The Sister shakes her head. “What’s done is done. Besides, I’ve tried. I’ve tried to weave your husband’s tapestry to my liking. Several times. The man is incessant. Will not be controlled. Surely he told you that he came to me, and all I had to offer him was a ripped half of a tapestry. Are you aware of how rare that is? For a mortal to rip their own tapestry, just from sheer stubbornness?”
“I don’t believe you,” I say.
“What? You think I’m intentionally withholding my help? Girl, I’ve tried to give your husband a happy ending. He keeps getting in his own way, and so, frankly, do you.”
I breathe heavily, glancing around.
Again, the Eldest Sister’s laughter echoes through the room. “You think you’ll find her here? That my darling Youngest Sister will reveal herself and save the day? Look around, girl. When do you think my Youngest Sister last set foot in this cottage?”
My heart turns to lead as I note once again the filled kettle left to go cold on the stove, the thick layer of dust on the bedsheets, the dead herbs.
“Where did she go?” I ask in a whisper, dread making me wonder if I even want to know the answer.
“She always was the favorite of our father, always meddling too, in that which wasn’t her business. It was her belief that we should stay out of the affairs of mortals, leave our abilities to rot, leave the Thread to pile up unused. Let the tapestries write themselves. But the mortals couldn’t be trusted with their own Fates. She never could see that. She thought if left to their own devices, mortals would learn from their mistakes, as well as the consequences of others’. But mortals are much too proud for that. And though my Middle Sister and I didn’t have complete control over their fates, we could at least intervene. But my Youngest Sister couldn’t understand how we could stomach it—not knowing how far our actions would spread. We might save a life here, only for another life to be taken in its place. It drove her mad, and she was always going behind our backs, trying to clean up what she called our messes.
“Something had to be done. It was the first thing my Middle Sister and I agreed upon since my lover died at the hands of hers. So we saw to it that she would no longer meddle.”
“You killed her?” I ask.
“No, nothing so ghastly as that,” says the Sister. “We simply…locked her away.”
I think back to the book from the library, the one that noted that the Youngest Sister had disappeared from the legends centuries ago. “You’ve kept her imprisoned for centuries?” I ask. “Because she disapproved of the havoc you two wreaked on the lives of others?”
“No, my dear,” says the Sister. “We locked her away because we grew weary of the girl who gained our father’s love without even trying.”
My laugh is wry. “Well, at least if you’re going to be jealous, you’re honest about it.”
The Sister cranes her head at me, and though I cannot distinguish the features of her shadowed face, I get the sickening feeling she’s peering into my very being.
“You should go to your husband, child,” she says. “Enjoy the little time you and your Mate have left.”
Before I can respond, she snaps her fingers, and the world goes black.
CHAPTER 24
When the world reemerges, I find myself back on the ground, staring up at the dark canopy. Footsteps pace beyond the brush, voices echoing.
“There has to be some way to follow her,” says Victor.
“Wait,” says Charlie. “Did the two of you hear that?”
A rustle in the brush, and Charlie and Victor appear.
“Winds!” Charlie calls out, rushing toward me and pulling me upright. “What happened? You were screaming one second, then gone the next.”
“Yeah, it was like the mountain swallowed you up,” says Victor, kneeling next to me, propping his elbows on his knees and wiping his black hair from his sweat-coated forehead.
I’m about to recount my experience in the Sister’s cottage, when from beyond the brush, Maddox’s voice croaks. “You know, if you all could have your reunion over this way, that would be nice.”
Charlie rolls her eyes, but there’s less disdain in the gesture than there used to be.
Once we reach Maddox, who is propped up against a log, a bandage tied around his still oozing wound, I give them a brief rundown of what occurred in the Youngest Sister’s cottage,though I leave out the part about the fate to which I’ve unintentionally conscripted my husband. It doesn’t feel just, to tell them before I tell him. Besides, I’m too ashamed to bear speaking the truth aloud.
I find I regret my silence on the matter when Maddox kicks my ankles softly from the ground and, beaming up at me, says, “You did it, Winds. All by yourself, you did it.”
“Winds, what are you waiting for?”
Victor and I stand outside the door to the room where we left Nolan.
