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I stilled. “Who?”

Adeline’s knuckles whitened against the porcelain. She kept her gaze fixed away from me. “She was my dearest friend. We grew up side by side, her house but a short walk from mine. In those days we wove crowns of wildflowers and declared ourselves queens of a kingdom no one else could see. When we were older, we made promises. Promises that we would always guard one another.”

Something about the way she said it made my stomach twist.

Adeline swallowed. “I always knew she was different. That she could do things other people couldn’t. She came from a line of Weavers. Her mother before her, and her grandmother before that. But she trusted me with it.” Finally, she met my gaze. “And I swore I would never tell a soul. Not my father. Not my brother. No one.”

A lump formed in my throat.

Adeline turned back to the tub, running her hand beneath the stream of water as though testing the temperature. But I could see it in her posture now—the tension, the grief coiled tight in her limbs.

“They found out.”

A single, cold statement.

I didn’t dare breathe.

“First, it was her mother.” Adeline’s voice was even, too even, like she had told this story to herself a thousand times before. “They kept a keen eye on Nicolette after that, knowing weaving magic ran in families. She tried to hide it. I tried to help her. But the minute her powers showed themselves—” She inhaled sharply. “They took her.”

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed.

“And I did nothing to stop them.”

Something sharp cracked in her voice, just for a moment, before she forced herself back into that carefully controlled mask.

“I was a coward,” she said. “I was afraid of what they would do to me. Of what they would do to my family if I stood in their way. I let them unravel her.”

A pit opened in my stomach.

Adeline pressed her lips together, her gaze distant. “I have lived with that choice every day since.”

The words hit me like a physical blow. Because I had just done the exact same thing.

Lorien, who'd helped unlock my threads just hours ago. Who'd shoved me into the underbrush and told me to hide. Who'd turned to run and hadn't been fast enough.

And I had done nothing.

I'd told myself it was survival. That staying would have only meant two Weavers captured instead of one. That I didn't even know how to use my power yet, so what good would throwing myself into the open have done?

But those were just prettier words for the same thing Adeline was confessing to.

Cowardice.

“I ran,” I whispered, the admission tearing out of me before I could stop it. “Today. In the woods. They captured someone—a Weaver—and I just. . . I ran.”

Adeline's eyes snapped to mine, sharp and assessing.

“Her name was Lorien. She helped me. Untangled my threads. And when they came—when they bound her in iron and dragged her away—I hid. I watched it happen and did nothing after they told me I had powers that could help them.”

The tears came then, hot and shameful, spilling down my cheeks. “I told myself there was nothing I could do. That I'd be next if I stayed. But that's what you told yourself too, wasn't it? And you've carried it ever since.”

Adeline was quiet for a long moment, her hand still beneath the running water. Then softly, “Yes.”

She turned off the faucet, the sudden silence heavy between us.

“The difference,” she said, “is that you're still new to this. You didn't know what you were until recently. You don't know how to use your power. You had every reason to hide.” Her jaw tightened. “I knew exactly what I was doing when I let them take Nicolette. I knew, and I chose my own safety over hers anyway.”

“Does that make it better?” I asked bitterly. “That I didn't know what I was doing?”