Page 34 of The Moorwitch

I can only breathe easily again when she leaves, shutting my door behind her. Alone in my room, my hand clutching the letter in my pocket, I make sure my door is locked before taking out one of my valises from the wardrobe. It’s two days before I’m supposed to report back to Lachlan, but after what I found in the cottage, I can’t wait that long. I need to know what happened to Fiona, and I know Lachlan has the answers. I told Mrs. MacDougal I needed to rest after my walk to town and back this morning, and she seemed relieved to leave me to my room for the afternoon.

Opening the valise, I pull out the large tapestry Lachlan acquired from the Telarii Guild, holding my breath as I do. It unrolls with a rustle, heavy as a carpet, thumping on the floorboards.

The tapestry is magnificent, perhaps the most expensive thing my hands have ever touched. It is one of a matched set, and the twin is with Lachlan in the castle.

Pushing a chair to the window to stand upon, I hang it from the curtain rods and then step back to drink it in. The pattern is elaborate, worked in vibrant crimson, deep cerulean, ocher, ecru, and bursts of yellow gold, all winding in a spiraling starburst that reminds me of the pattern I first wove to summon Lachlan into my uncle’s study. The threads are expertly woven, and it must have taken years to complete, which tells me this plan of Lachlan’s has been some time in the making.

I pull up the lower corner of the tapestry to inspect the back, where the threads are rough and bundled, showing the depth of the craftsmanship. The ends of the threads are frayed and tangled together like the shaggy hide of one of the highland cattle Sylvie and I passed on the road. I run my hands over it and feel the strength of the weft beneath, and within it, the hum of enormous magic. The tapestry practically simmers with energy. I marvel as long as I can, before remembering I should get this over with before Mrs. MacDougal calls me for dinner.

Reaching out, I put a hand on the tapestry and let out a long, slow breath. Dread and hesitation mix in my belly, but my skin is alive with eager curiosity.

Telepestry is one of the greater arts of Weaving; teleportation through tapestry is extremely expensive and thus quite rare. I cannot think of anyone I know who ever attempted it. And the threads are limited in use, as all threads are. Lachlan told me this tapestry had perhaps a half dozen uses in it before it would turn to ash. Looking at the artistry of the Weave, I feel a wistful pang that it should ever be reduced to such.

Using the tapestry requires no channeling on my part; I wouldn’t have the strength to fill it even without my old vowknot strangling my power. No, this tapestry would have called for multiple master Weavers pouring energy into it over the course of many days. Now it is fully charged and humming. When I close my eyes, I can hear it like the muffled sound of a beehive.

Grand magic indeed,Lachlan had called it only yesterday. It feels like a month ago now.

As an afterthought, I cross the room and rummage through the items on the bureau, settling on an iron snuffer. I tie it beneath my overskirt, hiding it in the folds of my dress. It knocks against my thigh as I return to the tapestry, feeling slightly more protected.

There is one long, braided thread hanging from the center of the pattern, and I take firm hold of it. Then, with a little exhalation, I step forward, pushing into the Weave.

The tightly woven threads part between my hands reluctantly, as if reality were pushing back against this intrusion into its laws, insisting such magic should not be possible. But I push through anyway, wrenching threads apart as if they were vines, struggling to pass between them. Then I am through, into what seems like another world—anotherreality—entirely. And the sight that greets me there is dizzying.

Chapter Eleven

Lachlan had described this place as theoutsideof the world, reality turned inside out, where the very fabric of existence might be seen in its raw form.

To my right and left, and all around, I see nothing but threads: thousands, millions of them, twisting and twining every way, andpulsingas if they were alive. It reminds me of the backside of the tapestry itself, and I feel like an ant crawling through them. My steps land on a woven ground which gives way slightly, as if I were walking on damp earth. The threads around me move like rivers, stretching into infinity, no gaps between them that aren’t filled with even more threads. In them I see every color of the spectrum, and colors I’ve never seen before, and some threads glow as if infused with magic.

Lachlan didnotprepare me for this.

Where the threads rub against me, they feel nothing like wool or silk at all, but the way I’d imagine the sting of a jellyfish might feel—sharp and alive and sizzling. I flinch away from them, mind reeling, remembering Lachlan’s pointed warning not to grasp them.

This is not a power given to any, mortal or immortal,he had told me.It has been tried, and the price is always death.

My ears fill with the sound of countless rushing and whispering threads, like the roar of a fast and powerful river, and a little like thebuzz of a thousand congealing voices on a busy London market day. It’s enough to drown me if I am not careful; already I feel the many currents of threads pulling at me, threatening to sweep me away.

Lachlan had warned me to hold fast to the guide, lest I be forever lost on the wrong side of reality, and to keep my eyes shut until I was firmly through. But terrible as this place is, I couldn’t possibly block it out; it’s the same urge I get to stare straight into the heart of a thunderstorm, even with the lightning splintering the sky around me. I dare not remove either hand from the guiding thread, but I can still look around and boggle at the warp and weft all around. I push through, forcing one step after another.

My mind feels as if it’s crumpling, buckling under the impossibility of this place and this magic. Lights spark in my vision, and I hurry forward faster, now watching the thread in my hands as it leads me through.

It takes no more than eight steps before I find myself pushing through the other tapestry, one which materializes before me out of the great teeming, flowing fabric all around. Every portal, Lachlan had explained, has an anchor—a mirror of itself which forms the exit point, like two doors spread far apart. Gasping now for air, my head aching from the effort and my stomach tossing violently, I let out a cry and throw myself through the second tapestry, and land on the dirt floor of the ruined castle, the fae all around me.

After catching my breath, I turn and see the twin to the tapestry in my room hanging behind me, fully intact despite my having just climbed through it. It is hung on a wooden frame like a tanner’s skin, the guide thread dangling from its center. Around it rise the stone walls of the castle ruins, and the damp moor air chills my skin.

I step away, still reeling, to search for Lachlan. Fae glance at me as I pass, and whisper to one another in their rustling language. I ignore them and work my way through the ruins, wrapped tightly in my shawl, one hand gripped around Fiona’s letter. The wind whistles through the cracks and gaps in the walls.

If Lachlan is surprised to see me two days early, he does not show it. He stands in front of the ruins, more wild and fae than I’ve seen him yet, with a silver brooch binding the lace at his throat. His hair is unbound, pale strands loose on his shoulders and fine as silk threads. He wears no coat, despite the cold, only an old-fashioned doublet of royal blue, shot through with silver threads, over tight breeches and knee-high black boots. He looks like a dandy lordling out of a bygone century, and on any other person the outfit would be ridiculous. Instead, he makes me feel underdressed and at odds with the setting, as if I am the one out of time, not he.

Lachlan spreads his hands. “Rose Pryor, did you miss me—?”

“What happened to her?” I demand, stopping short and clenching my fists. I am still trembling from my strange passage here; when I shut my eyes, I see the great forest of threads pulsing on the back of my eyelids, whispering and coiling and twisting like snakes.

Lachlan frowns. “Who?”

“The woman,” I say, thrusting the letter toward his face. “The old Weaver.Fiona.”

He blinks once, then understanding dawns in his eyes. “That old thing? She is probably dust and bones by now.”