But there was no more space to hold it. Not now that Gretchya had chosen to save Iseult. Not now that Alma was dead. Iseult had refused to move in time, and worse—so, so much worse—Iseult had refused to be the one thing Alma had so clearly always wanted: a friend. A sister.

And in that moment, Iseult realized she had been wrong. For eighteen years, she’d had it so backward. Her mother had feelings. Her mother felt love. And so had Alma. Of course they both had. They were human.

And Iseult was human too.

But just as Iseult had wanted to take Owl into her arms and tell her everything would be all right, Gretchya hadn’t known how. Her own mother had been a Threadwitch with love buried deep beneath stasis, just as every mother before her had been. An endless, icy cycle because Threadwitches were not meant to feel, were not allowed to display. So Iseult had become exactly the same in turn, alongside Alma. Isolated, cold, alone but always wanting.

Oh, how much Iseult had never seen, had willingly turned her eyes away from. No one had rejected her; she’d simply rejected herself. Now, she was caught in this moment, and just as Gretchya had warned, there could be no coming back from it.

She had done something irredeemably wrong because she was a monster and it was all she could ever do. Where were her gods now? Where was Wicked Cousin to intervene? Where was Trickster to step in and reanimate a little hedgehog? Where was Moon Mother to wash away her pain?

You tell too many stories, Aeduan had said, and it had been true. Iseult had clung to old tales that always ended happily. That always saw the heroine win because it had been easier than feeling. Or looking at the truth. But now there would be no perfect ending. No grand adventures for the rest of Alma’s days.

Reanimation. The word slithered into Iseult’s mind, sly as an assassin in the night. It might have been Esme’s thought, it might have been her own. Either way, the word came again: Reanimation. Eridysi had described the magic in her diary—in the pages Iseult had read only a day before. Portia had been so close to true restoration of life. All she’d lacked was the power of an Aetherwitch.

An Aetherwitch who could see Threads instead of simply feel them. Who could assess the nuance needed to reattach life to a corpse growing cold.

Iseult’s heart gave a sigh. Perhaps it was simply the familiarity of the logic she’d always relied on, but in that moment, a plan settled into place.

“Reanimation.” The word jumped from her tongue, directed at Corlant though her gaze skipped to her mother. Tears had left streaks on Gretchya’s cold-flushed cheeks, though still she kept her features blank.