Octavia blinked and came back into herself like someone surfacing from deep water. She swayed, then laughed, breathless and looking pleased.
“I adore when they rhyme,” she chirped happily.
Jakobav hadn’t moved. His knuckles were white where he gripped the window frame; he was listening with his whole body.
Ella was listening with the weight of her past and the fear of her future, attempting to hide the chill her body betrayed.
Octavia looked between them, mischief returning. “Now, that is enough doom before my second cup of tea. Let me see your hand, dear.”
Ella hesitated, then held out her hand, a voice inside her that wasn’t entirely her own mind told her to listen. Octavia pushed her sleeve up, exposing her wrist, then traced the crescent with a fingertip, and warmth flared again, then steadied.
Ella looked at Jakobav in that moment and saw him clock the mark on the inside of her wrist. His eyes widened, then his gaze cut toward Ella with suspicion.
Ella met his gaze, pleading silently, a tiny shake of her head asking him to save the questions for later.
Octavia was oblivious to the shift in the room; Ella looked away from Jakobav, avoiding his silent inquiry by focusing on Octavia.
“Threadwalker,” she murmured. “Yes. You step where doors should not open. Be careful, little ember. Threads can knot as well as guide.”
Her gaze snapped up, pupils wide as another vision took her. This one seemed lighter, or perhaps she was enjoying it more.
“Tall,” she said, absolutely delighted. “And handsome. Foreign to this soil in the old way. The fated pair will taste of elsewhere. And the children will be gorgeous, of course.”
Ella’s stomach turned. “Excuse me?”
Out of the corner of her eye Ella caught movement; Jakobav had gone rigid, then shifted as if he could no longer be still, crossing to the wall of shelves and lifting a glass jar with deliberate care, pretending to study the dried leaves within. Octavia kept speaking, untroubled, while Ella tracked him in her periphery, every line of him tight enough to snap.
Octavia sighed like a poet, emphasizing each word with enthusiasm and longing. “A riot of curls and eyes like stormwater. Clever little hands, eager to push boundaries. Oh, do say you will bring them to visit. I make the best spice cake. Convinces even toddlers to behave.”
Jakobav choked on nothing, and the jar slipped from his hand. Glass shattered against the floor. He swore under his breath. “Shit. Sorry.”
Octavia only waved a hand, unconcerned. “Don’t trouble yourself, dearie. A lot gets broken in here whenever my visions knock me out. Comes with the territory.”
Then his eyes narrowed, the air thickening as though the mention of children had set his blood on edge. “I’d say that’s enough vision talk for one day. She’s heard enough about her future even without your help.”
Ella stared at him, then away, then at him again, which did nothing to keep her mind from fixating on a select few of Octavia’s words: tall, handsome, and foreign in an old way. She knew of exactly two men that both fit that description.
Ella’s stomach churned as she tried to shove the words away, as though refusing them would make them less true. She told herself Octavia’s visions were nonsense, nothing but riddles draped in honey. But denial held only so long. The images pressed back against her, unwanted yet undeniable, and suddenly she was picturing faces despite struggling not to. Jakobav, steady and infuriating and far too close. And the Fae man of silver and shadow, whose presence unsettled her in a way she couldn’t quite smother—a draw she didn’t want, didn’t understand, and absolutely would not admit aloud.
Octavia clapped once, untroubled by anyone’s existential crisis. “More tea?”
“I think we’d better be on our way. It was interesting to meet you. Thank you for the kind words about my mother,” Ella said, very carefully, as if the floor might buckle if she were too loud.
Ella squirmed under Octavia’s bright stare, tugging her sleeve back down. Jakobav’s gaze caught the motion and slid to her wrist. He stilled, appearing to be putting something together that didn’t quite make sense. For a heartbeat he didn’t move,then his hand flexed once against his thigh, tendons sharp beneath the ink. His gaze hardened, the kind of look that said more than words ever could, and the line that cut between his brows warned her exactly how furious he was.
Her mind was spinning. Did he have any idea what the Thread-burn meant? Or was he just upset that she hadn’t told him about it? Ella was dying to ask him.
He drew a slow breath through his nose, controlled, almost too quiet, and when he finally looked away toward Octavia, the movement was clipped, as though every inch of him had been locked into restraint.
“We appreciate your time,” he said, the words even but carrying none of the ease of politeness.
Ella’s pulse tripped. He’d seen. He knew. And if not for the other woman watching them, she had no doubt he would’ve demanded answers right then and there. Answers she didn’t have.
Jakobav was the first to move. He turned on his heel and strode for the door without another word, his shoulders squared, his silence a wall she was forced to follow. Ella dipped her head once to Octavia, though her throat was too tight for speech, and trailed after him into the humid afternoon.
The air outside was dense, the forest waiting for them like a living thing. Jakobav didn’t slow, his steps cutting a path through the overgrowth. Ella kept close, the skirt of her dress snagging on bushes and brushing leaves still damp from an earlier rain. The jungle noise swelled and hushed in waves, a tide rising and falling, and beneath it, the taut thread between them was drawn tighter with each step.
The silence became unbearable. Panic rose in her chest, her face going pale. She stopped walking and folded her arms tight across her body. “So what, you’re just going to give me the silent treatment all the way back to Orchid? Or are we going to act likeadults and talk about it? Ask me what you want to know. Say it, Jake.”
