Chapter 30: Threads of History

"Who are they?" I ask, my voice barely rising above the cacophony of the clocks. "The Cleaners. Hitane says they possess technology from the future."

The Weaver takes a slow, deliberate sip of her tea, her blind, milky eyes staring deep into the flames as if reading a history written in the ash. "They are not from the future," she says, her voice rasping like sandpaper on stone. "They are from outside."

"Outside?" Minaki asks, her brow furrowing in confusion as she leans closer to the warmth of the fire. "Outside of what?"

"Imagine time is a river," The Weaver begins, her hands shaping the air before her. "We are the fish swimming in its currents. We flow with the water. Sometimes, gifted individuals like Hitane can jump upstream or float in a stagnant eddy, but we are still in the water. We are still part of the flow." She gestures with a gnarled hand towards the darkness beyond the walls. "The Cleaners are different. They are the ones building the dam. They are the ones dredging the canal. They are not part of the river. They are the engineers trying to control it."

"But where do they come from?" I press, needing to understand the nature of the enemy that hunted us through the forest.

"They come from a timeline that died," she says, a heavy sadness settling over her features. "A future that collapsed under the crushing weight of its own paradoxes. They escaped the end of their world by stepping out of time entirely. They built a fortress in the Null Space, a place where time does not exist. The Architect leads them."

"The Architect," Hitane whispers, her face paling slightly. "I have heard that name echoed in the whispers of the timeline, but I thought it was a myth."

"He believes that gifts like ours are glitches," The Weaver continues, her tone hardening. "He believes that every time we use our power, we weaken the fabric of reality. He thinks we are the reason his world died. So he formed the Cleaners. Their mission is to prune the timeline. They exist to remove the anomalies. They ensure that the river flows straight and predictable so that his new, perfect world can be born safe and sterile."

"So they want to kill us to save reality?" I ask, the absurdity of it tasting bitter on my tongue.

"To them, it is not killing," she says. "It is debugging. You are an error code, Juiro. You are a variable they cannot account for in their equations. Your parents were part of a resistance. They were a group of humans who helped the Gifted hide from the pruning shears. The Architect found them. He burned them to flush you out."

My hands clench into tight fists, my nails digging into my palms. "They murdered my parents because I was a glitch?" I demand, my voice rising.

"They murdered your parents because they were protecting the Triad," she corrects sharply. "You three are not just random anomalies. You are a convergence. Heart, Mind, and Anchor. When you are together, when you are balanced, you do not just ripple the water. You can change the course of the entire river." She leans forward, her wrinkled face illuminated by the dancing firelight. "The Architect fears you. He fears that you will undo his work. That is why he sends the Gray Men. That is why he wants you deleted."

"But we are broken," Minaki whispers, wrapping her arms around herself as if to hold her pieces together. "We cannot change anything. We can barely survive the day."

"You are broken because you believe you are separate," The Weaver says. "You think your gifts are tools to be used individually. The Anchor pulls. The Mind plans. The Heart feels. But that is not how it works." She reaches into a woven basket beside her and pulls out three threads of yarn-one red, one blue, one green. "Alone, they are weak," she says, snapping the red thread with a quick, decisive jerk.

She takes three new threads and twists them together, her old fingers moving with surprising dexterity as she braids them into a thick, strong cord. "Together," she says, pulling on the cord with all her strength. It holds firm. "Together, they are unbreakable. You have to stop fighting side by side. You have to start fighting as one organism. You have to weave your gifts together into a single strand."

She throws the braided cord into the fire. It burns brightly for a moment before turning to ash. "But you are running out of time," she says softly. "The Gray Men are not just tracking you. They are anticipating you. The Architect has seen the ripples of your arrival here."

"They are coming?" Hitane asks, standing up in a fluid motion, her eyes scanning the room for exits.

"They are already here," The Weaver says calmly.

A loud, booming thud shakes the entire house, sending dust raining down from the ceiling rafters. The hundreds of clocks on the walls all chime at once, creating a discordant, terrifying alarm that screams of danger.

"The barrier is breached," The Weaver says, gripping her staff. "They have found the door."