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ankles. I threw my hair back. I met my sisters’ gazes. “Yes,” I said as the thunder rumbled beneath. “It is time.”

Six

    WE PULLED AGLAIA TO HER feet and led her over to the front of the house. We ranged ourselves before her, as we had been when she had first appeared on our island. Me, then Serena, then Xinot—all facing the girl, who stood with her back to our door as though she had entered only a few moments ago.
    Serena stepped up next to her. She held Aglaia’s hand and slid her other one behind the girl’s head, over her hair, and she whispered something in her ear. I saw Aglaia’s face as the spell came away. It wasn’t the smooth, sudden understanding in our boat. This jerked her; this made her cry out with its shock, and when Serena backed away, Aglaia was looking about at us with wild eyes.
    This was not the Aglaia that I knew.
    Oh, there were similarities. As she caught my gaze, I saw the same stubbornness and the same spark. Her posture was the same—tall, confident. But the light in her eyes, the strength of her presence were stunning. As the spellbound Aglaia was only an echo of the girl in the boat, so that girl was only an echo of this one.
    And she didn’t know me.
    That was her first question, in fact, when she was able to speak. “Who are you?”
    There was no way that we could not answer. We told her our names.
    â€œThose are just names,” said Aglaia. “Who are you?”
    Serena turned to Xinot; Xinot turned to me. I said, a whisper, not looking at her, “We’re the shadow behind the stars.”
    She must have followed my gaze, because she walked over to my basket of wool and my spindle. Xinot made some gesture toward her, but Aglaia didn’t try to touch either. She just looked at them, straight and still.
    She said, slow, remembering, “I came to ask you what there was to live for now.”
    Yes, we said.
    â€œYou wouldn’t answer me.”
    No.
    She said, and it was small and breaking, “What did you do to me?”
    Serena moved over beside her. She reached out to take the girl’s hand, but then dropped hers again. “We took away your pain.”
    â€œNo.” Aglaia was shaking her head. “It never went away.”
    â€œIt did. You smiled. You were happy.”
    â€œI was happy, maybe, but I was still in pain.” She looked atSerena. There was no wild panic now, only certainty. “I can feel the place where it’s been living. It never went away.”
    She looked down at my wool again. “You did this thing,” she said. “You brought the doom upon my village; you gave this pain to me.”
    â€œIt wasn’t us,” said Serena.
    â€œWe only listen to the thread,” said Xinot.
    I was silent. Of course the girl was right.
    Aglaia turned; she crossed in front of us and went up close to Xinot. “You cut their threads. My mother. My father. Everyone.”
    She went up close to Serena. “You showed her where to cut.”
    She came up close to me, and I shuddered at the lack of recognition in her face. All those mornings out in the boat, all those words we had exchanged, and there was nothing left. Not even memory.
    Then, though, before she spoke, she blinked, and I saw the hesitation there, and I saw my Aglaia, the one who had held my hand, begging me to help her, there in her bright-blue eyes. She said softly, “You spun them such threads as would lead them to that day.”
    Xinot tried to reason with her. “It wasn’t our fault, child. We didn’t know.”
    â€œYou knew,” said Aglaia, and her voice was hard again.She turned to our eldest sister and pointed a finger, sure and strong. “You knew . Are you going to tell me that when you spin and measure and cut, you’ve no idea what you are doing? Are you going to tell me that you cannot hear the threads singing, telling you their tales? I hear them. I’ve