Melinora, the Mistress of Threads. My muscles stiffen at her approach. While her sisters unsettled me, there’s something far darker about this Fate. She doesn’t just see the past or the future; she sees the threads of life and cuts them when they fray.
Her joyous cackling echoes in the spiraling passageway. As she approaches, she dances in a circle around us, her limbs moving fluidly, bending in angles no fae could manage. “You’re here! You’re here! Never thought you’d get this far, no, I didn’t! Not that I know. What does Melly know? Nothing, nothing. Phillysees it all, Clio reads your past. I only hold your lives hanging in the balance!”
I try to step away from her, but she moves too quickly, caging us in. George gives a shuddering breath.
Melinora stops moving. Her limbs slacken. Though it seems impossible, her grin widens. “Two,” she says. “Two strings. The first.” She holds up her hand, revealing a dangling thread. It’s pale white but imbued with an ethereal blue glow. She strokes it across her straw face, and a shiver courses through me, like my bones are being licked clean.
“This one is so strong. Yes, so strong. Won’t be cut for a very long time. For a very, very, very, very, very, very,verylong time.”
“Put that away,” I growl.
She holds it up before her face, button eyes popping out for a closer look. A flappy cloth tongue licks across her sewn-on lips. “I watch it for fraying. Melly protects it.”
“Put my thread away, Melinora. You don’t need it right now,” I say sternly.
She makes a sound that’s half-hiss, half-pout, then tucks it into the pocket of her colorful dress. Her button eyes look to George.
“Now, this one,” she says, “is a special one.”
The thread she holds up is not like a string at all, but the branch of a willow tree. It looks … familiar.
I step closer. The top of it resembles a frosted branch in the dead of winter, the bark icy white. It melds to rich, dark brown with a sprig of cherry blossoms, followed by a lighter ash brown with a brilliant green palm sprig. The branch is capped by orange bark, a single maple leaf hanging on. Lines of black run up and down the branch and through the leaves, as if a sickness has taken root.
This branch … It reminds me of Castletree.
“This is a special one,” Melinora repeats. “I’ve been ready to snip it for a long time. I watch it every day. Should have been snipped ages ago. Not right for it to go on this long. Not right for his kind.”
Beads of sweat form on my brow despite the cool chamber. I grip George’s wrist and leg tighter. Melinora’s button eyes focus on him as she swings the branch back and forth. “Not right. Not right! Look at him! It needs to be snipped!”
George’s thread is so different than mine. He shouldn’t even have one in the first place; a human’s life has no place being held by a fae.
“It needs to be cut!” Melinora shrieks. The stitches of her mouth rip open, and her jaw unhinges, chunks of red fluff falling out. “Cut! Cut! Cut!”
She whips up her other arm, revealing a pair of scissors sewn into the wrist.
“No!” I cry and lunge forward, nearly dropping George. But it’s too late. The blades of the scissors snip around George’s thread.
The branch doesn’t cut. Melinora throws her head back and howls with laughter. She snips wildly at the branch, but nothing happens. “Can’t cut it! Can’t cut it!”
My heart hammers in my chest. I shove past the Fate, sprinting now through the maze. George’s heaving chest rattles against me. I hardly feel his weight, my only thought to get us away from her.
When my lungs can barely take in air and my legs scream, I collapse against the wall, letting George slide to the ground. Every part of me shaking, I clamber over the old man and lift his back up until he’s pressed to my chest.
The thread of his life looked like a piece of Castletree. He had been so sick in the Autumn Realm, but had awoken suddenly, renewed and filled with vigor.
Right after we had given our strength to Castletree.
“You’re … you’re connected to it, aren’t you?” I whisper.Aurelia, you are filled with tricks.
For the love of her life, she would do anything. Just as I will, for the love of mine.
“Rosalina,” I whisper, knowing she’s too far away to hear me. “I’m going to save them. I promise you.”
George’s heart is weak, now. I don’t know how to heal like Ezryn or how Farron transferred Dayton’s life force back into Rosalina. But I’ve spent years giving my energy to Castletree.
Rosalina is my home, and by wandering into my castle uninvited, this man brought her into my life. In that way, he is a piece of my home.
“Anya’s waiting for you,” I whisper. “Let us finish this.”
