Page 129 of The Devil's Canvas

"Noted," I mutter.

My mother grins, floating just an inch above the floor. “I get to walk my daughter down the aisle! Sure, I’m dead, and it’ll probably be through a portal of fire, but hey—I’ll be there.”

“That’s horrifyingly sweet,” Julian mutters under his breath.

“Also, Selene,” my mom adds, tilting her head. “If there’s going to be fire, I refuse to wear polyester in the afterlife.”

“Please, you’ll both look fabulous in custom-stitched soul silk,” Selene chirps.

Julian leans in, voice dry. “Do I need to sign a separate deal to survive this ceremony?”

“No,” all three women say at once.

“…Terrifying,” he mutters.

"We have some unfinished business first," I speak up. I approach the seven vacant thrones—massive, carved from obsidian, bone, and time itself. Each one pulses faintly with the echo of dominion. I stop before them, pressing my palm to the floor as I lower myself to my knees.

Eyes closed, I summon them. I don’t speak aloud. I don’t have to. My thoughts are threadbare but resolute.

Come.

The room changes. The air bends. One by one, they arrive. First, the scent of ash and roses. Cold follows. Flame comes last.

None speak, but I feel the weight of their eyes. Of eternity watching me. I rise. My voice doesn’t tremble, though my bones ache with the pressure. “I have a request.”

A pause. Permission to continue.

“I want to return to the living.”

Gasps echo through the chamber. A sharp flicker of movement. Something hisses. They think I mean forever. That I want to forsake my station.

I raise my hand before they can protest. “Not to abandon my place. To fulfill a thread. I wove a fate for Cassius and Melanie that must be completed with my own hands. And I want to see the rest of my family—to let them know I survived. That I found my place. You said I could keep those I love close.”

My voice softens. “I want to show them I didn’t disappear.”

A voice—not one, but many—speaks. One will. Seven powers. “Weaver of the Loom. Guardian of the thread. We grant your passage.”

My breath stutters.

“You may return, with the mother who bore you and the soulmatch who bled for you.” Their eyes blaze, each a different color of judgment and balance. “But remember, child of fire—fate does not forgive twice. What you take with you, you must honor.”

I bow low, my heart thunderous in my chest. “I will.”

And I rise—Ophelia Duvain, threadbender, soulbound, keeper of the Loom—ready to return.

We don’t walk. We descend. From Loom to world, from thread to flesh. And when my feet touch the earth again, it’s different. I'm different.

“We start with Cassius and Melanie.” My voice is calm. The kind that comes when anger runs out and something colder takes its place.

Julian doesn’t ask why. He just reaches for my hand. We disappear in smoke.

We reappear on a sidewalk that smells like stale desperation and overcooked microwave dinners.

The house in front of us looks like karma personally slapped it. Peeling paint, crooked shutters, a mailbox hanging by one screw, like it gave up halfway through delivering the bills. The porch sags like it knows this whole situation is beneath it. The grass? Dead. As if even the weeds were like, “No thanks.”

Julian raises an eyebrow. “This the right place, or did we accidentally land in a cautionary tale?”

I shrug. “Both, probably.”

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