Page 125 of Stealing Tink

Nox swallows, blinks.

Blaise reaches out and holds my hand. “You said he was interrupted before he was finished.”

My hand flies to my mouth. “He was going to weave himself back into this realm.”

“Zora—”

“Stop calling me that!” I scream. “I don’t know who that is. All I know is that I killed him. I killed him before he had the chance to weave himself back in.”

Blaise and Nox go very still.

“Wait,” I say, grabbing onto the side of the couch. “You said the Fates always weave him back into whatever realm I’m in.”

“We’re not sure of the initial bargain,” says Nox. “All we know is what we can infer from the depictions we see in the tapestries that show up.”

I stare at them both, my mind empty, too blank to make words, to ask the question that needs asking.

“What Nox means is that we don’t know whether they’ll weave him back into this world,” says Blaise.

My heart stalls in my chest.

“Unfortunate as it is, it seems unlikely that they will. Especially if he was trying to weave himself back into this world on his own,” says Nox apologetically.

I stand there, empty-eyed, hearing nothing but their strange child talking to herself on the floor.

“Right,” I say, my throat forming a lump.

Nox goes to move toward me, but I take a step back. Sorrow fills his expression, and Blaise whispers something in his ear.

I don’t know what Nox is to me. Why he and his wife have been so invested in my comatose body, but for now, I don’t care. Don’t want to know.

“I want to see the tapestries,” I say.

CHAPTER 55

I spend the rest of the day poring over the tapestries. I don’t know what I’m searching for—proof the Nomad loved me? More time with him that I’ve lost to faded memories? A way to weave him back into my story, my life?

But the more I pore over the stories, the more distant I feel from the version of myself in the tapestries, the more distant I feel from the Nomad. It’s as if I’m watching from a window as this beautiful woman is swept off her feet by a mysterious stranger, wed to a man who loves her and supports her and makes her a mother of two beautiful little girls. Meanwhile, I’m left alone, in a room full of lifetimes that don’t quite seem like they belong to me.

Eventually, Blaise comes to find me, a cup of tea in her hand. She sits down cross-legged next to me, takes a tapestry in her lap, and begins to run her fingers over it.

“Nox is my brother, isn’t he?” I say.

“How’d you know?” asks Blaise.

“Because you’re really accepting for a woman whose husband watches over another woman all day long.”

Blaise laughs, then nudges me in the elbow. “Did I mention I like you? You know, for years Nox has talked up his sister. How adventurous, how wonderful you are. But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t the tiniest gremlin of a thought in the back of my mind wondering what if you woke up and turned out to be absolutely wretched? Then what would I do?”

It’s my turn to laugh, but as soon as I hear the sound, it feels as if a knife is piercing my throat, and I bite back a sob.

Blaise leans over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Hey. What is it?”

It’s strange. My gut reaction, since I can’t get the words out through the sobs, is to tell her with my hands. But when Blaise looks down at my signs, her brow knits with confusion.

Finally, I’m able to choke out, “In my last life, the one before this one, my voice was taken away. It’s been years…”

Blaise frowns. “Who took it?”