My throat tightened. “The supposed curse on my bloodline, aye?”
“Maybe. Though I’m not a fan of the wordcurse. Let’s find out.” Liora leaned closer to the web, her eyes tracking something I couldn’t quite follow. “I’m going to trace the thread. See where it leads. Just... try to stay grounded, okay? I’m not going to tug it or reweave it or anything like that, but usually when I touch these threads, I get images. I can kind of see how certain things will play out. So let’s just take a look.”
I nodded, gripping the crystal tighter.
Liora’s fingers moved through the air, following the gold and charcoal thread deeper into the web. As she did, images began to flicker at the edges of my vision—fragments, like photographs caught in a strobe light.
Graham laughing behind the bar at The Tipsy Thistle.
Graham standing in my doorway years ago, rain dripping from his hair, asking me why.
Graham’s hands on my waist, his mouth on mine, and that feeling—that feeling of finally, finally being exactly where I was supposed to be.
My eyes burned.
“You loved him,” Liora said softly. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“You still do.”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t make my voice work around the knot in my throat. If I said it out loud, would that make the threat real? Would the loch claim Graham just as they’d claimed every man a woman in my family had loved before me?
Liora’s fingers stilled. “Agnes. I found it.”
“Found what?”
“The knot. The thing that’s blocking the thread.” She pulled her hand back slowly, her face pale. “I need you to see this. Can you lean in? Focus on where my finger was pointing?”
I leaned in, squinting at the web of light. At first, I couldn’t see anything different, just the same pulsing threads, the same shimmering pattern.
Then something shifted and I saw it.
Where the gold and charcoal thread should have flowed smoothly, there was a tangle. A knot of something darker, wound tight around the strand like a vine strangling a tree.
“Whatisthat?” My voice came out hoarse.
“I don’t know exactly.” Liora’s voice was barely above a whisper. “But it’s old, Agnes. And it’s not just in your chart—it’s like it’s connected to something else. Something outside of you?”
“The Stone?”
“Maybe. Or...” She hesitated. “When I saw this during your reading before, I got flashes. And one of them was the loch and something moving beneath the surface.”
The Beithir.My stomach turned to ice.
“And when I saw that thread rising up during the battle—the one connecting you to the island—I’m pretty sure this was part of it. This dark strand. It’s the same color, the same, I don’t know, texture, I guess? It’s like...” She struggled for words. “It’s bound. I don’t know. I’m sorry, I’m just trying to read what I see.”
Gran’s warning.The loch takes what we love.
“Can you see where it leads?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt. “The dark strand. Where does it connect?”
Liora bit her lip. “I can try. But Agnes... I’m worried. I don’t like this at all. And I don’t know what I’m pulling.”
“I need to know,” I said, leaning forward, gripping my hands together, the crystal warming in my palms. Anxiety gnawed in my gut. “Whatever it is, however bad, I need to understand what I’m dealing with. I’ve spent years running from this. Accepting it without question because my grandmother told me to. But I’m done running. I have to be. And, if what you say is correct, well, then somehow, I’m involved and it’s not going to get any better the more I try and run from…whatever this is.”
Liora held my gaze for a long moment, then she nodded. She turned back to the web, her fingers hovering near the dark knot. I watched her take a steadying breath, watched her face shift into that faraway expression as shesank deeper into whatever sight allowed her to navigate these threads.
Slowly, carefully, she began to trace the dark strand.
