Page 127 of The Moorwitch

“Some things are stronger than even you,” I whisper.

“What, like love? What’s the point of falling in love if you’re toodeadto enjoy it?”

I lift my head and realize I haven’t moved at all since she took hold of me. Instead I’ve sunk into the threads; they’re up to my knees now, swirling, coiling, sucking me down. But I look at her—my eight-year-old self, small and terrified and alone—and I know her for what she is: She is the fear which controlled me all these years. She’s been with me forever, making every choice for me, ruling me, driving me away from the small chances I’d had at happiness and love and true freedom.

You’re afraid ofbeingafraid,Morgaine had said, seeing to the heart of me in a matter of moments.

But it wasn’t for fear that I destroyed the Dwirra branch, and it wasn’t for fear that I danced the spell of homage to open the way to Elfhame.

“It was love,” I whisper. “I love Conrad, and I love Sylvie. More than I fear death. More than the loss of magic.”

“Without magic, we are nothing!”

“No.” I shake my head. “That ... is the lie I told myself, isn’t it? It is the lie Lachlan exploited to control me. But I am so much more than my magic. I am ...” It is Conrad’s words which weave through my thoughts, tethering me to myself, helping me to see clearly. “I am a teacher. I am passionate and stubborn and clever. I love my students and defend those who cannot defend themselves and go toe-to-toe with injustice. With or without magic, that is who I am. Who Ichooseto be.”

My little specter presses her hands to her face, her eyes welling with tears. “I am afraid!”

“I know. I am too.” I take her hand and pull her close, whispering in her ear, “But we won’t let that control us anymore.”

She shudders, crying into my shoulder. I shut my eyes and hold tightly to her.

“It’s all right,” I murmur. “It’s all right.”

My heart thuds, sending spikes of pain twisting around my ribs, piercing my spine. An agonized moan slips from my throat.

“Rose?Rose!”

I blink in confusion as the tenor of my little self’s voice shifts, growing lighter. When I pull back, I find it is Sylvie in my arms, her very real and small, warm body folded into mine for shelter. Her large, misty green eyes fasten upon my face.

“Rose, are you all right?”

I grimace, pressing a fist to my splintering chest. “Help me up, Sylvie.”

Clinging to her hand, I struggle upward, pulling myself free of the threads. Looking back, I see the MacDougals also bogged down, their eyes glazed over, their minds bending as mine had to the maddening surreality of this place. Only Captain seems wholly unaffected; he licks Mrs. MacDougal’s hand and whines, trying to rouse her.

We have to get out of here, before I lose them entirely. I may be on my final journey, my doom already certain, but Fates damn me if I drag Sylvie and Mr. and Mrs. MacDougal down with me.

“Up!” I shout, my voice ragged and weary, but now with an iron, unyielding edge. “Get up! All of you!”

Ruthlessly I bully them until they find their feet, then I usher them onward like a collie, pushing and tugging. As I herd them along, I look around, eyes probing the threads. My heart wrenches itself this way and that, but the pain is so constant now that I give up on fighting it. I let it wash over me; I accept its every bite, and still I keep moving forward.

If this is the back of the Fates’ tapestry, then these threads are connected to the real world. The weft and warp are hidden from view, but that doesn’t mean the pattern behind them is sheer chaos. The colors must mean something—the lighter gray could be sky, the green trees, the lavender the moors. And the sparkling, glowing threads between them are living things: horses and rabbits, humans and faeries.

The moorwitches walked these threads. They knew how to find their way, even without tapestries and guide threads to lead them. They vanished in one spot and appeared in another, and now I know how they did it: They navigatedthisplace, the underside of the world. The fae do it too; they built their haven here, Elfhame a bubble world latched on the wrong side of reality, supported and nourished by the Dwirra Tree.

I look around with more purpose now, casting about not just for some random door, but for certain signs. And I begin to see them: a rippling mass of threads with colors reminding me of the Three Fates Bluff, grays like slate and fog, a glowing knot that must be Blackswire and its people. I push toward a green cluster in the opposite direction. These strands are thick and coarse and densely bound together, much the way the ancient forest is, where the now-broken stone circle stands.

Sylvie and the MacDougals follow without too much resistance; now and again one will slow and stop, eyes turning to fog, mouth slack, but I pull them until they move again. I don’t know why my own head stays clear. But then, I hadn’t felt the grasping madness of this place when I’d traversed it with Lachlan’s guide thread; now, perhaps, mypurposebecomes my guide thread. I find my way forward the way I always have: by seeing the patterns at work, using an instinct that’s been in my blood since I was a child, long before I ever met the silver faerie.

This is a talent all my own, a power bargained away to no one. I lean on that intuition now more than I ever have before, throwing my full hope into that instinctive part of me which can look at a complex knot and find the single thread to undo it.

“We’re getting close,” I say, though the others give no indication that they can hear or understand me. I drag them on anyway, and my pain too, and feel the shadow of my fear creeping along in my periphery. Fear, always with me, even when I feel my bravest. I suppose that is the nature of it, and it can only be accepted. That’s all right. I know now that I can be afraid and still keep moving. I can be in theworst pain a body could feel and still keep moving. I can lose my magic to the last drop and still keep moving.

Threads grow thicker here. They cluster like vines, tickling my neck and face. They flow around me, coil over my shoulders, moving in an almost sentient manner, snakelike.

Then I reach up to brush away one persistently tickling thread—and realize it’s no thread at all, but a branch as pale and crooked as an old crone’s finger. And it’swarm.

My breath hitches; I move more quickly, my heart stretched and splintering, my strength fading even as I push through spindly branches for what seems like hours, towing my four charges along with me, feeling warm bark and papery leaves raking my skin—