The Shadow Behind the Stars Read Online Free Page A

don’t do anything in particular, not that you would recognize as action. We watch it, the way the world breathes in the night. Sisters of darkness—it is one name for us, and an apt one. Things are hidden in the dark. Things are unknown and inescapable. We might not always understand our own art, but we can feel it. We can taste it in the air on a clear, cold night. We can smell it in the brine when a storm is brewing over the waters. We are only sitting or standing, and listening to the prayers of the day, but we are also at some deeper level conversing with the magic that fills our threads.
    When we watch and listen in this way, we become a thing that has meaning, that takes joy in each breath. Every night, we fill ourselves up with this joy, and then we spin and measure ourselves out and we provide the perfect endings each day.
    That night, as Aglaia lay sleeping in the house at our backs, our magic was swirling and flowing in a strangely deliberate way. When I closed my eyes to forget the girl, I could almost hear it speaking. A soft murmur drifted all about, rising and falling, as though telling some great story—the sort that cannot be stopped once it has begun, the sort that holds you captive until the end.
    It seemed . . . directional. And yes, when I concentrated, I could sense it sweeping over and around us, across our island,toward the house and our sleeping guest. It was gathering there, the magic, the stuff of our infinite work. It was interested in her; it had some claim to her.
    I opened my eyes and looked over at my sisters. Serena was smiling up into the moon, which was full that night. Mine is the waxing moon, and Xinot’s is the waning, but our middle sister loves the bright shining moon, all round and brilliant.
    Xinot, though, was frowning. She had felt the flow of our dark magic too, and she didn’t like it any more than I did. It seemed Aglaia wasn’t just a poor lost thing after all; it seemed it would be harder to forget her than I had hoped. She had a future; we knew that from her thread. And our darkness seemed to be saying that hers was a stronger, deeper destiny than we had guessed.
    Xinot turned her shadowed face toward mine. I knew her thoughts. We could tell Serena; we could ask her again to take the spell from Aglaia and send her off to meet this fate, mind and painful memories returned. We could set her free, and free ourselves of her.
    But Xinot shook her head, and looked away again. I bunched my fists into my tunic, turning my face to the wind as well. Fine, then. I would have to find some other solution to this. As much as I did not like to admit it, Xinot was right. It was too risky—even if we told Serena how powerful this girl’s fate was, we couldn’t be sure our sister would allow Aglaia to leave. She might want to help; she might take the girl further into her arms. What was cloak-mending today might become cooking lessons tomorrow, or giving her the names of toads,or telling her ancient tales. Serena loved the brightly shining ones, and Aglaia’s thread was as brilliant as tonight’s moon.
    So we let it go; again we stayed silent. We touched the drifting darkness and we listened to the waves. Aglaia slept. Serena watched the moon.
    I shivered, and I hoped the foreboding I felt was only our magic whispering nonsense, some warped game. I hoped, but I could not believe it was that toothless. Since we opened our eyes in the midst of that first eternal night, it has been ours—the darkness, the threads, the sweet beginnings and bitter ends, the whole messy tangle of mortal life. In some ways, there is little difference between us sisters and our art: When I am working my spindle, I am the masses of glittering wool, and the whirring tool, and the edges of my fingers as they coax each fresh thread into existence. Serena is the length, the priceless single strand that slides along her palm, one long golden afternoon. Xinot is a