I swallowed hard, eyes blurring. On the next page, a diagram of a chart much like the one on my laptop was drawn by hand, with threads sketched between points and notes in the margins.
My name was written, a question mark and a heart next to it, on one of the pages.
Tears stung my eyes.
“She knew,” I whispered. “She knew and she didn’t tell me.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to overload you,”Bracken said gently.“You were busy trying to survive algebra and bad haircuts. She might’ve been waiting for the right time.”
“The right time being… after she was gone and I accidentally wove someone’s career path?” I sniffed.
“Witches are dramatic like that.”
I huffed a wet laugh, brushing at my cheeks. I read on.
“The chartweaver will often awaken fully in moments of crisis or deep service—when heart, chart, and need align. When this happens, the threads will reveal themselves. The weaver should ground, breathe, and remember. You are a guide, not a god. Speak truth. Offer choice. Weave only where the soul already leans.”
Relief loosened something in my chest. That was what had happened with Greta. I hadn’t conjured a path she didn’t already want. I’d just… given it a little cosmic scaffolding.
Still terrifying. But slightly less so.
A clock chimed faintly from somewhere in the house. I jumped.
“Shite.” I glanced at the time on my phone. “I really have to go.”
“I’ll stay here and keep an eye on your tree man.”
“He’s not my—” I stopped. “Never mind. There’s no use arguing.”
I walked toward the front door, my mind buzzing with charts and threads and the image of Greta’s future shop. Outside, the autumn light slanted golden across the loch, and for the first time since I’d arrived in Loren Brae, I felt the strange, dizzy sensation that maybe, just maybe, I was exactly where I was meant to be.
Even if I was a chartweaver with zero idea what I was doing.
One stitch at a time, I thought, echoing my own advice to Greta as I grabbed my coat and headed out.
One stitch at a time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LIORA
I’d all but drifted through my shift on Saturday, my brain whirling with thoughts about being a chartweaver, and by the time Torin had arrived to drive me home, I was exhausted. He hadn’t questioned me when I’d begged off having a nightcap with him, insisting I was tired, and I’d fallen into bed and slept straight through the night in a blissful dreamless sleep.
Apparently, that was exactly what I’d needed, because when I woke up Sunday morning, the fog had cleared.
The threads, the glowing web, the truth spell—they were still there in the back of my mind, sure, but they weren’t pressing down on me like a weight. More like a new, slightly daunting tab open in my brain browser that I could click into later.
But one thought rose to the top.
I’d given a reading, and it had gone really, really well. In a way that it never had before. And I could be proud of myself for it. Even if I’d accidentally meddled with fate a bit, or more than a bit. I still wasn’t quite sure on all that. But before I could let guiltswamp me for inadvertently touching the threads of someone else’s fate, I shook it off.
Right now, I had one more lunch shift to get through and then I could get to the relaxation portion of my weekend.
I padded into the kitchen to find Torin already there, hair damp from a shower, wearing a dark T-shirt and jeans.
“Morning,” I said, voice croaky.
He glanced up, and that slow, warm smile lit his face. “Morning, wood nymph.”