the exit pivot, leaving only a tiny amount of finishing on the stable side.”
“Stewie,” Logan mouthed, and I flipped him off.
Callie took mercy on me, asking, “Will we be able to see the reweaving today?”
“You’ll see the effects of the cleaving, but not the actual thread work. It’s done by touch, not sight.”
“You won’t be staying until the end, either,” Shaw said. “We’ll cross back and finish watching from the stable side.”
Logan groaned, but Shaw simply adjusted his hat and said, “Sorry, guys. Safety first. Ready, Foster?”
My dad glanced at the other Cleavers, who nodded, their divisis in hand.
“I’m going to initiate the cuts here, at the break. Once that’s handled, we’ll work our way back to the pivot we used to access this world, cleaving as we go.”
He reached into the break with one hand and held the divisi lightly in the other like a magician would hold a coin, for the audience to admire. His hands were broad, but they moved with astonishing delicacy, twitching as he sorted through threads too fine to see. When he found the ones he wanted, fingers crooking in a familiar gesture, he transferred them to his divisi hand and spoke over his shoulder.
“As you watch, take special note of how the unraveling spreads—where it wants to go, how we shape it.”
I felt hot, despite the biting air and the pale sun, sweat collecting between my shoulder blades and at the backs of my knees and along my hairline. There was no shape to a cleaving. Shape implied order. This was a return to chaos, no matter how carefully he handled it or how meticulous our notes. We were supposed to fight entropy, not welcome it in with open arms.
This was murder, and we were all complicit.
Shaw took over the narration as the men formed a loose triangle around the break. “They’ll approach from three directions, in order to maintain even tension on the strings.”
I opened my mouth, preparing to scream, but Eliot whispered, “You can’t.”
His words brought me back to myself. I’d give away everything if I spoke up now. I’d save one world and reveal the Free Walkers. I pressed a fist against my mouth, and he squeezed my other hand tightly. I gripped back, pouring all my anguish into the gesture.
“Once the initial cuts are made, the First Chair handles the warp, the Second Chair handles the woof, and the Third Chair guides the unraveling strings out of the way, so they’re not caught in the repair.”
The Cleavers reached into the break, divisis at the ready. My throat constricted, air wheezing in and out.
“Del?” Callie’s voice sounded as if she were standing on the lawn of the pavilion, a hundred yards away. I turned, trying to place her, but my vision swam, and the stage tilted underfoot. “Del!”
I closed my eyes seconds before my knees buckled. I felt Eliot’s arm come around my waist, and I listened.
Silence.
The silence of an indrawn breath, of anticipation, of the instant before the music begins.
And then the cleaving started.
The noise was raucous, a bow skidding wildly across the strings, splitting and squealing. I clapped my hands over my ears, buried my face in Eliot’s shoulder.
“Is she okay?” Dad called. The concern in his voice was tempered by the strain of managing the strings. “Is it frequency poisoning?”
“She’s sick,” Eliot said. “She’s felt lousy all day. I’ll take her back.”
“We stay together,” Shaw said, over the rising noise. “She’ll have to hang on until we’re done here. Give her some chocolate. The rest of you, quit staring and pay attention.”
“Don’t look,” Eliot murmured, wrapping his arms around me.
But I needed to see. This is what my people had done, and I needed to bear witness. The Consort sent teams to cleave every day, all day, around the world. I’d focused so intently on the pain of Simon’s disappearance, of making reparations, I’d let myself forget it was still happening. Every moment I held back, every time I waited or didn’t speak up or fumbled a chance to find the Free Walkers, I was letting this happen.
If I couldn’t stop it, I could at least pay attention. Someone should mourn these deaths, and today it would be me.
White noise filled the air, the hiss and crackle of a radio, and the colors of the park, already muted by winter, began to drain away. The team worked quickly, their fingers deft and sure, the divisis glinting and hovering like dragonflies. The bridge, a gentle swoop of silvery