Rebecca’s skin turned to azure scales.

“Do you have it?” Bitterlich asked, fending off tooth and tail.

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Tug,” he said. “Pull. Draw it out slowly. One long thread. Can you feel it?”

“It’s tight. Doesn’t want to move.”

“Calm it,” Bitterlich coughed.

“How?” Rebecca wailed, fear rising again.

“Ask it,” Bitterlich said. “Ask it what it wants. Ask it with your soul.”

“It wants to eat me!” Rebecca snapped, her fear leaping to anger.

“Why did it come here?” Bitterlich whirled around with her. “It must have come in when the ship sank. Why?”

Rebecca’s gaze unfocused. “I can feel it. What it feels. It’s hungry. It’s scared. It wants to hide.”

“Show it a safe space,” Bitterlich said. “Imagine a dark hole, a close space, someplace safe and sound. You will make it safe.”

“Safe,” she muttered.

“Pull the thread,” he urged, pleading with whatever saints watched over her.

“I’ve got it,” she said. “It’s coming.”

Bitterlich coughed and choked, giddy with the fumes. “Pull it to your center, but slowly, carefully. It should feel as if it is unraveling.”

“Like pulling on the loose thread of a blanket,” Rebecca said.

“Yes,” he said. “Now you’re going to unweave the whole thing.”

It felt like it took an hour for Rebecca to spool the whole wyrm, though it could not have been more than a few minutes. It was exhausting work, and more than once she wanted to quit, but no one could do this for her. At Bitterlich’s coaxing, she spun her thread, hooked it into her core, and wove a careful, diligent web on which many other shapes could someday be strung. The more she pulled, the more the wyrm dissolved. It was like watching fluffy wool carded out and spun into finest thread.

Bitterlich made her spin it fine and pull it tight. It was a curse of the Breaker that a Seelenjäger’s greatest weaving had to be her first, for this would be her erstepelz, the skin she wore the rest of her life. Too many Seelenjägers had been betrayed by their own haste and left a tangled knot where their finest work should be. Some found themselves unable to change into their beast, or worse, unable to change back.

“The finer the thread, the smoother the cloth.” He made her go slow no matter how much she cried.

At last Rebecca’s hands, which had been mimicking weaving, halted with a final spasm and her awareness came back from the other space where she’d been doing her work.

“It’s done,” she mumbled. “Nothing left to do, anyway.” She clutched at Bitterlich’s shirt. “Never could find the bloody card.”

“Ah,” Bitterlich said producing the card. “Here you go.”