Page 107 of The Moorwitch

“Not spells,” I reply quietly. “I puzzled over them for a while until I realized what they were. I had a teacher in the Order who specialized in hidden Weaving languages, used in times and places where magic has been forbidden in the past. It was a way of communicating safely between Weavers. I believe your mother’s people used something similar to the Weaving dialects of the northern Indian subcontinent, and if I am correct, then this appears to be a record of your mother’s travels.”

His eyes lift to mine, wide and hungry. “How do you mean?”

The clock’s hands creep onward, its ticking a hammer against my skull. But Conrad is looking at me with such desperation. He reminds me of Sylvie that night I caught her Weaving, begging for magic. Pleading for answers.

Once again, I find myself torn between the teacher and the Weaver. My two halves have been at constant odds since the moment I arrived at Ravensgate.

“Well, look here.” I scoot closer and spread the shawl so it covers both our laps like a treasure map. “See, this pattern marks her birth in Turkey, but she traveled all through Europe and the Mediterranean before coming to the British Isles. Each section of the design corresponds to a different country.” I point out each one woven into the scarf, tracing the journeys of Vera North through Damascus, Crete, Rome, Paris, Lisbon, and more. But after a while, I become conscious of Conrad’s eyes on me, and not the fabric.

I pause, looking up at him, and find myself unprepared for the heat of his gaze. His eyes catch the lamplight, threads of gold twining through his irises. His thigh rests against mine, the heat of him sending warmth rolling up my hip to pulse in my belly. I feel nearly sick with it, the quiet, soft nearness of him making me lightheaded.

“You did this for me?” he asks softly.

The warmth in my abdomen travels up my neck as I look down at the scarf. “I suppose I’ve a weakness for tattered, forgotten things. I couldn’t bear to see it left to unravel.”

He watches me still, the crackling fire and the ticking clock the only sounds in the room.

“You are a North, Conrad, and this manor is your home.” I slide my hand over the record of Vera’s travels until my little finger comes to rest against his. “But this is your story too. A story woven in thread across continents.”

Breathless and still, I watch his little finger graze over mine, his knuckle exploring the sensitive skin of my fingertip.

I clear my throat. “You, er, said you had a gift for me?”

He blinks, pulling back as if freed from a spell. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

He raises the little box, extending it to me. I stare at it, and my stomach turns over.

“’Tis an apology gift,” he says, his tone rough at the edges. He does not quite meet my eyes. “For being such an arse, after ... the revel. And it is a thank-you gift. For everything you’ve done. In finding Sylvie. And for the house.”

“For thehouse.”

His voice is as soft as a settling leaf. His fingers curl in the scarf. “And for me.”

I look down at the box; it’s tied with a thin gold ribbon. “This isn’t necessary.”

“Well, are you going to open it, or shall I cast it into the fire and be off?”

“Fates, must you be so dramatic?” I pull the ribbon apart and tuck it in my nightgown pocket, then lift the lid of the box.

And gasp.

“Is this ...?No.It can’t be.” I touch the slender skein of yellow-gold thread. “Conrad.Conrad.”

I jolt to my feet and begin pacing, my heart thudding against the wall of my chest.

He looks at me shyly, a boyish flush to his cheeks. “Do you like it?”

“I—I’m not even sure I should be touching it.” But I do, reverently, letting it slide over my hands and savoring its smoothness, its weightlessness. The fibers in the thread are finer than the hairs on a newborn’s head.

“Sea silk,” Conrad says. “The rarest and most powerful thread in the world.”

“I know,” I whisper.

I remember the sea silk I saw in the King Street Threadshop, kept under glass with its own guard to stand watch over it.

The skein in the box Conrad gave me is thirty times the length that one was.

“This is worth a king’s ransom,” I say. “Conrad, how did you—?”