Chapter 1
I was born able to see threads tying certain people to one another. A thin red thread stretched right above Mom and Dad’s heads.
I hurried over to Mom at once. “Mom, why is there a red thread connecting you and Dad?”
Mom laughed when she heard me, booping my nose fondly.
“That’s proof that Daddy loves me.”
Later, at our family gathering, Aunt Celia brought me a present just like she always did.
“Luna? Come see what Auntie brought you.”
I trotted over and found a cloth doll.
Just then, Dad walked up, knelt down beside me, and stroked my head.
“Luna, what do you say?”
I glanced up at Dad, then turned to look at Aunt Celia.
Little me was filled with huge confusion.
“Weird. Why is there such a thick red thread connecting Dad and Aunt Celia?”
My world isn’t the same as yours.
To you, the city of Austin is a bustling metropolis filled with gas lamps, steam hovercars, and alchemical potions.
But through my eyes, the whole city is tangled up in countless dense threads.
I can see the “emotional threads” linking every person to another.
Family bonds glow warm orange. Friendships are clear, crystal blue. Love burns vivid scarlet. Pure hatred, though, looks like rusted iron wire—dull charcoal gray.
I once thought this power was a gift. Until Thanksgiving dinner when I turned seven, and this ability dragged me straight into the abyss.
That night, the dining hall of the Valen mansion blazed with light. The long oak table groaned under roast turkey, raspberry-glazed cutlets, and expensive amber wine.
My father Arthur, a renowned potion investor in Austin, raised his goblet and chatted loudly with the guests. My mother Martha wore an elegant silk gown, holding onto her flawless society lady smile.
Seated beside Father was Aunt Celia, the wife of my mother’s brother. Ever since my uncle drowned at sea, she’d lived with us alongside her son Luke. The grown-ups always said poor widowed Celia deserved the family’s support.
I sat tucked away in the corner of the table, bored, staring at the threads hovering above all the adults’ heads.
The thread connecting Mother and Father was a thin scarlet strand, hanging slack in midair, ready to snap at the slightest gust of wind.
But when I shifted my gaze to Father and Aunt Celia, I froze.
No warm orange familial thread stretched between them. Instead, there was an enormously thick, greasy glowing red cord.
It looked like a bloated leech gorged on blood, or a massive python. Beneath the lace tablecloth, it coiled tight, binding Father’s thigh to Aunt Celia’s waist. The thread reeked of cloying, sickly sweetness, red enough it seemed to drip blood.
“Luna, what are you staring at?” Mother noticed my blank stare. Her brows pinched, a flicker of irritation in her tone.
Every pair of eyes in the room locked onto the seven-year-old me.
I pointed straight at Father and Aunt Celia, confused and utterly innocent as I spoke.
“It’s weird. Why is there such a thick, bright red thread connecting Dad and Aunt Celia? It looks… it looks just like two rutting hellhounds tangled together.”
The second the words left my mouth, all the air vanished from the dining room.
Father’s gentle, refined smile froze solid on his face. Aunt Celia’s silver fork clattered onto her porcelain plate. Her face drained completely pale.
“What nonsense are you spouting?!” Father shot abruptly to his feet, his chair scraping with a shrill wail across the wooden floor.
I pouted, hurt and wronged.
“I’m not lying! I really saw it! That red thread connecting Dad and Aunt Celia, it’s so thick…”
Before I could process anything, a heavy, rough palm crashed brutally against my cheek.
Crack!
The blow sent me flying. I slammed hard into the liquor cabinet behind me. The sound of shattering glass cut sharply through the deathly quiet dining room. My ears rang loudly, and a metallic, iron tang instantly filled my mouth.
It was Father.
He stood towering over me, his gaze cold and filled with revulsion.
“You’ve grown utterly undisciplined, spouting nothing but rubbish!”
“Arthur!” Mother cried out, yet she made no move to rush over and help me. She stayed rooted to her spot, staring at me with unmasked horror and disgust. “Luna, have you been cursed? Apologize to your father and Aunt Celia this instant!”
I clutched my swollen cheek, staring at my mother in complete disbelief.
Aunt Celia immediately pulled out a silk handkerchief and put on a show of wiping her tears. “Arthur, don’t hurt the child. She must have picked up vile gossip from common folk out in town. What could a little girl possibly understand? It’s just… those words wound deeply.”
As she sobbed, she shot me a frigid sideways glance from the corner of her eye.
Guilt flickered across Martha’s face after hearing her, and her glare toward me turned even harsher.
“Someone! Lock her down in the cellar! No dinner for her tonight. Let her think long and hard about what she’s done wrong!”
I held my throbbing cheek. Tears pooled in my eyes, yet I stubbornly fought to keep them from spilling over.
I still did not think I was in the wrong.
I only spoke of what I had seen.
Why were they reacting this way?
