I twist my mouth, weighing my words, searching for the right thing to say, and in the end it’s simply, “Thank you.”
“Better manners every day,” he murmurs. “Take her to my quarters, and put her hands in gages. We don’t want her wandering off.”
The inside of the aeroship is voluminous and austere. Great metal ribs arch overhead, and my footsteps echo across the metal flooring as the guards lead me. My hands are secured with gages, inflexible gloves that prevent the use of my hands. It occurs to me as my gaze sweeps over the thin metal walls and pressed-glass windows that I could try to escape, that I should try to escape. I’m not interested though. Cormac has no idea he’s taking me exactly where I need to go.
The final words Einstein whispered to me as the house crumbled echo through my mind: Destroy the looms. If you choose this path, others will follow you as Whorl. Embrace and trust them, but know their hearts. As you must know your own.
I’ve made my choice. My destiny is one of my own choosing.
Standing, I wander to the small round window and peer out. The aeroship glides along a thin series of strands from the Interface. The world beneath us is made of blocks, gray and black in the lack of light. I imagine the boat, fighting the waves, pushing forward against the tide, and peace settles over me.
“It’s lovely.”
Cormac’s voice startles me, and I turn to find him in the doorway.
“Lovely,” I repeat in a flat voice.
“You must enjoy it. The Interface,” he says. He crosses to a chair and pours himself a drink. The scene is familiar, but I’m not the girl Cormac used to order around anymore.
“I’m not very interested in it,” I say to him.
“The energy doesn’t call to you? The pure, brutal force of the universe?” Cormac takes a long swig, studying me over the rim of his glass. “I doubt that. Not up here, this close to it.”
I look back out the window at the tangle of threads the ship gathers as it moves across the sky as though it’s a fly caught in a spiderweb.
“So what now?” I ask. “A remap? An alteration? A wedding?”
“We will work together for a mutually beneficial solution,” Cormac says. “I’m a man of my word, Adelice.”
“Since when?”
“I’m not Kincaid. I have no interest in destruction,” he snarls. “We can work together. I’ll make you immortal.”
I nod, but I know we’re both lying to ourselves as much as to each other. I’m unwilling to turn a blind eye to how the Guild wants to control the world. “I will help you sever and bind Arras and Earth, but I have no interest in immortality.”
“That’s your foolish youth talking.” He sets down the glass, abandoning it in favor of lecturing me. “Talk to me in your thirties, when time’s winged chariot draws near.”
“My answer will be the same,” I say.
“I doubt that.”
“I only have one goal in life.”
Cormac’s head cocks to the side, inviting me to share it.
“To never be like you,” I say.
His smile doesn’t slip, but he pushes up from his chair. “You are powerful, Adelice. It’s time to accept that. Arras needs you more than ever. Things are happening there and I need you to help me achieve peace.”
“Peace,” I echo, wondering if he knows what that means. I’m not sure I even know.
“Think about it,” Cormac says. “For now, please excuse me.”
“Need a trip to the little boys’ room?” I ask.
“I have missed your wit.” He chuckles and opens the door.
She’s standing in the hall, waiting, her arms crossed protectively against her small chest. She bites her lip when she sees me, her eyes finding the floor rather than facing me. My fingers flex against the gages that imprison them.
“This is what you call being a man of your word?” I roar as he takes Amie’s arm.
“I said she could go,” Cormac says, “but she chose to stay.”
“You promised.” My words are as weak as the final thread holding together a seam.
“You can’t have it both ways,” he says. Amie won’t meet my eyes. “You can’t claim your own free will and strip someone else of it.”
“You do it all the time,” I point out. I walk as calmly as I can toward the door.
Amie steps behind Cormac and my heart sinks.
“Ames,” I say softly. “You have a choice. You always will. But this life is the wrong one.”
“I made my choice,” she says.
I swallow back the words that I want to unleash. It’s the wrong choice.
“I’ll be here if you change your mind,” I offer instead.
“I won’t.” Her tone is set. Determined. “You’re a freak.”
Cormac’s black eyes meet mine as she turns to him. He pats her shoulder and leads her away, and I watch as my sister chooses the monster of my nightmares.
Outside the window, the Interface grows thicker. Light flashes and sizzles across the pane as the sky shifts to blinding white. On the other side lies a darkness I can finally face and a destiny I will control even as the web consumes me, taking me back to the Coventry.
Acknowledgments
So many people helped and supported me in writing this book, and I am and will continue to be grateful for their insights, advice, and encouragement.
Special thanks to the spectacular team at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group and Farrar Straus Giroux for their enthusiasm and passion for this project. I am so lucky to have an editor that knows her stuff. Thank you, Janine O’Malley. I’m extra lucky to have a fantastic publisher in Simon Boughton. Thank you to my publicist, Allison Verost, who never ceases to amaze me and who is the best traveling companion a girl could ask for. A big thanks to Ksenia Winnicki, Caitlin Sweeny, Kate Lied, Joy Peskin, Molly Brouillette, Angus Killick, and Elizabeth Fithian for all their hard work on this book.
I wouldn’t be here today without the guidance of my agent, Mollie Glick, and the team at Foundry Literary, especially Rachel Hecht and Stephanie Abou. Thanks to Katie Hamblin for her amazing notes and mad editorial skills.
Thank you to the fine folks at the Office of Letters and Light, especially Grant Faulkner and Chris Baty, for teaching me that I can write an entire book start to finish. And to Rainy Day Books, Mysterycape, and all the other booksellers and librarians who have made a home for me in their store and libraries. Thank you to Arielle Eckstut and David Sterry for being endless sources of wit and wisdom.
A lot of fellow authors helped me through my debut year and with writing this book. I am so blessed to be part of such a warm and welcoming community. Thank you to: Sarah Maas, Jessica Brody, Jay Kristoff, and Josin McQuein, as well as to the League of Extraordinary Writers, especially our fearless (unofficial) leader Beth Revis. To my Fierce companions—Leigh Bardugo, Marie Rutkoski, and Caragh O’Brien—thanks for the escalator help and so much more.
I could not have written this book without Bethany Hagen, Laura Barnes, Robin Lucas, Kalen O’Donnell, and Michelle Hodkin. Thanks for the phone calls, the cheering, and the late night writing dates. To all of my WrAHMS, you are more dear to me than you know.
And to my family, who pulled together this year to make my dream a reality: thank you for being there for me on this unexpected journey. James and Sydney, I hope I didn’t maim you in the process of writing this book, but I promise to put aside some of the profit for your future therapy bills. And to Josh: you are the light that guides me out of dark places. Thank you.
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