Chapter 13: The Other Weavers

Finding the other Weavers required a technique Cassius had hoped he'd never have to use again.

Thread-tracing. Following the faint, residual signatures that Weavers left in the Tapestry whenever they manipulated fate—cosmic fingerprints that lingered for months, sometimes years, in the fabric of reality. Each Weaver's signature was unique, as distinctive as a voice or a face, and someone with Cassius's experience could track them across vast distances if he was willing to pay the price.

The price was significant. Not in lifespan—thread-tracing was technically just reading, which was free—but in exposure. Following signatures through the Tapestry was like sending up a flare that any other Weaver, and any Watcher with the right instruments, could detect. It announced his position, his intentions, and his capabilities to anyone watching.

"You're going to let them know where we are," Marcus said, when Cassius explained the plan.

"I'm going to let them know *who* we are. And that we're looking for them deliberately, openly, with nothing to hide." Cassius sat cross-legged in the center of the safe house's living room, the furniture pushed to the walls. "Weavers are paranoid by nature. If I tried to approach them covertly, they'd assume I was a threat. The only way to earn initial trust is radical transparency."

"And if the Watchers detect the trace?"

"They will. We'll have to be prepared to move immediately after." Cassius looked at Lyra, who was sitting on the cleared floor across from him, mirroring his posture. "I'm going to need you to anchor me."

"Anchor you how?"

"Thread-tracing at this scale requires splitting my perception. Part of me stays here, in this room, in this moment. Part of me goes out, into the Tapestry, following signatures across the city, across the region, potentially across the country. If I lose my anchor—my connection to the here and now—I could get lost in the weave. Weavers who lose their anchor during extended traces sometimes never come back."

"What happens to them?"

"Their consciousness dissolves into the Tapestry. Their body remains alive but empty—permanent coma, from a medical perspective. The mind is still out there, somewhere, woven into the fabric of everyone's fate." He met her eyes. "I need you to maintain our bond-thread. Keep it taut. If you feel it going slack—if you feel me drifting—pull. Pull as hard as you can."

Lyra nodded, her jaw set. "I won't let you drift."

"One more thing. While I'm tracing, my body will be vulnerable. If the Watchers detect the trace and come for us—"

"I'll handle it," Marcus said from the doorway, where he'd been checking and rechecking the locks. "I've mapped three escape routes from this building. If anyone approaches, I'll get us out."

Cassius closed his eyes. Took a breath. And opened his sight wider than he'd opened it in years.

---

The Tapestry spread before his extended perception like an ocean of light.

Threads by the millions—silver and gold and white and red—stretched in every direction, connecting every living person in the city to every other living person, to their pasts and futures and the infinite web of consequences that bound everything together. At normal perception levels, Cassius could see the threads within a few hundred meters. At this level, with his sight fully extended, the entire metropolitan area was visible as a vast, pulsing tapestry of interconnected fate.

It was beautiful and overwhelming in equal measure, and without Lyra's bond-thread serving as a lifeline back to his body, he would have been lost in seconds.

He focused, filtering the flood of information, searching for the specific signatures he needed. Weaver traces: the distinctive marks left in the Tapestry by someone who had manipulated threads. Each trace was like a brushstroke on a painting—visible if you knew what to look for, invisible to the uninitiated.

The first signature he found was nearby—a manipulation performed within the last month, about forty kilometers north. The trace was careful, precise, showing a skilled Weaver who minimized their impact and worked with surgical efficiency. Cassius memorized the location and the signature profile, then moved on.

The second was further away. Eighty kilometers east, in a suburban area where the threads were thinner—fewer people, fewer connections, a quieter section of the Tapestry. This trace was different: rougher, more forceful, suggesting a Weaver who worked with raw power rather than finesse. The manipulation was older—three months at least—but the signature was strong enough to read clearly.

The third took longer to find. A hundred and fifty kilometers south, in a rural area where the Tapestry was so sparse that individual threads were visible against the void. This trace was almost invisible—a whisper rather than a shout. The Weaver who'd left it was either very weak or very, very good at hiding.

Cassius went deeper.

His perception extended beyond the metropolitan area, sweeping across the region like a searchlight. The further he reached, the more the Tapestry thinned, the more effort it took to maintain clarity. Lyra's bond-thread vibrated with the strain—she was holding on, keeping him anchored, but the distance was testing both of them.

Fourth signature. Three hundred kilometers northwest, in a city Cassius had never visited. The trace was fresh—days old—and it showed something unusual: a manipulation performed on the Tapestry itself rather than on an individual's threads. Not a fate-change but a *repair*. Someone had found a tear in the fabric and stitched it closed.

That was significant. Weavers who could repair the Tapestry were extraordinarily rare.

Fifth signature. This one nearly broke his concentration. Five hundred kilometers away, at the absolute limit of his extended perception, a Weaver had performed something that Cassius had never seen before: a manipulation that existed in two temporal layers simultaneously. The trace showed work done in the present that also affected the past—retroactive thread-weaving, altering what had already happened.

Cassius had heard of this capability in Vera's stories—the highest level of Weaver mastery, achievable by only the most experienced practitioners. Whoever left this trace had been working with the Tapestry for decades.

Five signatures. Five Weavers, plus himself and Lyra. Seven total, just as Marsh had said.

He pulled back, reeling in his extended perception like a fisherman bringing in a line. The process was slow—consciousness that had spread across hundreds of kilometers didn't snap back like a rubber band. It flowed, gradually, through layers of distance and connection, following the bond-thread back to Lyra, back to his body, back to the small room in the safe house where his physical form sat cross-legged and motionless.

When he opened his eyes, four hours had passed and his nose was bleeding.

"Welcome back." Lyra was pale, her eyes ringed with exhaustion, but her grip on their bond-thread was still firm. "I felt you going further and further out. Like watching someone walk toward the horizon."

Cassius wiped his nose with the back of his hand, the blood bright against his skin. "Five Weavers. I found all five."

Marcus appeared with a glass of water and a damp cloth. "Locations?"

"Approximate. I'll need to narrow them down physically." Cassius accepted the water and drank deeply. "One nearby—forty kilometers north. Skilled, careful, probably the safest to approach first. One eighty klicks east, powerful but rough. One south, hiding in rural isolation. One northwest, in another city, with the rare ability to repair the Tapestry. And one very far away, at the limit of my range, who can do something I've only heard about in legends."

"What?"

"Retroactive weaving. Changing the past through thread-manipulation."

Lyra stared. "That's possible?"

"Apparently. I've never seen it done, and Vera told me it was theoretical. But the trace was unmistakable." Cassius set down the water glass. "We start with the closest one. Tomorrow, if I've recovered enough."

"You look like you haven't recovered from the *last* thing," Marcus observed.

"I haven't. But we don't have time to wait for full recovery." Cassius stood, swaying slightly. Lyra steadied him—her hand on his arm, the bond-thread pulsing with concern. "The trace I sent through the Tapestry was visible to any Watcher with instruments. They'll know I was searching. They'll know I found something. We have a window—maybe two days—before they triangulate our location from the trace-origin."

"Then we need to move the safe house," Marcus said.

"We need to do everything. Move the safe house, make contact with the first Weaver, begin planning how to approach the others." Cassius moved to the window, checking the street through habit rather than necessity. "And we need to do it while the Watchers are recalibrating from what they just detected."

"What did they detect, exactly?"

"A thread-trace at a scale that hasn't been performed in decades. The last Weaver who extended their perception that far was Vera, thirty years ago." He paused. "It's the equivalent of a magnitude-nine earthquake on their instruments. Every Watcher in the region will know something happened. They just won't know exactly what."

Lyra had been quiet, processing. Now she spoke. "The five Weavers. Will they come?"

"Some might. The nearby one—the careful, skilled one—is the best candidate for initial contact. They're operating close to a major city, which suggests they haven't fully retreated from society. They might be receptive to collaboration."

"And if they're not?"

"Then I'll try the next one. And the next. Until I find someone who understands that isolation is no longer a survival strategy." He turned from the window. "The Watchers are building an army. We need to build one too."

"Not an army," Lyra said. "A family."

Cassius looked at her—this girl who'd been a Weaver for less than two weeks, who'd already performed impossible manipulations and faced down Watcher operatives and held his consciousness anchored during a perception-extending trace that should have required years of experience to support.

"A family," he agreed. "That works too."

*Remaining lifespan: 7 years, 7 months, 0 days.*

The trace had cost him a day. One more day of his dwindling supply, spent on the hope that five strangers might be willing to trust a dying man with a plan he hadn't fully formed yet.