The afternoon light gilded the paper windows of Meridian Pavilion by the time Lin Wan and Shen Yan returned, Lila and Elara leaning on each other as they followed. The air smelled of jasmine tea—Elara had brewed a pot, its steam curling around the chipped porcelain cups—and the silver needle in Lin Wan's hand had cooled to a faint, steady warmth, no longer thrumming with the thread-eater's energy. She set the leather journal on her worktable, the interlocking lotus draft peeking out from its pages, and traced the edge of the locket around her neck; the photograph inside felt heavier now, like a promise.
Shen Yan leaned against the doorframe, his dagger resting on the windowsill, the jade fragment in its hilt glinting. "We should secure the journal," he said, his voice lower than usual. "If the thread-eater had allies, they'll come for the Lotus of Unity."
Before Lin Wan could reply, a soft knock echoed through the pavilion.
It was an old man, his coat stitched with faded embroidery threads, his hands gnarled but steady as he held a wrapped bundle. His hair was silver, tied back with a silk ribbon, and his eyes—pale blue, like frost—held a familiar weariness. "You're the memory weaver," he said, his gaze fixing on Lin Wan. "I heard you can mend what the thread-eater broke."
Lin Wan gestured for him to sit. "I can try. What memory do you want to repair?"
The man unwrapped the bundle, revealing a tattered embroidery panel: a field of lotuses, their petals stitched with the same moonlight silk as her mother's work, their vines woven with frost threads. But the center of the panel was torn, the threads frayed as if something had ripped it apart from the inside. "This was my wife's," he said, his voice cracking. "She was a weaver, like your mother. The thread-eater took her memory of us—of our wedding day, when I stitched this panel with her. I've carried it for ten years. Can you bring that memory back?"
Lin Wan's silver needle tingled. The panel's threads weren't just faded—they hummed with a faint, familiar energy: the same as the thread-eater's control. She exchanged a glance with Shen Yan, who had tensed, his hand drifting toward his dagger.
"Your wife—did she know my mother?" Lin Wan asked, tracing the edge of the panel.
The man's smile didn't reach his eyes. "They worked together, once. Before the thread-eater came."
Shen Yan stepped forward, his gray eyes sharp. "What's your name?"
"Call me Mr. Hale," he said, but his fingers tightened around the panel. "Will you help me, or not?"
Lin Wan hesitated. The panel was a piece of her mother's world—of the network of weavers who'd fought the thread-eater. But the tingle in her needle felt like a warning. "The cost will be high," she said. "To mend a memory this old, I'll need to take a memory of equal weight from you."
Mr. Hale leaned forward, his voice urgent. "Take anything. A childhood memory, a trivial day—anything, so long as I get her back."
Lin Wan threaded her needle with moonlight silk, but as she touched the torn panel, the threads erupted in a burst of red. Not the thread-eater's red—darker, sharper, woven with a pattern she'd never seen: a spiral of thorns, coiling around the lotuses.
"Who are you?" she snapped, pulling her hand back.
Mr. Hale's mask slipped. His pale blue eyes hardened, and he grabbed the panel, tearing it from the table. "I should have known the needle would give me away. Your mother was always too careful with her toys."
Shen Yan's dagger was at Mr. Hale's throat before he could stand. "You knew my grandmother." It wasn't a question.
Mr. Hale laughed, a cold, sharp sound. "Knew her? I worked with her. We made the thread-eater's first patterns—before she betrayed us, before she hid the counter-patterns with your mother. She thought she could stop us from controlling memories? Foolish woman."
Lin Wan's blood ran cold. "You created the thread-eater."
"Not created—awoken," Mr. Hale said, his gaze locking on the journal behind her. "It was a tool, to make weavers the masters of memory. But your mother and that frost-thread traitor broke it. Now we're going to fix it—starting with the Lotus of Unity."
He slammed his palm on the table, and a cloud of black threads erupted from his coat, wrapping around Shen Yan's arm. Shen Yan grunted, freezing the threads with a burst of frost, but Mr. Hale had already grabbed the journal, darting toward the door.
Lin Wan lunged, her silver needle driving into the edge of his coat. The needle burned, and Mr. Hale screamed—his coat's threads unraveling, revealing a tattoo on his wrist: a spiral of thorns, the same as the panel's pattern.
"Tell me who you are!" she shouted.
Mr. Hale wrenched free, tearing the journal from her grasp, but a page fluttered out—her mother's handwriting, scrawled in the margin: "The Thorn Weavers. They want the patterns to rule, not protect."
He fled into the street, the journal tucked under his arm, and by the time Shen Yan broke free of the black threads, he was gone.
Lin Wan knelt, picking up the fallen page. The Thorn Weavers—she'd never heard the name, but the spiral of thorns matched the pattern on the panel. "He's part of a group," she said, her voice tight. "They're the ones who helped the thread-eater. Who my mother and his grandmother fought."
Shen Yan's jaw was clenched. "He mentioned my grandmother betraying them. That means she switched sides—she chose to help your mother, not them."
Lin Wan looked at the locket, at the photograph of her mother and Shen Yan's grandmother. "She was trying to make amends. To stop what she'd started."
Elara set a cup of tea in front of her, her hands shaking. "What do we do now? He has the journal—the Lotus of Unity."
Lin Wan picked up her silver needle, its warmth returning, steady and sure. "He doesn't have the screen fragments. Or the pendants. The code isn't just in the journal—it's in the fragments, in the patterns we stitch. He can't use the Lotus of Unity without them."
Shen Yan nodded, his gaze firm. "We find the other screen fragment. Before the Thorn Weavers do."
Outside, the sun dipped below the rooftops, painting the sky pink and orange. But Lin Wan knew the light wouldn't last. The Thorn Weavers were out there, hunting the patterns, hunting them—and the fight her mother and Shen Yan's grandmother had started was now theirs to finish.
She traced the edge of the fallen page, her mother's words burning in her mind: "They want the patterns to rule, not protect."
She wouldn't let that happen. Not to the memories, not to the weavers, not to the people she loved.
As the first stars appeared in the sky, Lin Wan opened her worktable drawer, pulling out a new spool of moonlight silk. She threaded her needle, the silver glinting in the lamplight, and began to stitch: a spiral of thorns, wrapped in a lotus's petals, a pattern of defense against the Thorn Weavers' rage.
The fight wasn't over. But this time, they were ready.