Page 94 of Crewel (Crewel World 1)

‘Most can’t. There are rumours of departments where men work with the weave, but the Guild always denies it.’

‘Do you think they exist?’ I ask, realising I’m finally getting more of the story.

‘Definitely. The Coventry is just the face of the Guild. What we do is important, but many more than us are at work.’

I have a hard time imagining someone more powerful than Loricel. ‘More important than you?’

‘My – our – skill,’ she corrects herself, ‘is necessary to harness the actual raw materials. Without that Arras would decay and crumble from within. Then they need Spinsters to add and maintain, but our value stops there.’

‘But they still need us.’ The Western Coventry alone houses a hundred girls and women who work shifts around the clock. There’s no way Arras could survive without Spinsters.

‘Yes, but if they could simulate our skill, they would not.’

‘That’s why they’re mapping me,’ I whisper.

‘They haven’t figured it out yet,’ she says. ‘But the rate at which they are producing manipulation technology worries me. It will not be long.’

‘I can’t let them map me again,’ I say, balling up my fist in my lap.

‘They won’t ask your permission,’ she says with a wry smile. ‘Besides, they already have you scheduled for it.’

‘Is Cormac communicating through you now?’

‘No, it’s my job to lie to you. Cormac assumes I won’t tell you the truth, because he believes I’ll put Arras above you.’ She stops and studies my face for a moment. ‘Because I always have in the past.’

‘Always?’ I ask.

‘It’s not my place to make a decision for you, especially considering what they have planned.’ Loricel’s eyes drift to the floor and when she looks back up, they wander between myself and the walls of her studio.

‘You don’t have to tell me what they have planned for me,’ I say. ‘I’m smarter than I look.’

She laughs, but no trace of amusement stays on her face. ‘They are going to map you again when you go in for evaluation.’ Her words burst forth as

though they’ve only barely managed to escape.

‘I see,’ I murmur.

‘No, you don’t,’ she says in a rush. ‘Then they plan to remap you.’

I think of the petty housewives at the State of the Guild thrilling at remapping their children; they were excited to make them more obedient. I push down the scream of anger threatening to spill out of my mouth, which will surely bring the guard up. How dare they?

‘They can study me all they want,’ I say.

‘Eventually they will find their answer—’

‘And then they can finally kill me.’ My heart no longer leaps when I speak of my death. Its inevitability is another fact of my new life here. I guess I’m transitioning well to the idea.

‘Maybe, but they’ll have to remap you first, to succeed in making you docile.’

‘I don’t think they could go far enough to make me docile,’ I say, the last word oozing with rage.

‘You saw how far he was willing to go with Enora,’ Loricel says.

‘Why do you think they tested the remap on Enora first? Because of her affair with Valery?’ I guess.

‘Criticism of the relationship was a ruse,’ Loricel says. ‘It provided an easy excuse to test it on her.’

‘Did she know? What they planned to do to her?’ I ask.