Iseult blinked in bewilderment. “What is the Puppeteer?”
Her mother didn’t answer, her eyes finally lighting on what she needed: shears. She snatched them up. “We must cut your hair. It’s just … you look too much like an outsider—and, if Corlant is to be believed, then too much like the Puppeteer. Thank the Moon Mother you were smart enough to hide your head—we can pretend it was short all along.” Gretchya motioned for Iseult to sit. “We must convince the tribe that you are harmless. That you are not other.” Gretchya held Iseult’s gaze; a silence grew.
Then Iseult nodded, telling herself she didn’t care. It was just hair and she could always grow it again. It didn’t mean anything. Her life in Veñaza City was gone; she had to let go of that past.
Then she sat, the sheers grated into the first chunk of hair, and it was done. There was no going back.
“For all that Corlant pretends to be a Purist,” Gretchya began, slipping into the same inflectionless voice Iseult had grown up hearing, “he is also a Voidwitch. A Cursewitch. I figured it out shortly after your last visit. I noticed that when he was near me, the Threads of the world were dimmer. Perhaps you noticed too?”
Iseult nodded her acknowledgment—and ice trickled down her neck. All the dulled Threads of the tribe were Corlant’s doing. She hadn’t even known such a thing was possible.
“Once I realized what he was,” Gretchya continued, “and once I saw how his power drained away mine, I thought I could use it as leverage against him. I threatened to tell the tribe what he was … But in turn, he threatened to take my witchery completely.
“I ended up putting the noose around my own neck, Iseult, for after that conversation, Corlant threatened to erase my magic whenever he wanted something from me.”
Gretchya spoke so matter-of-factly—as if the something that Corlant wanted was as simple as a bowl of borgsha or borrowing Scruffs for the day. But Iseult knew better. She remembered the way Corlant had lingered in the shadows near the chicken coop and watched Gretchya through the window. How his throbbing purple Threads had made Iseult learn all too young what “lust” meant.
Goddess save her, what would have happened to Iseult if she hadn’t gotten out of the settlement when she had? How close had she been to wearing the same noose as her mother?
Despite the six and a half years of loathing Iseult had so carefully and intentionally honed, she felt like a knife was digging into her breastbone. Guilt, her brain declared. And pity for your mother.
To think that Corlant had been a Cursewitch all along. Able to kill a person’s magic as easily as Iseult saw a person’s Threads. It was another witchery linked to the Void—and another myth proven to be all too real.
Iseult loosed a breath, careful to keep her head still as Gretchya snip-snip-snipped. “Wh-what…” she began, appalled by the shake in her voice. She could practically feel the frown her mother turned on her—could practically hear the inevitable reprimand: Control your tongue. Control your mind. A Threadwitch never stammers. “What,” Iseult gnashed out at last, “is this Puppeteer?”
“She is a young Threadwitch.” The shears ground against Iseult’s hair—harder, faster. Hair scattered across the floor like sand. “Each passing Nomatsi caravan has had a slightly different tale, but the general story is unchanged. She cannot make Threadstones, she cannot control her emotions, and … and she abandoned her tribe.”
Iseult swallowed tightly. This Puppeteer did sound similar.
“They say that unlike our Aetherial connection to the Threads,” Gretchya continued, “this girl’s power comes from the Void. They say she can control the Cleaved. That she keeps vast armies of them under her command—and in the darkest version of the tale, she even brings the dead back to life.”
Cold latched on to Iseult’s shoulders. “How?”
“The Severed Threads,” Gretchya answered softly. “She claims she can control the Threads of the Cleaved. Bend them to her will, even when they are dead.”
“The three black Threads of the Cleaved,” Iseult whispered, and the snap of the shears abruptly stopped. At the same moment, Alma scurried up from the basement, a black gown in one hand and white blood-wrappings in the other. She hurried to the stove and heaved open the iron door.
Gretchya twisted around to face Iseult. “You know Severed Threads?”
“I have seen them.”
Gretchya’s eyes went wide, her face bloodless. “You must tell no one of this, Iseult. No one. Alma and I thought they were a lie. A way for this Puppeteer—and Corlant too—to scare people.”
Iseult’s mouth went dry. “You can’t see these Threads?”
“No. And we have seen Cleaved before.”
“I-I can’t m-make Threadstones,” Iseult spat, “so why sh-should I be the one who sees these Severed Threads?”
Gretchya was silent, but then she tugged at Iseult’s hair and the snipping of the shears resumed. Moments later, smoke began to curl from the stove. Alma returned to the work table and offered Iseult the traditional black gown of a Threadwitch. Black was the color of all Threads combined, and along the collar, the narrow wrist cuffs, and the skirt’s hem, there were three lines of color: a straight magenta line for the Threads that bind. A swirling sage line for the Threads that build. A dashed gray line for the Threads that break.
“How long do you intend to stay?” Alma’s question was a rough whisper, no louder than the fire.