Until something shifted in the air.
The fountain hiccupped. Once. Then again—deeper, wrong, like a heartbeat skipping a step. Lanterns overhead flared too bright and began to drip, glass stretching into hot teardrops that hardened midair and shattered like frost. Stalls shuddered; canvas warped into timber, then back again, grotesque in-between. The square’s hum bent off-key.
A chord plucked too hard beneath the skin.
The third loom.
Maude felt it flare across the ley—bright, hungry. Not breaking. Not yet. But reaching with sticky, greedy fingers past the boundaries she’d given it.
Her stomach plunged. Salt crawled down her spine.
She tilted her head as if angling to hear the Weftmark more clearly and did the math that had been running in the back of her skull since dawn: Samhain’s tide rising, the whole town’s attention braided tight, magistrates meddling at the net, the first loom holding steady at the North Gate—until the third tried to carry more than it was built to hold.Of course it did.
The music faltered. Children froze mid-dance, wooden swords lifted in question.
Her stomach dropped again.
“Mau—” Wesley started.
“I know.” She was already moving. “I know.”
A murmur sharpened to a point. Someone shouted, “The witch!”—because of course they did. Nothing delights a crowd like blaming a woman.
Heads snapped toward them as they bolted for the wyvern. A row of carved pumpkins warped—faces stretching, grins sagging—before snapping back into place. A chair split into two, then collapsed back into one, ugly and indecisive. The wyvern fountain’s eyes flashed lacquer-bright, then dulled; water hiccupped in the basin like it was trying not to retch.
“Selene!” Maude shouted, because she needed the only competent person besides herself—and Selene was already running.
Oli skidded in beside them, glitter looking suddenly absurd in the bad light. He gripped Maude’s elbows, eyes gone flat. “What do you need?”
Her hands were already in her satchel. “The fountain. She’s pulling too hard. Selene—second loom. Rosemary on the northern quadrant, yarrow ash on the southwest seam, heartmire salt across the sigil. Light touch. Don’t let the bind choke.”
Selene didn’t argue. Healer eyes, sharp and calm. “On it.”
“Oli—distract them.” Maude drew out the fireworks box, enlarging it. “Light the sky. Keep their eyes up and their feet back.”
“Are you sure you don’t need me?” Oli’s jaw was set.
“Don’t worry,” Wesley answered, steady. “I’ve got her.”
No theater in it. Just truth. Oli searched his face, found whatever he needed, kissed Maude’s forehead, and sprinted after Selene—already shouting about fireworks to a boy with the look of someone who’d just been given his first quest.
The square was tipping toward panic. Magistrates’ ledgers snapped open like jaws. Veyne’s voice carried, oily and righteous—“Stand back! Stand back! Witchcraft!”
Maude seized Wesley’s wrist. They ran. The crowd peeled back the way people do for calamity, for authority, for women who look ready to bowl you over with a jug if you don’t move.
They reached the wyvern in a handful of strides that felt like a thousand. The fountain’s water sloshed wrong, spilling in thick, syrupy ropes that clung where they landed, then snapped back like elastic. The Weftmark beneath the basin—ironvine ring, blackthorn teeth, waxed shadowbell heart—glowed too bright, the hum pitched high enough to make her skull ring.
All around, Market Square was forgetting itself. A baker’s stall and a cooper’s bench had leaned too close and gotten ideas, reshaping into an ungainly creature with flour drawerswhere hoops should be. Two neighbors who’d been arguing over goblin-made spoons a moment ago now found their coats fused at the shoulder—threads knitting fast, deciding they were married. Maude flicked her hand, muttered a quick word, and the fibers snapped apart. The men stumbled, looking at her as if she’d both slapped and saved them, before scuttling back into the crowd.
“Okay,” Wesley said, low, both to her and to the fountain and to the part of himself that counted by intuition. “Talk me through it.”
Her hands shook. She hated that they shook. “We re-anchor, slow the draw, give her something sweeter to drink.” She dumped her satchel at the fountain’s edge. “Night-apple peel—covering agent. Glasswort resin—stabilizer, three drops only. Heartmire salt to tune the balance. If I overdo it, she’ll eat us.”
He reached without hesitation. “Night-apple.”
She slapped the dark ribbon of peel into his palm. “Wrap the ironvine clockwise. Don’t cross the ends.”
“Yes, chef,” he said, then grimaced. “Sorry. Habit.”
