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Moros’s lapels. “Apate and Nemesis were at her side, as you predicted.” She hiccupped and sniffled. “I don’t know why they hate us so much.”
    “Because it’s what they were created to do,” he said softly. It was a fact he had ignored when their rage suited his purposes, when he’d had a rebellion against the Keepers to wage. They had stirred up enough pain and mayhem to force the Keepers to deal with him, to stop treating him and his Kere like dogs. But when the negotiations had ended, his siblings’ thirst for inflicting pain on hapless humans had not, and Moros had distanced himself from Strife, Vengeance, and Lies. Yes, they were his brother and sisters, but the Kere were his children. “And it’s my fault they’ve focused on us,” he told Lachesis. “My fault they’re hurting you.” His fingers curled into her hair, the soft strands tickling. “I’m so sorry.”
    She looked up at him. “Aren’t they targeting you, too?”
    “They’re trying. But I swear, Lachesis, I’m going to stop them.” He kissed her brow. “I’m going after the Blade of Life.”
    “Atropos suspected you might.” Her grip on him tightened, her hands shaking. “You know where it is?”
    “I think so. I’ve consulted every ancient text I possess, and there were enough clues to give me a solid idea of where it might be hidden. Mother didn’t deny it was there. I’m going after it now.”
    She wiped tears from her face and stepped back. “You should hurry, then. Because, yes, the loom is malfunctioning. It keeps tangling the threads, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t measure out some of the lengths. They get away from me. I . . .” She pressed her lips together as her tears sprang to the surface again. “Clotho has it the worst, though.”
    Moros looked toward the barnlike structure that housed the great wheel from which Clotho spun the thread of life. “Is she still working?”
    “I think so,” Lachesis said, running her finger along the edge of her ruler, which was lying at the edge of the loom. “You know how I love order. I really do love it. It’s been so hard to let it go . . .” Her voice broke over the words.
    “Don’t let go. And don’t give up,” he said, reaching to touch her shoulder. His hand fell short as she moved away. She trudged up the length of the loom, her fingers trailing along the snarled threads, her ruler forgotten.
    Rage coursing through him, he strode into the spinning room to find Clotho sitting on the dirt floor, her hands buried in the bottomless basket of fleece that she fed into the wheel to create the thread. “It won’t hold together,” she said with a moan. Her brown hair hung lank and snarled down her back. “We’re going to run out of thread.” She gestured weakly at the pile of stout bobbins stacked against the wall, the thread waiting to be measured and incorporated into the fabric of fate.
    “How long?” he asked.
    She turned, revealing bloodshot eyes. “I don’t know. A week, perhaps? Maybe less.”
    It only confirmed what he’d suspected. “I have to find our siblings. I have to take the fight to them.”
    “You’d need years to search the Veil,” she said wearily. “They could be anywhere.”
    “They found this place somehow. And they must have been here before.”
    “It makes me wonder,” she murmured. “Do you trust Atropos?”
    He glanced back toward the loom, the tattered tapestry of fate, beneath which Atropos prowled for souls to reap, threads to cut. “I’m not sure.”
    She reached out and touched his hand. “Me neither. But I know you’re trying to save us, Moros. I know you are.”
    Determination crystallized inside him. “I’ll return with the means to protect you, or not at all.” Gathering every ounce of concentration, he willed himself back into the cold and gray, to where mountains still stood majestic and unchanged while the rest of the world had faltered. The north face of Mount Kailash was striped with