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She reached me with her exhaustion, her grief, and her desperate, undying love for the son she had left behind.

I could give August back his mother.

The thought blazed through me. All those years he had believed she was gone. All those times his father had used her memory as a weapon against him. And she had been right here, waiting for someone to find her.

I could give him this. After everything he had lost, everything he had sacrificed, I could give him this.

I reached for Elowen's thread.

And the void opened.

I had not understood. Not truly.

Elowen's thread was not just another thread. It was the anchor. The thing holding the entire tangle together. When I pulled on it, I pulled on everything.

Every Weaver Elias had Unraveled in the past. They were all connected to her, all bound to the corruption she had accidentally created. And now that August was cutting the corruption free, now that I had taken hold of her thread . . .

They were all coming.

Hundreds of them. More threads than I had ever held, more souls than I had ever touched. They poured into my awareness and I expanded. Became something vast enough to hold them all.

Ruth's vision crashed through my mind. I saw you burning, gold light poured out until there was nothing left. This was what she had seen. This moment. This choice.

I could let go. Release the threads and let them scatter back into the void. Save myself. Walk away. Live.

August would never know. He would grieve the Weavers he couldn't save, but he would have me. We would have those ordinary mornings he had promised. Tea and arguments about history and a lifetime of learning each other.

All I had to do was let go.

Lorien, who had helped me when I was lost.

Ysella, who had held her community together until the very end.

The Oxford Weavers, the ones August still carried guilt for, the ones whose loss haunted his nightmares.

Elowen. The way August's voice broke when he spoke of her. The hollow place in him where a mother's love should have been.

I could give him back his mother. I could undo the damage his father had done. I could restore what had been lost and prove that his power had never been meant for destruction.

I could give him everything.

All it would cost was me.

I didn't let go.

I pulled and began to mend the threads.

The burning started slowly, filling me from the inside out.

It filled me from the inside out, gold light pouring into every empty space, every crack, every hollow place grief had carved. At first it was warmth like August's hand in mine.

Then the pressure came. Too much. There was too much. The threads kept coming, more and more of them, faster and faster, and I kept pulling, kept gathering, kept refusing to let even one slip back into the darkness.

The pendant blazed against my awareness. I was connected to it. Connected through August, through the bond, through years of trapped souls finally finding their way home.

I overflowed.

The gold light that had been inside me started to pour out. Through my skin. Through my eyes. Through every thread of my being that was still tethered to the world.