Which threads of fate will hold—and which will break?
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from YA fantasy The Severed Thread , sequel to The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder—publishing with Razorbill on February 7.
Fi has awakened the sleeping prince, but the battle for Andar is far from over. The Spindle Witch, the Witch Hunters, and Fi’s own Butterfly Curse all stand between them and happily ever after.
Shane has her partner’s back. But she’s in for the fight of her life against Red, the right hand of the Spindle Witch who she’s also, foolishly, hellbent on saving.
Briar Rose would do anything to restore his kingdom. But there’s a darkness creeping inside him—a sinister bond to the Spindle Witch he can’t escape.
All hopes of restoring Andar rest on deciphering a mysterious book code, finding the hidden city of the last Witches, and uncovering a secret lost for centuries—one that just might hold the key to the Spindle Witch’s defeat. If they can all survive that long…
“Haste, Filore.” The Paper Witch stood in the mouth of the gully ahead. He pushed a strand of blond hair from his pale face, motioning them forward. “The longer it takes to reach the Ironworks, the more danger we are in.”
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The Severed Thread
So far they’d avoided any run-ins with Witch Hunter patrols, but they’d had more than a few close calls. It felt like Witch Hunters lay in wait down every passageway, treacherous as the dust-colored vipers that lurked in the dry sagebrush, invisible until they struck. The night before, they’d almost stumbled right into a Witch Hunter camp, and only Shane’s quick application of her fist to the sentry’s nose had stopped him from raising the alarm. After that, the Paper Witch had turned them toward a different path— an ancient forge, made by the Witches of Aurora’s time, which he said ran right through the heart of the hills. But his face had been tight with worry ever since, and Fi had serious doubts about a shortcut the Paper Witch was reluctant to take.
With a great cursing and clatter of rocks, Shane burst through the narrow gap, looking positively livid. “I put my hand in a hole crawling with centipedes!” she growled, flicking one of the wriggling insects at the Paper Witch before it could crawl up her sleeve. It fell miserably short. “There’s no way this is the best route to your legendary Witch city!”
The Paper Witch looked annoyed, though it was hard to tell under all the dust. “It is not the best route to the hidden city of Everlynd,” he said, emphasizing every word. “But with the Witch Hunters out in force, it is the only route that remains open to us.”
Everlynd. Even just the name sent a thrill down Fi’s spine.
When the Paper Witch had met them at the edge of the Forest of Thorns, he hadn’t just come to light their path. He’d come to fulfill one final duty passed down from his great-grandmother, the Rose Witch: to lead Briar to the hidden city of Everlynd, the last bastion of old Andar. Concealed in the fallen kingdom, powerful Witches had kept the magic of Andar alive in secret for a hundred years, waiting for their prince to rejoin them and lead them to victory over the Spindle Witch. Ideally, it wouldn’t have just been Briar, but King Sage and all the Witches from the castle, too, but…
Fi shook herself. Just a place like Everlynd existing was more than she’d ever dreamed possible. A place of magic and learning, where the most precious of spell books and relics had been secreted away after the kingdom’s fall. A tiny piece of the old Andar preserved like a ship in a bottle all these years. Fi couldn’t wait to see it.
Shane was less impressed. “If these Witches are so powerful, I don’t see why they can’t at least come out and meet us halfway.”
The Paper Witch shook his head, either in fondness or defeat. “The city is almost impossible to enter, and only a select few ever leave. It’s how the Witches have remained hidden all this time. I am one of a handful of people who knows the way, and even then, the path is—”
“Full of danger, and traps, and killer tests. I remember,” Shane groused, waving him off. “Fine. But I want it known that when we get to Everlynd, I expect a royal welcome. You have to be good for something.” The last part she aimed at Briar, who laughed.
“I keep telling myself the same thing,” he said as they set off again, catching Fi’s eye and throwing her a wink. Fi tried very hard not to smile.
It took another hour of climbing and sliding before the Paper Witch led them down a crooked gully that dead-ended at a towering slab of rugged stone. Fi craned her head, shading her eyes and staring up and up and up. A glittering vein of smoky quartz wound through the granite, the uncut crystals glittering like dark stars against the rock. It was beautiful, in a way, but…
“I don’t see anything that looks like a door,” Fi said, wiping her sleeve across her sweaty brow.
“The entrance to the forge is hidden in the rock, and it will remain sealed until we find the keyhole and unlock it.” The Paper Witch pressed his lips into a thin line. “Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do that.”
Shane gaped at him from where she’d leaned back against the rock. “Wait— you dragged us all the way up here to a door you can’t even open?”
The Paper Witch chuckled. “Contrary to your frequent accusations, Shane, I don’t actually know everything. Certainly not everything about ancient Andar. I’ve never traversed the Ironworks myself. But Witches who have passed through the forge describe the silver vein of quartz near the entrance, so it must be close.” He offered them a smile. “Fortunately, I travel with two enterprising young treasure hunters whom I’m sure can figure out the rest.”
“Treasure hunters usually get some treasure for their trouble,” Shane muttered, but she pushed to her feet, banging her knuckles against Briar’s shoulder. “Come on. We’ll start by looking for the basics— pressure panels, trick rocks. There ought to be some of those magic squiggles Fi likes so much. Just don’t stick your hand down a hole without checking it first or something will probably bite it off.”
Briar looked a little pale. Fi rolled her eyes. “She’s exaggerating. Between the vipers and the centipedes, you’re much more likely to end up poisoned.”
“That’s not as reassuring as you think,” Briar told her. Still, he followed Shane over to the rock wall, scouring the crags and fissures.
Fi hung back, staring at the glittering quartz and trying to remember everything the Paper Witch had told her about this place. As much as Shane liked to complain about it, context and history were everything when it came to ruins.
The Ironworks had been built in Andar’s earliest age by fire Witches and earth Witches— Witches who could manipulate metal and rock and feel the veins of crystal deep beneath the ground. Together, they carved out a great forge and bellows under the hills that burned all through the night. Early storytellers of Darfell had imagined the mountain to be the lair of a Witch who could transform into a great fire-beast, so massive that when it raged the entire northern sky turned red with the smoke of its fetid breath.
But those were just old stories. Fi tugged on her earlobe, thinking. Real people had worked here— Witches who would have been coming and going all the time to gather raw materials for their creations, everything from the iron gates of Andar’s fortresses to the spears of its soldiers. So what had they done?
Her eyes followed Shane, picking her way along the slope while Briar cautiously peered into the rainwater divots. A spark of light magic glowed in his palm.
Could it be a magic lock? Fi wondered. For Witches powerful enough to build the forge, using earth magic to reveal a keyhole would be effortless. But immediately she dismissed the idea. Fire Witches had worked here, too, and iron Witches. A door that required a specific magic affinity would be too inconvenient.
The Paper Witch had moved away from her, crouching beside a boulder slick with lichen and filling their precious waterskins from a small stream dribbling through the rocks. Wildflowers bloomed out of the crevices around his feet, bright purple scorpionweed and white snowberries following the dark stream of water until it vanished at the base of the wall. Fi bent and pressed her ear against the rock. She could hear the water trickling inside, loud like it was moving through a vast hollow space— like a hidden passage.
Anticipation tingled in Fi’s stomach. The door was right in front of her. She just had to figure out how it worked.
“Filore?”
The Paper Witch was watching her, curious.
“There’s something here.” Fi flattened her hand against the sun-warm stone. She could almost imagine that heat was bleeding out of the rock, the ancient fires still burning in the heart of the mountain. The smoky crystals winked between her fingers.
Smoke. And fire.
Fi’s eyes widened.
“Shane, Briar!” she called excitedly. “Come back. I think I’ve got it.” Her eyes roved over the sandy basin until she spotted a spiny clump of sagebrush. She fastened her gloved hand around it and tugged hard. The shrub came out of the dry soil surprisingly fast, sending her stumbling back into Shane.
Shane caught her shoulder. “Please tell me that bush isn’t the key to an ancient Witch ruin.”
“Not by itself.” Fi kicked the last clumps of dirt out of the brittle roots. Then she dug out her old flint and tinder. The shrub was half-dead already, and it caught the first spark, the dry branches withering so fast she worried she wouldn’t have enough of it. Before she lost the flame, she lifted the burning sage and thrust it against the quartz.
The change was immediate. The smoke inside the crystals began to billow, as if it was being blown away by a soft wind. Fi moved the flame along the rock. A swirl of smoke rushed away from her, all the stormy colors bleeding out of a crystal the size of her fist and leaving something in their place: a long, narrow slit in the rock, half as long as her thumb.
“The keyhole,” the Paper Witch murmured in approval. Hidden among the dark crystals, it had been completely invisible. “So the stone itself is the lock. Well done, Filore.”
“We’re not in yet,” Fi warned, coughing as the sage’s pungent smoke got in her lungs. She studied the sharp, narrow keyhole, so tight it was hard to imagine wedging any key in there. But it was the perfect size for a thin steel blade… “Shane, your dagger. Quick, before we lose the fire.”
“If this snaps off in there, I’m going to be pissed,” Shane grumbled. But Fi could tell her partner was smiling as she leaned around Fi and drove the dagger into the rock, all the way to the hilt.
Fi held her breath as Shane twisted— but to her surprise, the lock turned easily, the clump of pale crystals rotating like tumblers in any other door. The earth rumbled beneath her feet. Briar pulled her back as a fissure creaked open in the rock face, the seam of quartz and granite separating to reveal a long black tunnel. Rivulets of water snaked down the rough sloping passage and disappeared into the dark.
Shane yanked her dagger out, looking satisfied. “That’s more like it.”
Fi dropped the sage and stomped out the last tendrils of fire, mesmerized. The lock had been relatively simple, but the power to build a doorway right into the stone… that was incredible. Fi felt like it was finally hitting her. These weren’t just ruins like the ones on the edge of Darfell; they were in the heart of the kingdom of magic now.
A tarnished iron archway engraved with runes was set into the rock just inside the passage. The marks were old, some melted so deeply into the stone they were barely visible. Fi laid a hand over a series of interlocking triangles. The giant script was twice the size of her palm.
“These look familiar, but I can’t place them.” She craned her head back. “Is this Riven Earth script?”
“In its infancy,” the Paper Witch said. “The Order of the Riven Earth grew from the magic practiced here.”
Fi traced a finger along the curve of the metal. When she thought of magic, she always thought of the spells recorded in her parents’ library, ancient tomes filled with rituals and recipes and sketches of lost relics— the secret knowledge of generations of Witches. But this magic was even older, from the Witches who came before them, the ones who had tested the limits of their raw power and built something brand new. Before spell books. Before the Orders of Magic.
The Paper Witch’s hand settled on her shoulder.
“We should hurry,” he said. “The door won’t stand open long.”
“I guess I’m leading,” Briar said, stepping around her into the mouth of the passage. Crackles of light magic leapt to his palm. He shot Fi a teasing smile. “Hopefully, there aren’t any giant spiders this time.”
Fi shuddered. Now that she was thinking about it, an old forge seemed like perfect cave spider habitat.
“Just for saying that, I hope they eat you first,” Shane told him. Then she set off down the passage, the rest of them following her into the dark.
Excerpted from The Severed Thread, copyright © 2022 by Leslie Vedder.
