Crewel

by Gennifer Albin

  I suck in a breath and let it out slowly. Cormac watches me from the next chair, and I work to keep fear off my face. Without Loricel . . .Well, I don’t even want to consider what this place will be like then. Does she think I can stand up to him?

  ‘So you need a new Creweler?’ I ask after a long moment.

  ‘We need you,’ Cormac says.

  I don’t answer him.

  ‘You’ll be studying under Loricel all working hours until . . .’

  ‘She dies.’ I finish his thought.

  ‘Yes, and it’s imperative that you’re prepared to assume responsibility when she passes.’

  ‘Especially since you’re already short a Creweler’s assistant.’

  Cormac’s eyes narrow. ‘She wasn’t half the Spinster you are, Adelice.’

  ‘I’m half the person she was,’ I say with a shrug, barely keeping my voice steady. ‘So I guess it evens out.’

  ‘There are other Spinsters,’ Maela breaks in, but Cormac shoots her a look that shuts her up.

  ‘You needn’t worry yourself about Adelice,’ he says to her. ‘You’ve wasted enough time.’

  ‘That girl would have no training if it weren’t for me,’ she says, stabbing at the air in my direction.

  ‘That girl,’ Cormac says quietly, ‘would be dead if it were up to you. You are in danger of overstepping your bounds.’

  ‘And we know what happens to girls who overstep their bounds,’ I add.

  No one laughs.

  ‘Adelice, you’ll report to Loricel’s studio in the morning. I’ll let her know when your evaluation is scheduled,’ Cormac says, rising from his seat and buttoning his tuxedo.

  ‘Cormac,’ Loricel says. ‘A word.’

  She gestures for him to follow her, and soon I’m alone at the table with Maela.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she says.

  I stare at her. She can’t be serious.

  ‘No, really,’ Maela says. ‘We’ve had our differences—’

  ‘That’s one way to put it.’

  ‘But,’ she continues, ignoring me, ‘Enora was a good Spinster.’

  ‘Did Pryana tell you?’

  Maela purses her lips. ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘About Enora.’

  ‘I was called as part of the emergency response.’

  ‘No, about Enora and Valery. In the hallway.’

  ‘No, she didn’t tell me, but there’s something you need to understand,’ she says. ‘If you think Pryana is a puppet of mine, you’re in for an unpleasant surprise. She is a force all her own.’

  ‘Which you created—’

  ‘Which I propelled,’ she corrects. ‘I won’t lie, Adelice. I wanted you to be enemies, but Pryana was never going to be your friend.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘We were hitting it off.’

  ‘Pryana would stab her own sister in the back if it suited her.’

  ‘She seemed pretty upset when you ripped her sister.’

  ‘Listen,’ Maela says, standing and staring down at me. ‘I’d watch who you tell about your own little sister. Pryana’s not the forgiving type. Believe me, I did you a favour.’

  ‘Feel free to keep your favours to yourself in the future,’ I say.

  Maela tosses a bored expression my way and exits. There’s no way I’m about to believe her fake sympathy or her sudden interest in me. Since I’m going to be the next Creweler, she’s just doing some repair work on the damage she’s inflicted.

  ‘Done?’ Erik asks, poking his head through the doorway.

  ‘Do I get an escort again?’

  ‘Cormac wants assurance that you’re safe at all times.’

  ‘Oh good,’ I say with a sigh. ‘Will you be camping out on my floor?’

  ‘Outside your door, as a matter of fact.’

  I screw my face up. I guess I won’t be sneaking out to investigate the clinic tonight.

  ‘Don’t look so annoyed,’ he says, taking my arm. ‘This way you get to wake up and go to sleep to me.’

  Despite my resentment for how he acted after our kiss, I laugh. He’s just so self-assured.

  ‘Every girl’s dream,’ I say, tipping my head to the side.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he says through gritted teeth.

  ‘Sure. It’s nothing.’

  ‘I know what she did to you.’

  ‘Drop it, Erik.’

  ‘You have to know that it would have been worse if I’d come to see you.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ I say, ‘but I guess we’ll never know.’

  ‘So that’s it, then?’

  I sigh and pull my arm out from his. He’s not making this easy. ‘Erik, we kissed. I was a little drunk. I’m over it.’

  ‘And what if I’m not?’ he says, slowing his pace.

  I walk faster, pulling him along with me. ‘It doesn’t matter how powerful I am – or will be after this promotion – it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Promotion?’ he repeats.

  ‘I’m training to replace Loricel,’ I say with a shrug. ‘I assumed you knew.’

  ‘No, but I guess that explains Maela’s change of heart.’

  ‘Oh, you mean how we’re best friends now?’

  He gives me a crooked grin. ‘I wouldn’t go that far, but she’s definitely trying to get on your good side.’

  ‘At least she’s not trying to kill me.’

  ‘Again, I wouldn’t go that far,’ he says.

  ‘The more things change,’ I mutter.

  ‘Just forgive me?’ he says, and I groan at the circularity of his thoughts. He’s like a puppy chasing his tail, except it’s mine he’s after.

  ‘I forgive you,’ I say. ‘But it doesn’t change anything.’

  ‘I can wait.’

  ‘Erik,’ I say, struggling with how much I want to share. ‘It’s not only that. I’m not the same as I was a few weeks ago. Things have changed, and it would be a waste of your time to wait around for me.’

  He looks down at me as though he’s watching my neurons firing, and I shrink back from his penetrating gaze. ‘I should have known,’ he says, a hint of a smile playing on his lips before fading away.

  I bite down on the inside of my cheek and keep my eyes on the floor. Something in his voice is giving me goosebumps, but he can’t actually know . . .

  ‘Look,’ he says, ‘I get it. But there’s something you need to consider. I have more resources at my disposal and a certain value to the Guild. He doesn’t. You’ll get him killed.’

  I swallow hard and glance up to his watching eyes. ‘Is that the best you’ve got?’

  ‘I’m not trying to steal you,’ he says, lowering his voice. ‘I know Jost better than you think. I don’t want to see anybody get hurt.’

  ‘That’s thoughtful of you,’ I murmur.

  ‘Think what you want,’ he says. We’re at the door to the brass lift. Reaching forward, he presses the Up button and holds the door when it opens. We step in. When the lift door slides closed, he leans down. I can feel his breath warm against the back of my ear.

  ‘Remember what I said to you that night at the ball?’

  His words tingle in my ear and down my neck, but I manage a nod.

  ‘You know that plan we discussed. If you finally have one, now’s the time to use it.’

  The tingle turns into an electric charge and my pulse builds frenetically in my chest, wrists, ears. ‘Well, I don’t,’ I whisper.

  ‘Then think of one,’ he says into my hair.

  He lingers there for a moment, and I close my eyes, wondering if that kiss really meant nothing to me. The ding of the lift door snaps them back open. Beside me, Erik straightens and extends his arm to hold the sliding door – protecting me – as I cross the threshold.

  19

  The strands of light wrapping one another in the void mesmerise me. I’ve found the seam in Loricel’s illusion and opened it. I clutch my right arm against my body; my fingers ache to reach out, to discover wha
t the thick rough weave feels like. I force myself to keep my hands back away from the breach now. This room, here in the distant tower, where we can call any place in Arras before us, is the only place that feels real.

  ‘You could waste away there,’ Loricel says behind me.

  The studio was empty when I arrived, but I knew she’d be back soon. Now that she’s here, I wish I had more time alone to study the rift. If I’d been here much longer, I might have crossed the line and touched the rough, raw material that billows out between Earth and Arras.

  Loricel moves to stand beside me. ‘It’s hard to fathom, isn’t it?’

  ‘I see it,’ I say, ‘but it feels like another illusion . . . I want to touch it.’

  ‘Like your hands are physically being drawn to it,’ she says.

  ‘You too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘No.’ There’s the firmness of resignation to her voice. ‘I guess I don’t want to know. There’s so much possibility until I touch it. Perhaps its powers outweigh my own, or perhaps I could manipulate the raw material as I manipulate the fabric of Arras. I don’t know which I prefer, so I keep my fingers back.’

  ‘When did you see it the first time?’ I ask.

  ‘Kinsey, my predecessor, showed me,’ she says, tilting her head and regarding me with half-open eyes.

  ‘And all these years? You’ve never—’

  ‘Perhaps I’m a coward.’

  ‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘I think it’s harder not to touch it. I want to so badly. It’s a compulsion. I admire your ability to deny it this long.’

  Loricel snorts. ‘Maybe I’ll do it before I die.’

  I sigh deeply and turn to close the spot. My fingertips burn when they skim the raw material as I repair the hole; it’s the most feeling I’ve had in them for weeks.

  ‘You can feel it?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s pulsing. Alive,’ I say quietly.

  ‘Because it is full of life,’ she says. ‘I know this is hard for you to accept.’

  ‘How do you close opened eyes?’ I ask her, desperate to know how she’s restrained herself through the years.

  ‘Like you do at night,’ she instructs me. ‘You work the loom until you’re too tired to go on, and then your eyes close naturally.’

  ‘Is that why you’re refusing renewal?’

  ‘Yes, I know it must feel horribly unfair. My leaving you here to take over, but—’

  ‘You don’t have to explain yourself,’ I stop her. Even now I feel the burden of the raw weave pressing down on me. I can’t imagine what it’s like for her.

  ‘I couldn’t leave it,’ she says. ‘Not without a true Creweler in place to carry on my work. Adelice, you must know how I feel about the Guild. About Cormac, Maela, and their puppets. But that pulse you feel, that electricity, that’s not them.’

  My fingers sting as she speaks, reminding me how they want to touch the raw material, but I do my best to push the feeling down deep inside me. ‘We don’t do it for them.’

  ‘No,’ she agrees. ‘We do it in spite of them.’

  ‘Will they keep watching me?’ I ask.

  ‘They didn’t stop watching me until I was seventy,’ she says. ‘Cormac is many things, but he was the first to realise I wasn’t a threat to Arras.’

  ‘I guess I have a while to wait.’

  Fifty-four years.

  Loricel opens her mouth and then presses her withered lips back together.

  ‘What?’ I ask, scanning the room. ‘They’re watching us now?’

  ‘The illusions in this room are too complex to track.’

  Now I understand that she’s not sure she wants me to know the truth, because it might be too much for me to live with. Loricel needs to make sure Arras has a Creweler after her death, and if I leave, it won’t.

  ‘You have to understand my dilemma,’ she says finally. ‘My whole life is this world. I have given everything to it.’

  ‘I think I understand,’ I say.

  ‘I wish you could. But until you’ve devoted your life, fought human nature, harnessed matter itself, and contained it for decades, you can’t. It’s a lot to ask of anyone.’ The lines on her face deepen as she speaks, as though the weight of years is dragging down her very skin.

  ‘But if I don’t—’

  ‘Then it will fade away.’

  My eyes find the floor, and I inhale for strength. ‘So you won’t stay, even if I leave?’

  ‘No,’ she confirms. ‘My age has passed. It is up to you. Of course, I hope you will stay. I believe that you feel the pulse and understand its importance.’

  ‘How long will it survive without a Creweler?’

  ‘They have enough material stocked to last a decade. Maybe,’ she answers. ‘But it will be chaos – an extended apocalypse. And Cormac will be in charge by then.’

  ‘Of the Coventry?’ I ask. ‘He acts like he already he is.’

  ‘He oversees us now, but soon he’ll be elected prime minister of Arras.’

  ‘He’ll have control over everything,’ I whisper.

  ‘Except you. If you stay.’

  I take a seat on a velvet divan, working through this revelation. ‘Well, you don’t have to worry. My sister is here. I won’t leave her.’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Loricel says. ‘I want you to make an educated decision. You know about the new remapping tech?’

  ‘They talked about it at the State of the Guild. They mapped me the other day,’ I tell her.

  ‘Cormac has mapped each of us—’

  ‘Even you?’

  She nods. ‘He claims that they are trying to understand why some girls have the ability to see and touch the weave and others don’t. He’s particularly interested in why most men can’t see it.’

  ‘Most?’ I recall her saying she believed some men could weave.

  ‘Most can’t. There are rumours of departments where men work with the weave, but the Guild always denies it.’

  ‘Do you think they exist?’ I ask, realising I’m finally getting more of the story.

  ‘Definitely. The Coventry is just the face of the Guild. What we do is important, but many more than us are at work.’

  I have a hard time imagining someone more powerful than Loricel. ‘More important than you?’

  ‘My – our – skill,’ she corrects herself, ‘is necessary to harness the actual raw materials. Without that Arras would decay and crumble from within. Then they need Spinsters to add and maintain, but our value stops there.’

  ‘But they still need us.’ The Western Coventry alone houses a hundred girls and women who work shifts around the clock. There’s no way Arras could survive without Spinsters.

  ‘Yes, but if they could simulate our skill, they would not.’

  ‘That’s why they’re mapping me,’ I whisper.

  ‘They haven’t figured it out yet,’ she says. ‘But the rate at which they are producing manipulation technology worries me. It will not be long.’

  ‘I can’t let them map me again,’ I say, balling up my fist in my lap.

  ‘They won’t ask your permission,’ she says with a wry smile. ‘Besides, they already have you scheduled for it.’

  ‘Is Cormac communicating through you now?’

  ‘No, it’s my job to lie to you. Cormac assumes I won’t tell you the truth, because he believes I’ll put Arras above you.’ She stops and studies my face for a moment. ‘Because I always have in the past.’

  ‘Always?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s not my place to make a decision for you, especially considering what they have planned.’ Loricel’s eyes drift to the floor and when she looks back up, they wander between myself and the walls of her studio.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me what they have planned for me,’ I say. ‘I’m smarter than I look.’

  She laughs, but no trace of amusement stays on her face. ‘They are going to map you again when you go in for evaluation.’ Her words burst forth as
though they’ve only barely managed to escape.

  ‘I see,’ I murmur.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ she says in a rush. ‘Then they plan to remap you.’

  I think of the petty housewives at the State of the Guild thrilling at remapping their children; they were excited to make them more obedient. I push down the scream of anger threatening to spill out of my mouth, which will surely bring the guard up. How dare they?

  ‘They can study me all they want,’ I say.

  ‘Eventually they will find their answer—’

  ‘And then they can finally kill me.’ My heart no longer leaps when I speak of my death. Its inevitability is another fact of my new life here. I guess I’m transitioning well to the idea.

  ‘Maybe, but they’ll have to remap you first, to succeed in making you docile.’

  ‘I don’t think they could go far enough to make me docile,’ I say, the last word oozing with rage.

  ‘You saw how far he was willing to go with Enora,’ Loricel says.

  ‘Why do you think they tested the remap on Enora first? Because of her affair with Valery?’ I guess.

  ‘Criticism of the relationship was a ruse,’ Loricel says. ‘It provided an easy excuse to test it on her.’

  ‘Did she know? What they planned to do to her?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know. They took her away in the night. I wasn’t notified.’

  They always come in the night.

  Even if most of what Loricel is telling me is pure theory, there’s the bitter edge of truth to some of it. Better to be prepared. ‘How long do I have?’

  ‘They’re still running tests,’ she says. ‘To be honest, Enora’s suicide rattled them. Cormac is afraid you will become unstable, too.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A week,’ she says, ‘at the most.’

  I stand and walk to the wall, trailing my fingers along the peaceful image of the calm ocean; it ripples where I touch it, distorting and coming back together. It’s still the same image, but now it bears a shadow where my hand disrupted it.

  ‘There’s nowhere to run,’ I say.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Enora knew that.’ I turn back to face her. ‘It’s why she killed herself.’

  Loricel heaves a sigh. ‘She was confused, Adelice.’

  ‘Because they screwed with her,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘She was lost. I could see it the last time we spoke, but I didn’t know what they’d done to her.’