"As you wish, my little light." Kassam looks as if he's laughing inside, and I don't know if it's because of Margo's reaction—or my possessive one. But he lets me lead him down the path after Seth, and a few moments later, Margo trots behind us, her heels clicking on the paved trail.
We walk deeper into the trees, and just when I think Seth has gone and abandoned us, I see a tiny cherry of a light flare in the darkness. Sure enough, there's someone sitting atop a distant picnic table, cigarette in hand. I can guess who that is. I hear a rustle of keys and when I turn to look over at Margo, she has a tiny can of mace in her hand. She looks worried. I don't blame her. Poor thing. I hate Seth for not explaining anything, and I hate me just a little for going along with it.
"Everyone here?" Lachesis asks, her warm, smoky voice as familiar as I remember. She sounds a little…tired. Annoyed, maybe.
Margo steps forward, her keys clanking in her hand. "Um, I have to ask, why are we out here in the middle of nowhere?"
"You can see the stars better, my heart," Seth replies smoothly.
"I'm not your heart," Margo says, and I instantly like her a thousand percent more. "And is there a light around here somewhere? I can't—"
Before she can finish the sentence, light flares from Lachesis's fingertips. She pinches at the air and draws her pinched fingers apart, and between them, a glowing string creates light, flooding the darkness around us and illuminating the cigarette hanging from her lips.
"—see," Margo squeaks, finishing her sentence. Her eyes are round as saucers in the darkness.
I'm only slightly less shocked than Margo. Holy shit. I watch as Lachesis smirks, just a little, and then lifts her hand, tying the string off to an invisible hook. "Better? Everyone can see now, yes?" She casually takes her cigarette from her lips, flicks the ash, and then crosses her legs, grinning at us. "So here's the dream team, eh? Ready to begin?"
I notice she doesn't look at me or Margo, just Seth and Kassam. It's like we don't matter to her. Hell, we probably don't.
"More than ready," Kassam says. "You and Seth have worked everything out?"
"Oh yeah." Lachesis rolls her eyes. Seth just grins, quite pleased with himself. "Let's just say I'm not thrilled, but a debt is a debt."
"Can someone explain to me what's going on?" Margo asks. "How did you do that light strand?"
Seth moves toward Margo's side. "She's a magician," he purrs, sliding his arm around her shoulders again. "Don't be so worried, pet. This is all part of the fun."
"What fun? No one will tell me what's going on."
I look over at Kassam, but he shakes his head at me. He doesn't want me scaring Margo off. Fuck. Fine then. I'll do what I can. I step forward to get Lachesis's attention. "Can you explain to us how this works? Tonight's ritual?"
"Ritual?" Margo asks. "Are you guys witches?"
"Of a sort," Seth grins at her. "Does it offend you?"
"N-no, of course not. I just wasn't expecting this for our date." Her tone turns meek and apologetic. "I'm not trying to offend. Just understand. I didn't know witchcraft actually worked." And her gaze slides to the thread, hanging like a clothesline in midair.
I bite back a groan of frustration, practically stomping my feet as I look over at Kassam. Really? Really we're doing this? It's so unfair to Margo. But he pulls me against him, burying my face in the crook of his arm, and zings me with a fluttering almost-orgasm. I gasp and smack his chest, because that is not playing fair at all. "Just…I need to know what's going to happen. All right? For me and no one else."
And I glare at Kassam.
"Sure." Lachesis stubs her cigarette on the park bench, next to her hip, and then begins to move her hands in the air again. As she does, more shimmering threads dance into view out of thin air. She pulls and pulls, her hands working so fast that they're blurs, and her face glimmers with colors as the threads glow around her. "All of humanity exists in a tapestry. I believe Kassam said that for our brothers on the other side, it is a web. Same sort of thing. When you are born, Clotho spins you into existence. She places you into the tapestry and starts your thread. Then, I take over. I work you into the weave, guiding your thread when it snarls, and seeing the largest intersections. I tease out knots and make sure that important threads cross over with others."
As I watch, she makes a clawing gesture across the sky, and the threads in front of her draw together, clustering into a ball. With a quick flick of her hand, she sends them scattering across the air once more.
I stare in fascination as her hands dance amongst the threads she's pulling from midair. She's like the conductor of an orchestra, and the strings are her instruments. Her face shines with pleasure, as if the act of simply touching the threads brings her joy. In this moment, her plain face is unearthly and beautiful, and I can see her for the goddess she is, instead of just a downtrodden middle-aged mom.
"Here is Margo's thread." Lachesis gently tugs one thread forward, pulling it free from the tangle of threads in front of her face. "And here, we have Carly. Note that they intersect here, at this time, because of your meeting."
My mouth open in fascination, I take a step forward, peering at the threads. I'm disappointed to see that my particular thread looks the same as Margo's—as in, boring. It has a faint blue light, but nothing spectacular compared to some of the threads around them.
"And here we have Kassam," Lachesis says. She nudges my thread forward, and I can see a much brighter, golden one entwined with my own. In fact, it's so bright and dazzling that now that she has it pulled forward, it completely overshadows my own. "Note that Carly's thread is locked into the tapestry of this world." Her finger gestures, following the line of my thread where it disappears into the tangle of thousands of other lights, all in varying pale colors. "Just as you'll note that Kassam is not anchored to this particular tapestry at all. Carly is the only thing holding him here."
The goddess runs a finger along Kassam's thread, and I watch as she gestures outward. Sure enough, both Margo and I are tied to the rest of the strings, but Kassam's brilliant, blinding thread trails off into nothing at all. It's like a random spiderweb out of nowhere that has somehow found its way to my thread and is clinging to it for dear life.
My mouth goes dry at the sight.
Now I see why an anchor has to die. Kassam is tied to me. I'm what keeps him here. If I die, then he returns home because there's nothing to “anchor” him to the mortal world any longer.
I suddenly find I'm far less interested in the thread display.
27
"Where's mine?" Seth asks, leaning in.
"As if I'd forget you," the goddess says playfully. She reaches into the cluster and pulls out a bright, flaming red thread. "Here we go. Ready for action." She lays his thread atop ours, where Margo's thread crosses mine.
Margo gasps and looks over at her date with new eyes.
"Now, here comes the fun part," Lachesis says. "So what the plan is, I'm going pry you two ladies out of your current tapestry, and then I'm going to take one for the team and contact the Fates in Kassam's world by following his thread. I'm going to have to pull a few strings"—she points at us—"no pun intended, and get you four placed in that world's web and out of mine." She dusts her hands and smiles at us. "And then you're someone else's problem. Understand?"