Each step brought more cold, more darkness. Her heart hurt in a way she did not know a heart could hurt. As if she were losing her magic all over again. As if the very core of her identity was being sucked away.

When she made the mistake of glancing down at her hands, she saw small black lines rippling beneath the surface. She was not cleaving yet—she was not turning into the husk made of shadows that Caden had become in Saldonica—but she would be. Soon.

After several turns in the tunnel, the ground dipped sharply. Steep steps had been carved into the stone, and Zander helped Safi descend. Without depth perception, without color, it was almost impossible to see where each foot needed to go. Zander’s touch, frozen and numbed though it was, was the only thing that kept her upright.

They were close now. She could feel it, like a new calling, a new tug. Now, instead of the noose yanking at her to run back, the Loom was yanking her to run forward.

When at last she and Zander reached the Loom, Safi’s footsteps were mere thudding shambles beneath her. She leaned heavily on Zander, and sensed more than saw that they had entered a large cavern with a vast empty bowl spanning before her, as if some god had planned to add a lake here but then forgotten.

What Safi did see was the actual Loom. “Gods below,” she rasped, gaping at it while Zander held her upright.

“Yes,” he replied.

“The shadows.” Safi squinted at the undulating mass before her. It reminded her of an anthill she’d seen as a child. It had been filled with so many ants that the ground itself had appeared to move.

“Souls,” Zander explained. “Each shadow is a Hell-Bard’s soul.”

So mine is in there, Safi thought. And yours too. Aloud, she said, “Brace me, please.” And then she felt his arms slide around her. She could not feel his warmth, could not feel his breath or see his face, but there was a comfort in knowing he was there.

With fumbling, frozen hands, Safi withdrew her Truth-lens, tucked in an inside pocket of her training clothes. Zander’s gentle fingers helped lift the lens to her eye. Then suddenly she could see. A flicker of silver. A flash of orange. A spinning, writhing trail of blue. Threads, she realized. Iseult had described them so many times over the years, Safi had no doubt she was watching them now. Yet she had never realized how vibrant they were. How rich and real and beautiful.

Overwhelming too. She couldn’t conceive how her Threadsister had gone through life seeing such shades and movement all the time. No relief, no escape. It explained why Iseult had detached herself simply to exist.