Book 3 - Chapter 38
The moment I grabbed the tether, the world convulsed.
Not broke.
Not bent.
Convulsed—like a body rejecting something that had never belonged inside it.
The tether screamed.
Not in sound.
In sensation.
A raw, tearing, infinite hunger that surged up my arm and sank its teeth deep into my ribs, as if trying to climb inside me and live beneath my skin.
I screamed back.
My knees hit the not‑floor of the unplace so hard the concept of impact fractured around me like glass. Every nerve burned white. Every rune under my skin lit up as if I’d been plugged directly into a star.
“MILEY!”
Jasper’s voice ripped through the seam—closer, sharper, desperate enough to shear something fundamental.
He was still half through the tear in reality.
Still reaching for me.
Still burning.
I felt his pain.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
The tether transmitted everything: the tear in his shoulder where power leaked; the strain in his bones as they tried to hold shape; the scream trapped behind his clenched teeth.
“No—no—Jasper, stop pulling—” I gasped.
But he didn’t.
He hauled himself farther through the seam, dragging the cavern with him like gravity had decided he was owed a refund.
The tether surged toward him.
The shape stepped between us.
“You cannot let him touch it,” it said calmly. “If he wraps his hand around the tether again, it will claim him as its vessel. And there will be no Protector. Only hunger.”
Jasper lunged.
The shape flicked a single finger.
Jasper was thrown backwards—violently—out of the seam, out of the unplace, out of reach.
His scream echoed, grinding against the seams of space.
“LET ME THROUGH!”
The Unraveller answered from somewhere behind him, a hiss like steel subtracting itself. Jasper roared back at it, the cavern shaking in response.
I sagged, clutching the tether with both hands now, my breath tearing raggedly from my throat.
“I can’t—hold—it—”
“Yes,” the shape said. “You can. Because it wants you more than he does.”
“That’s not comforting!”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
The tether twisted in my grip, a thing alive, furious.
It didn’t want control.
It wanted possession.
It wanted to swallow my will whole and wear my choices like a costume.
It wanted to decide for me.
It wanted to replace me.
My arms buckled.
The unplace dimmed.
Shapes flickered at the edges of my vision—patches, stitches, erased thoughts, futures unspooling, memories dissolving into thread.
“Mender,” the Seamwalkers whispered far away.
“Mender binds.”
“Mender chooses.”
“Mender breaks.”
I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached. “Jasper—Jasper, please—talk to me—”
His voice shattered through the seam, breathless, fierce, terrified:
“I’m right here! I’m—Miley—just let go! I don’t care what it costs—I’ll take it—I’ll take all of it—just LET GO!”
“No!” I sobbed. “If you touch it again—”
“I DON’T CARE!”
I did.
The shape’s voice slid beside my ear like cold fabric.
“Bind it or be eaten.”
The tether lurched.
My body arched backward, pulled by invisible hands, dragged toward a spiral forming in the sky—the tether’s birthplace, or its mouth, or both.
My vision blurred sideways.
Jasper slammed into the seam again, practically tearing through, his hands glowing like imploding suns, his rage breaking physics at the hinges.
“MILEY! DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE ME!”
The tether surged toward him, reaching like a predator recognizing its favored host.
No.
No.
I grabbed the tether with both hands and yanked it away from him, toward me.
The world ripped itself open.
A circular pulse blasted outward, knocking the shape back, knocking the Seamwalkers down, cracking the Unraveller’s silhouette like chalk under too much pressure.
Jasper screamed my name one more time—
And I screamed his back—
“JASPER! STAY OUT!”
The tether bucked, furious.
It wanted him.
It WANTED him.
To replace his will with its own.
To finish whatever Patch-father started.
To turn him into a vessel.
A weapon.
A breach with legs.
I would not let that happen.
I pulled the tether into my own chest.
And let it cut.
For a moment, the universe went silent.
Then—
I became thread.
Not unravelled.
Not erased.
Transformed.
Sight fractured into pieces, each piece a different future: Jasper dead, Jasper immortal, Jasper lost, Jasper becoming something with too many eyes, Jasper holding my hand on a quiet morning we would never see, Jasper burning holes through gods to reach me.
The tether wrapped around my ribs, around my spine, around my beating heart.
The shape watched, still and admiring.
“Ah,” it whispered. “She chooses to feed it herself.”
“SHUT UP!” Jasper roared from the cavern, voice cracking.
I twisted the tether.
Forced it.
Bent it.
Not with power.
With intent.
My will slammed down like a slammed door.
“YOU. LISTEN. TO. ME!”
The tether shrieked.
My runes burned.
My lungs shook.
The unplace split, showing glimpses of the cavern, Jasper on his knees, hands dug into the cracked stone, light leaking from his eyes as he tried to claw the seam open with raw will.
I forced every shred of myself into one command:
BIND.
The tether writhed—
snapped—
twisted—
And obeyed.
It coiled tight, knotting around my ribs like a harness, locking itself inside me where it couldn’t reach Jasper again.
The unplace exploded.
Colour.
Sound.
Silence.
Light.
Everything and nothing.
I collapsed onto stone.
Real stone.
Cold stone.
The cavern.
And Jasper caught me mid‑fall, pulling me into his arms, shaking so violently I thought he would break apart.
“Miley—Miley—Miley—”
His hands ran over me like he needed to confirm I still existed.
I tried to speak.
Nothing emerged.
Because the tether inside me pulsed once—
—and the entity’s sharp whisper reached my ear:
“Oh, darling. You bound it. Very clever. Very brave.”
He paused.
“But all binding has consequences.”
I lifted my head weakly.
Jasper cupped my face with both hands, eyes wide, terrified, relieved—
And then—
His expression changed.
Confusion.
Shock.
Pain.
He froze.
“Miley… what… what did you… do?”
I blinked, dazed. “What—?”
Jasper swayed.
His hands dropped.
He touched his chest—
right over where the tether used to connect us.
“I… I can’t…” His breath hitched. “Miley… I can’t feel you.”
And the world cracked under our feet.