Book 3 - Chapter 31
The hand that reached out of the air beside me wasn’t pale like the Unraveller’s.
It wasn’t inked like the Collector’s.
It wasn’t burning or bleeding or bound by runes.
It was…
stitched.
Every finger a seam.
Every joint a knot tied in directions that hurt the eyes.
Skin like fabric stretched over something that didn’t understand flesh.
The hand beckoned again.
“Choose me.”
The air around it puckered, folding and unfolding like someone was trying to sew reality through a needle too small to take it.
The entity stiffened.
Actually stiffened.
“Oh,” he whispered, tone no longer amused but… thrilled. “Well. That’s unexpected. And catastrophically entertaining.”
The Collector’s ledger-face warped, symbols scrambling like startled ants. “This is not permissible. The Loom is closed. Nothing else should answer.”
“It isn’t answering,” the entity said, voice a shade too delighted. “It’s arriving.”
Jasper moved—
No, he flashed, a blur of silver and gold and shadow-thread, planting himself between me and the stitched hand like a wall made of defiance and fire.
“Stay away from her,” he said, voice sharpened to a blade.
The hand did not retreat.
It hovered at the edge of existence, trembling like a predator held back by a leash only it could feel.
“Miley,” Jasper said, not looking back, “don’t touch it.”
“I didn’t plan to!” I snapped, though my power hummed under my skin like it disagreed.
The hand flexed.
One finger—two—curling inward.
And with each curl, the threads around me shifted, trembling like wind over tall grass.
My breath hitched.
“It’s… calling the threads,” I whispered.
“No,” the entity corrected, “it’s claiming them.”
The Collector stepped forward, shadows pooling around his feet. “Key. Step away.”
I didn’t move.
Because the stitched hand wasn’t reaching for them.
It was reaching for me.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
And a second voice joined the first.
This one behind me.
Soft.
Wrong.
Folded between breaths.
“Choose me.”
I spun.
Another stitched hand had appeared on my other side—this one reaching from the floor, rising upward like a drowned thing remembering the surface.
“Absolutely not,” Jasper snarled, grabbing my arm and dragging me a step back.
The two stitched hands froze, then tilted in identical angles, studying him.
The entity whistled low. “Oh, they like him. That’s never good.”
“They?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” the entity said, eyes bright with academic horror. “Plural. Congratulations, Miley. You didn’t wake a presence. You woke the Seamwalkers.”
The Collector’s entire form glitched, symbols flashing in violent disapproval. “Impossible. They were erased before language. Before sums.”
“So were cockroaches,” the entity said. “Yet here we all are.”
The Unraveller lunged.
Not at me.
Not at Jasper.
At the stitched hands.
The Seamwalker nearest the cavern wall lifted its palm.
Reality folded inward like cloth being pinched.
The Unraveller’s attack vanished into the fold.
Gone.
Not undone.
Not erased.
Pocketed.
Jasper inhaled sharply. “Miley. These things—they aren't natural.”
“They aren't anything,” the entity corrected. “They exist in the margins between existence and edit. They aren’t bound by pact, debt, time, or fate. They are the things the Loom tried to sew around.”
The Collector extended a hand toward me again, frantic. “Key. Choose your collateral. Finish the transaction before they—”
He didn’t finish.
A Seamwalker finger touched the ground.
Just one.
The floor shuddered.
The bowl warped.
The inverted lake cracked again.
The Unraveller recoiled.
Recoiled.
“Ohhh,” the entity said with a grin that was all teeth, “they outrank the Unraveller. Fascinating.”
“Not fascinating,” the Collector snapped. “Fatal.”
The Seamwalkers stepped closer—hands emerging from air, stone, shadow, reflections, places with no physical location. Every hand identical. Every movement painfully smooth.
Threads around me vibrated like a thousand strings tuned to the same dreadful note.
Then one Seamwalker spoke—not with a mouth, but with the seams of its fingers.
“We remember your making.”
My heart stopped.
The Collector froze.
The entity’s grin widened. “Well. That’s a fun secret ruined.”
Jasper turned to me slowly, eyes burning. “What does it mean? Miley—what does it mean?”
But I couldn’t speak.
I felt it.
Across the cavern ceiling, the inverted lake began to ripple—not as water, but as fabric. Stitches formed along its surface. Knots pulled tight.
The Seamwalkers raised their many, many hands toward it.
The bowl in the center of the chamber vibrated.
My runes blazed.
And the Seamwalkers said in a soft, perfect chorus:
“We made you.”
Silence.
Even the Unraveller stilled.
Even the entity blinked.
“Ah,” he said after a painful beat. “Well. That explains a few things. And complicates everything else.”
Jasper’s fingers tightened around mine. “Miley—tell me it’s not true.”
But truth pulsed in my veins like fire.
The Seamwalkers stepped closer.
The cavern dimmed.
The threads around me twisted toward them like metal drawn to a magnet.
My power surged, trying to answer their call.
Trying to go to them.
I staggered.
“Miley!” Jasper caught me, pulling me behind him, but it was like trying to shield a river from the ocean.
The Collector raised his ledger-hand. “Seamwalkers. By decree of the Pact and the Ledger—”
A Seamwalker touched the air in front of him.
The Collector vanished.
No scream.
No flash.
Just—absent.
“OH that’s bad,” the entity whispered, actually stepping back.
“Bring him back!” I shouted.
“We owe him nothing,” the Seamwalker chorus replied.
Jasper roared, stepping forward, power blazing around him. “You don’t touch her. You don’t come near her. You don’t—”
He didn’t finish.
Because one Seamwalker extended a stitched hand toward him.
He froze mid‑step.
Breath stopped.
Light halted around him like it hit a wall.
“STOP!” I screamed.
Every hand turned toward me.
“Choose,” the Seamwalkers said.
“Choose your maker. Choose your debt. Choose your keeper.”
“Miley—” Jasper strained, voice cracking through whatever held him. “Don’t. You don’t choose them. You don’t—”
The entity laughed softly, a razor behind velvet.
“Well now,” he murmured, stepping behind me like a shadow. “This is going to be delicious. Choose wisely, little Key.”
I looked from Jasper—glowing, trembling, half‑becoming something the world wasn’t ready for—
to the Seamwalkers—stitched, ancient, waiting—
to the air where the Collector had vanished—
to the Unraveller, retreating like a wounded animal—
Threads pulled at me.
Power throbbed in my bones.
The Seamwalkers whispered:
“Choose.”
And then—
A third voice.
Not the Collector.
Not the Unraveller.
Not the Seamwalkers.
Not the entity.
A voice I hadn’t heard since I was five.
“Miley.”
I turned—
And saw someone standing at the edge of the collapsing cavern.
Alive.
Impossible.
Wrong.
“Mum?”