already hanging from the walls, would you believe them?”
“No.”
“Of course not. It’s the same with glamour, with any of our magic. We can see beneath each other’s veils because we know how to wield the magic to strip them away. You don’t.”
“But why hide this from me?” I asked as my brows pinched together.
“Because you told him to go, and he kept his promise.” Seville settled deeper into her chair, recrossing one leg over the other. “But more than that, I think he fears what you would do if you thought something was wrong. You pushed yourself to the brink of death last time you dealt with blight. Would you go to such lengths again? It’s likely a risk he wouldn’t take.”
“He would’ve told me,” Vora said as she sat straighter in her chair.
Seville raised a brow. “Would he?”
At that, silence crept through the room. Rorik was sick. He had to be. Seville, too. Which meant that it was only a matter of time before the rest of the Ferngloves started to show symptoms again. I’d wasted precious months thinking he was fine, avoiding the maelstrom of emotions that came with the mere mention of his name and sitting safely on that fucking couch. I couldn’t help but glare at it through the stair rails.
“There’s so much you don’t know about our magic. Aboutyourmagic. It’s as much a part of you now as it is a part of him,” she said softly. “To our knowledge, no Ever has ever bonded with a threadmender. We saw what happened when you harnessed that combined power for just a few minutes.”
Orin. His death. The manifestation of my threads.
“If we could teach you how to use that power to its full potential, maybe you could eliminate the blight more wholly—without harming yourself, of course.” She looked at me then with such fierceness and conviction that my retort died in my throat. “I promise, Edira, no one wants you to push yourself to the brink. Not again.”
Time stalled. Power. I’d spent these months so focused on my recovery, on my health, that I hadn’t thought about what it would mean to access Rorik’s magic alongside mine. An undeniable thrum of excitement beat through my limbs. Using my magic in the past had always posed too great a risk, the cost too dire. Would that be the same if I found a way to blend Rorik’s power with mine again? What would that look like?
An errant chill kissed the back of my neck, and the heavy weight of a stare wormed between my shoulder blades. I tilted my head toward the front door. In my peripheral, Death stood there. Watching. Waiting.
I swallowed thickly, turning my focus back to Seville. “And if I don’t want to risk it?”
Vora cursed beneath her breath as she dropped her head in her hands. Seville merely shrugged.
“Then don’t. I won’t force you, but I know that if it were me in your position...” She leaned forward and pinned me with her stare. “I’d want to know what I could do. What if there was something that could help you, too? What if you could bring back the threads you lost or protect the ones you still have?”
I blinked as her words echoed my thoughts. “Is that possible?”
“I don’t know. But you’ve already done things I didn’t think were possible.”
I held her gaze as my mind whirled. Of course I didn’t want the Ferngloves to die, but what if there was a way to bolster the little life I had left? After years and years of living for the expense of others, this felt like a chance to take back something for myself.
“I’ll go,” I said. Vora opened her mouth to interject, but I reached across the table to grip her hand with mine. “I’m not going to threadmend. I don’t want to die.”
“Edira...” She chewed on her lip as she scoured my face.
“But maybe, if Rorik is willing to teach me, I can help themandmyself.” I squeezed her fingers. “I have to try.”
“You can’t go back.”
I startled in my chair, and Ywena fluttered her wings against my hair. I twisted around to see Nohr standing frozen in the foyer. He was covered in muck from the horses, his hair a tousled mess and his hands formed into fists by his sides. Jaw set tight, he tore his gaze away from me to level a glare at Seville.
“Nohr,” I said as I stood, but he jerked his chin.
“How dare you come here and plant this idea in her head. After everything you did to her.” Nohr strode into the kitchen to stop before Seville. Anger rippled from him in heady waves, and, all at once, I realized my brother had changed. When did he take over the role of caretaker? When he turned eighteen last month? When he brought me home from Fernglove and laid me gently on the couch? Tears threatened to spill from my eyes, and I stepped between him and Seville.
I placed my hands on his chest. “It’s okay, Nohr.”
“It’s not,” he spat. He turned his ire to Vora. “I can’t believe you’d let her go along with this.”
Vora shrank beneath the weight of his hardened gaze, but I grasped the fabric of his shirt and forced his attention to me. “Vora didn’tletme do anything. I make my own choices, Nohr. Don’t blame her.”
