And there were the silver Threads. There was the monster’s maw leaking shadows. Ice sizzled over her. And in that moment, time stopped completely.

Later, Iseult would wonder how such a thing was possible. Later, she would assume she’d imagined the whole thing. But as it happened, there was too much time for thought. Too much time to pick apart where everything had gone so terribly wrong. And too much time to realize exactly what would happen the instant time resumed.

Alma would die, and she, Iseult, would die too.

It wasn’t her rage that had killed this time, though. It wasn’t her power of the Puppeteer breaking the world at its seams. Instead, it was stasis. Indiscriminate in its target. Cold in its indifference. By doing nothing, Iseult had chosen to do something.

And there was no way to logic herself out of that truth. Her numbness had a price, and now there would be no escape from these frozen jaws made of Void. No escape from the vengeful witches waiting just behind.

Iseult had no one to blame but herself. She’d lived with blood on her hands and she would die that way too. Payment for all her mistakes. Punishment for all she’d done wrong.

I’m sorry, Iseult thought. To Alma, dying nearby. To Safi, hundreds of miles away. To her mother, shrouded by smoke and snow. Gretchya had lifted her blade, had raised a single leg.

It would seem she was finally taking action. She was finally making a choice and moving in exactly the way Iseult had failed to do.

Which was good, Iseult thought. She would save Alma, the girl who didn’t deserve to die. The girl bound to Aether, who would lead as a Threadwitch ought to lead and whose blood didn’t pump with wickedness and wrong.

Iseult closed her eyes. She didn’t want to watch her mother choose.

Time resumed. Silver Threads beat down. Ice knifed through her, and screams pummeled her bones. Any moment now, the wyrm would reach her. Any moment, any moment.

I’m sorry, Alma. I’m sorry, Safi. I’m sorry, Mother.

Except the teeth never came.

Instead, a body crashed into her. Threadless and strong and attached to a voice screaming, “Stay back!” Then Gretchya roared again, a shriek of indomitable rage. “No one touches my daughter!”

Aeduan found the child’s collar beneath the spruce. No sign of the strange weasel that had been with her, the one that had smelled of flooded rivers and freedom. The wood had not been sawed or broken. In fact, it lay perfectly intact upon the frozen ground, not even opened. As if she’d slipped it right over her head.

Rosewater and wool-wrapped lullabies. Her scent smelled as it always had, and the first Aeduan responded to it.