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Constance was breathing hard beside him, glass shard still raised, waiting for permission.

"When my son Unraveled Oxford's Weavers," my father continued, "I assumed you were among them. Dissolved into nothing like all the rest." He smiled. "Imagine my surprise when you survived."

"There is one thing a cockroach does well," Lily said. Her voice was steady despite her fear. "It survives."

"Does it?" My father's hand rose, hovering between them. "Constance, my dear. Kill her. Slowly."

Constance's face transformed with hunger. "With pleasure."

She turned toward Lily, the shard of glass raised, and time slowed.

"You took everything from me!" she said through clenched teeth. "Everything! He was supposed to be mine. We were supposed to have children together. A life together. And you appeared from nowhere and destroyed it all."

"He was never yours." Lily's voice was steady despite her exhaustion. "He was never anyone's. That's what none of you understood."

Through the bond, I felt her void power flickering, fading, leaving her defenseless. She had pushed too hard, fought too long, and now she had nothing left.

Constance saw it too.

She smiled, a terrible, triumphant smile, and lunged for the kill.

I tore through my father's magic.

I don't know how. Desperation. Love. The absolute refusal to watch Lily die. Something inside me broke, not apart, but free. I severed the threads of his Unraveling with my own power, ripped my body back from his control, and I reached for Constance with everything I had.

My Threadbreaker magic found her mid-lunge. Found every thread that held her together, muscle and bone and sinew and soul. Found the connections between heartbeat and breath, between thought and movement, between life and death.

And I severed.

Every connection at once. Muscle from bone, breath from lung, heart from will. Constance froze mid-lunge. The glass fell from fingers that forgot how to grip. Her eyes were still open, still aware, but her body had become a stranger to itself. Then the awareness faded too, and she crumpled to the floor.

I stared at what I had done. At the woman on the floor. The first life I had ever ended with my own magic, by my own choice. Not a sword through a man's heart in the heat of battle. Not the pendant's corruption sweeping through a city. My power, directed by my will, used to kill.

I had spent my entire life holding back. Hesitating. Refusing to become the weapon my father wanted me to be. Even when the corruption sang loudest, even when the hunger clawed at my insides, I had never used my Threadbreaker magic to end a life.

Until now.

Lily was at my side. Her hand found mine. Her love hit me, then her relief, then her grief for what I had done.

"August." Her voice was soft. "You had to. She would have killed me."

"I know." The words came out hollow. "I know."

A quiet, self-satisfied chuckle curled at the corners of his mouth. The sound of a man watching a plan come together perfectly.

"There," he said. "How does it feel?"

I turned to face him. He stood by the window, moonlight spilling over him. He wasn't angry. Wasn't grieving his dead ally. He was smiling.

"Now you know," he said softly. "Now you understand. The power to unmake. The choice to use it." He stepped closer, over Constance's body, as if she meant nothing, as if she had never been anything more than a tool. "You feel it, don't you? The rightness of it. The satisfaction."

"No." My voice cracked. "That's not what I feel."

"Liar." He was close now. Close enough to touch. "You feel powerful. You feel alive. You feel more yourself than you have in years, because you finally stopped pretending to be something you're not."

"I am nothing like you."

"You are exactly like me." His eyes gleamed. "You killed to protect what you love. Just as I have killed. Just as I will continue to kill." He spread his hands. "We are the same, August. We have always been the same. The only difference is that I stopped pretending long ago."