Page 81

Jinx writhes, stretching to coil around my form and the mirror. You’d be trapped by Alasdair again if you do. You might get the answer, but you wouldn’t be able to come back to tell him.

I sneer. “Of course, because why would anything be easy?”

I turn back to Valen and stumble back into Jinx’s ball when Emilia stands beside him. She glares at me, her blue eyes slitted like the blades she loves so much. Her words hiss through the divide. “You’re lucky he loves you, bitch.”

Her nail taps the glass and drags down. A sparking line slices through to flash on my end. I stagger back, Jinx wrapping around me like a fur coat, ready to strike. But before I can figure out how the hell she did that, a book slips through. I snatch it before it floats away and gape at the thin leather notebook I buried behind my pentagram.

My mind spirals, but one thought rears its head louder and angrier than the rest. “Were you the one who destroyed my bookshop, you crazy bi⁠—”

But she’s gone. The mirror is no more, and I am left standing in the wide expanse of the cosmos, holding a familiar notebook with no clue what I’m supposed to do with it.

CHAPTER 23

ASTORIA

It’s been four years since I’ve seen this notebook. I run my thumb over the cracked leather, my nail picking at some of the cement flakes that cling to it. I frown, running my palm over the cover. It’s thicker than I remember. And lumpier.

Warmth encases me when Jinx reforms her cocoon, sealing out the Weave to keep us safe and hidden, but I barely notice. I flip the notebook open, the leather and old paper crackling.

A long, beaded chain slips from the pages and pools into my awaiting hand, like it had been used as a bookmark.

I never thought I’d see that again, Jinx rumbles from all around.

“What is it?” There’s a little loop at one end that makes holding it up easy. The thread is lined with pearls separated by small, barrel-shaped onyx beads at odd intervals. Some pearls only have one or two barrel beads between them, while others have three or four.

It represents your Entropy Soul Thread. The priesthood would display the lengths and stones like badges of honor. The first red stone at the loop is the beginning of the family line.

I run my finger along the loop. Tiny onyx barrel beads line it to meet with an uncut ruby the size of my fingertip.

Then each onyx bead represents how many birthing cycles the priest participated in before conceiving. Once conceived, the chain would pass on to that child. On and on it would go. Slip your right middle finger through the first loop.

I do as she says, and the chain whips up my hand to wrap around and around my arm in a coil. I hold out my arm to better marvel at it. The pearls reflect the glow of my eyes, and my lips part in wonder. “This is a priesthood relic?”

Yes. It was Gildra’s, but Atticus discovered it within Viola’s room and took it. We thought he destroyed it.

I run my fingers over the pearls. There must be hundreds of them. “Why would Emilia slip it into the notebook? How did she get it?” Something clicks in place, and I suck in breath. “Rossana. Maybe that’s why she fled. She stole it back.”

I wouldn’t be surprised. Both Viola and her grieved for days after the chain was taken. Gildra made them both swear that you would one day be the chain’s safekeeper.

My heart pounds, and I twist my arm. A few rubies of various sizes dangle. I touch one, feeling the two green barrel beads that run along the branching thread that links it back to a pearl.

“Is this malachite?” I turn my arm to find another dangling ruby. This one branches from a pearl with a single blue barrel bead. “And… sapphire?” Three yellow stones link another red bead by my elbow. “Citrine? What are these?”

I told you. It’s the start of a new family line.

“These dangling ones, too?”

I can hear the eye roll. Yes! The priesthood had many new family lines. The blue stones are the start of a new Preservation line. The green, Transformation. And gold, Creation.

“But if the Soul Thread is one single line passed from parent to child…” My fingers tremble when they touch the red stone, my voice dropping to barely a whisper. “Jinx, are these… Dual Threads?”

Clearly.

“For the love of the Weave, Jinx! Do I have to pry it out of you? Pretend I’m a blithering idiot if that’s helpful and actually tell me.”

She sighs heavily. Dual Threads will always have at least two children. One for each of their Soul Threads. They can always sire or birth more children for their partner’s Soul Thread. It’s why they were so honored by the priesthood. The more rubies dangling on a chain, the higher your status.

I press my hand firmly over my heart when my Dual Threads now twist with the Archweaver line. “The Arachnomicon was from a Dual Threaded priest. I thought they could live to adulthood. I never dreamed that they could actually reproduce and pass on both of their threads like that.”