The first dawn after Mary's transformation did not come quietly.
The Codex's chamber was still humming when she emerged, its vast constellation of threads whispering and rearranging in acknowledgment of the new bond. Light poured from the stained windows of the Loomspire, bending and refracting in colors unseen by mortal eyes, as though the world itself had been rewritten.
Mary stepped into that light and did not burn.
The others saw it first — Els lowering her trembling hands, Loosie leaning against her hammer for balance, the Friend's unreadable face softening for the first time in centuries. Lela, wide-eyed, whispered a single word that trembled between awe and disbelief.
"Impossible."
Mary raised her hands, staring at the faint glow embedded in her veins. The shadows still clung to her, loyal as hounds, but woven now with threads of fire and dawn. Her hunger remained — sharp, demanding — yet it no longer felt like a curse gnawing at her soul. It was a thread, one among many, a force to be woven rather than resisted.
She exhaled, and for the first time in centuries, the air did not taste only of blood. It tasted of promise.
But dawn was not merciful.
As the light widened over the city of Tallowmere, the people stirred — and they felt it. Farmers kneeling in the fields dropped their tools as the ground pulsed faintly beneath their feet. Children woke crying from dreams of fire and constellations rearranging themselves into crowns. In distant temples, priests tore open their vestments, wailing of omens fulfilled.
Word spread swiftly: the Codex has chosen.
And with that choice, the world shuddered into a new chapter.
The Friend found Mary standing at the balcony, her eyes scanning the city below. The wind caught her cloak, whipping it around her like dark wings.
"You carry it well," he said softly.
Mary did not turn. "I carry it because I must. Not because I asked."
He smiled faintly. "No story worth telling begins with asking."
She finally faced him. Her eyes glimmered faintly — neither wholly human nor wholly monstrous. "What happens now?"
"Now?" The Friend glanced at the rising sun. "Now the world will test whether the Codex was right to choose you."
Mary's jaw tightened. "And if it wasn't?"
"Then," he said, "Book Four will be a tragedy."
By midday, the Loomspire's lower halls were flooded with voices — Weavers newly awakened by the Codex's surge. Some were old, drawn from exile or hiding, answering a call they thought long silenced. Others were young, children barely into their first years of craft, their hands still clumsy with thread but their eyes already shining with destiny.
They came not to celebrate, but to question.
Els stood before them, pale but resolute. Her bandaged hand trembled as she raised it for silence.
"The Codex has chosen a new Weaver," she said. "Not one of us expected this. But it is done. The threads have spoken."
A murmur rippled through the hall. Some voices carried hope. Others carried fear.
"Who?" someone demanded.
Mary stepped forward.
The hall erupted.
A vampire.
A predator.
An exile.
Chosen.
Shouts filled the chamber — accusations of blasphemy, cries of betrayal, desperate prayers whispered against her name.
Loosie slammed her hammer onto the stone floor, sparks leaping. "Enough!" she roared. "I saw it with my own eyes. The Codex chose her. You don't have to like it. You just have to live with it."
Still, the doubt lingered. Mary could feel it pressing against her skin, see it twisting in the eyes that followed her. She was not their savior. Not their champion. She was the shadow they feared had been invited into their home.
And she would have to prove herself.
That night, Mary wandered alone through the corridors of the Loomspire. Threads of light hovered at the edges of her vision, whispering stories she was not yet ready to hear. Every page of the Codex called to her, every echo demanded she weave.
But she was weary.
At last she found herself before a great mirror, framed in iron and obsidian. Her reflection looked back — pale, fanged, cloaked in shadows — but behind her eyes the faint glow of dawn lingered.
"What am I now?" she whispered.
The mirror did not answer.
But the shadows shifted behind her, and a voice like rustling parchment filled the air.
"You are unfinished."
She spun, but no one stood there. Only the faint scent of ink and fire lingered.
The Codex itself was speaking again.
Far beyond Tallowmere, across ruined mountains and endless seas, others felt the surge.
In the obsidian halls of the Crimson Court, ancient vampires stirred. Their Queen rose from her throne of bone, her eyes like bleeding stars. She had ruled in silence for centuries, content to let her kind remain forgotten. But now, a whisper reached her — a whisper of a vampire not bound by curse, not ruled by hunger, but chosen.
Her lips curled into a smile sharp as knives.
"So the child thinks herself Weaver."
Her voice dripped with venom and curiosity alike. "Let us see if she can weave when the world itself burns."
She lifted her hand, and from the shadows of her throne room, her knights emerged — eyes blazing, fangs glistening, bound by blood and oath.
"The war of stories has begun," she declared. "And we will not let them write it without us."
Back in Tallowmere, Mary lay restless.
The Codex's glow seeped into her dreams. She saw a crown of flame, a river of shadows, and her own reflection standing at the crossroads of countless doors. Voices cried out — some calling her savior, others demanding her death.
When she woke, the sky was blood-red with dawn.
Els stood at her door. "It's time," she said.
"For what?" Mary asked.
Els's expression was grave. "For you to weave your first thread."
Mary followed Els and the Friend into the Codex's central chamber. The great book shimmered, threads spilling outward like rivers seeking a course. Hundreds of Weavers stood in a circle, watching, waiting.
The Friend placed a hand on Mary's shoulder. "Every Weaver must weave. But your first thread will set the tone for all that follows. Choose carefully."
Mary stared at the threads before her, glowing and trembling, each one a potential story, a potential fate.
Her hands hovered. She felt their weight, their hunger, their hope.
She chose one.
It burned at her touch, shadows twisting around her fingers, but she held fast. With a single, deliberate motion, she wove it into the Codex.
The book shuddered.
The chamber shook.
And outside, in the far reaches of the world, something vast and terrible awoke.
Mary gasped. "What did I just do?"
The Friend's expression darkened. "You have begun."