Crewel

unnecessary – possibly dangerous – but it’s clear I’m being tested at a more advanced level.
    ‘No need.’ I remove my hand from the spot. ‘It’s no danger to such a beautifully woven piece.’
    ‘That’s not really a determination for you to make, Adelice,’ she hisses, and she holds the hook out further.
    ‘Removing it would risk all the surrounding threads. It’s not necessary.’ I lift my chin and meet her eyes, daring her to defy my proclamation.
    ‘Adelice, I won’t tell you again. You put us all in danger when you don’t do your part,’ she says, as though she’s instructing me on simple addition and subtraction.
    ‘And I’m telling you there is no risk,’ I reiterate, my heart beginning to race. ‘In fact, it would be more dangerous to remove it.’
    ‘Is that so?’ She seems genuinely interested in my opinion, but I know it’s just a show. ‘In that case . . .’
    Her motion is so swift, I don’t see it coming. She wields the hook like a razor, slashing across the piece and brashly ripping an entire section out. Hundreds of shimmering threads hang off the hook, and she beckons for the burly officer.
    ‘Take these – and the others – to storage, and inform the Spinster on duty that we need an emergency patch.’ She hands the hook to him nonchalantly. No one else speaks; we only stare.
    I try to bite my tongue, but the flood of hot anger rising up my body and into my cheeks prevents it. ‘That was unnecessary.’
    ‘I told you that even one weak thread was a danger.’ Maela frowns and shakes her head in a gesture meant to convey sympathy. Or perhaps remorse. Neither is believable.
    ‘Do you want to be responsible for a tragedy?’ she asks me, her gaze travelling around the room. The question is rhetorical, but several of the girls shake their heads.
    ‘If we fail to do our job, we compromise everything that’s been built,’ she continues, and as she stares me down, she turns a tiny knob on the side of the loom. The weave before us, mangled and torn open, begins to shift into clearer focus. At first it looks like a piece of cloth, intricately woven, stretching across the machine, but as she zooms in and adjusts the visual it becomes a town. It’s as though I’m looking at a map with a hole in it, and then she clicks the wheel another notch and it becomes a street view. A perfect tree-lined lane, much like the one at home, leading up to a building, an academy. There is the arch of a doorway and the brick façade of the entrance and then nothing. The rest of the building is gone, simply ripped away, leaving bits of bricks tumbling and disappearing into an abyss. It just isn’t there any more.
    I haven’t been able to grasp what she’s done until now. Seeing the weave in tapestry form couldn’t call up the anger this image did. This for a lesson? And what have we learned? That Maela is a psycho. Sure, I could have guessed that. Is this why they need cleaning technology, to sweep away the actions of people like her? Is she who we need to forget?
    She keeps her violet eyes on me, until the hint of a smile flits across her face. She doesn’t allow it to settle there long enough for anyone but me to notice. ‘I think we’re done for today.’
    I glance back at Pryana, who may be my friend now. I’ve saved her at least, if only for the moment. Her face says it all – she’s not ready for this. As eager as she was to become a Spinster, it’s clear she didn’t expect this. But if I’m being honest, I didn’t either.
    ‘Pryana, you are excused,’ Maela says. ‘In light of the situation, it wouldn’t be fair.’
    Pryana’s coffee eyes echo the alarm I feel.
    ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ Maela simpers, squeezing Pryana’s shoulder.
    ‘What loss?’ The girl’s voice is so low, Maela looks at her like she can’t hear.
    I speak up instead, my mouth dry. ‘She asked, what loss?’
    ‘Unfortunately –’Maela lingers on the word – ‘this piece is from the academy in Cypress.’
    Pryana gasps as her eyes dart to the spot, trying to read the brilliant web.
    ‘I can’t imagine much of it is left.’ Maela offers an apologetic look and then turns to whisper to Erik.
    ‘My sister attends the academy in Cypress,’ Pryana says quietly.
    Everyone is watching her now, but her eyes stay fixed on the mutilated piece. A few of the other girls glance over at me. When Pryana lifts her eyes, she looks directly at me.
    ‘You killed her.’
    I’m fairly