Nicola's hands shook as she held out the paper.
Spencer took it and stepped aside to let her in. Areina hovered in the corridor behind her — the hard-faced woman who'd traveled with Nicola to the Tower, who'd been assigned servant's quarters after failing the channeling tests. Her expression mixed confusion with protective concern.
"Come in," Spencer said. "Both of you. Close the door."
Areina entered with the wariness of someone walking into a trap. "She woke up speaking. Words that weren't hers. I've seen this before — village wise women back home, sometimes they'd do the same. But this was..." She trailed off, unable to find words.
"Different," Nicola finished. "It felt different. Like something was using my voice."
Spencer looked at the paper. Areina's handwriting was rough but legible — the hurried scrawl of someone transcribing words they didn't understand.
The thread that was not woven, the soul the Wheel did not spin — he walks the Pattern's edge and mends what the Shadow has torn. When thirteen flee the Tower of Light, three shall be caught in threads they cannot see.
Spencer's blood went cold.
"Read it aloud," Nicola said. "I need to hear what I said."
Spencer read. His voice stayed steady through force of will. The words hung in the air of his small quarters, heavy with Pattern-weight.
"What does it mean?" Areina asked.
It means the Pattern just announced my existence to anyone with the right ears.
It means Nicola's Foretelling confirmed I'm a transmigrator — 'thread not woven, soul the Wheel did not spin.'
It means three Black Ajah will be caught, which is less than I wanted but more than I feared.
It means I'm running out of time.
"Areina," Spencer said carefully, "what you heard tonight was a Foretelling. A prophecy. They're rare and they're dangerous. I need you to swear you won't speak of this to anyone. Not friends. Not employers. Not even Aes Sedai if they ask."
"Why would I—"
"Because the wrong people learning about this could get Nicola killed."
Areina's protective instincts flared. She looked at Nicola, then at Spencer, and her jaw set.
"I've kept her secrets since Ghealdan. I'll keep this one."
"Good." Spencer turned to Nicola. "We need to destroy this paper."
"Wait." Nicola's voice was sharp. "I want to understand what I said. That first part — 'the thread that was not woven' — that's you, isn't it? You told me you're not supposed to exist here. That the world had to make room for you."
Spencer hesitated. The truth was dangerous. But Nicola had already seen his shimmer, already knew he was wrong in ways she couldn't fully articulate. The Foretelling had simply given her words for what she'd already sensed.
"Yes. The first part is about me."
"And the thirteen that flee the Tower of Light?"
"People who serve the Shadow. Hidden enemies who are preparing to run." Spencer chose his words carefully. "The three who get caught — that's happening because of something I'm doing. Something I'm trying to do."
Nicola absorbed this with the intensity that characterized everything she did. Her thread pulsed with the prophetic resonance that had erupted during the Foretelling — still active, still settling.
"You're hunting them," she said. "The people with soot on their threads. You're hunting them, and I just prophesied that you'll catch some."
"Three of thirteen. Not enough. But something."
"Then why destroy the paper? Why keep this secret?"
Spencer met her eyes. "Because Foretellings create Pattern-disturbances. When you spoke those words, something rippled through the weave of fate. Anyone in the Tower with the right Talent might have felt it. And if the wrong person felt it — if one of the thirteen felt it — they'll come looking for the source."
Nicola went pale. "Looking for me."
"Looking for both of us. The prophecy named me, and you spoke it. We're connected now in a way the Pattern can see."
---
Areina left first, after Spencer made her repeat her oath of secrecy.
Nicola stayed. She sat in Spencer's chair with her knees drawn up, looking younger than seventeen, looking like a child who'd stumbled into something far larger than she'd expected.
"I didn't mean to," she said quietly. "I was just sleeping. Dreaming about... I don't even remember. And then Areina was shaking me awake and my throat hurt and she was writing things down."
"That's how Foretelling works. It uses you without asking permission."
"I hate it."
"I know." Spencer sat on the edge of his bed, facing her. "I hate parts of what I can do too. The seeing. The knowing. It sounds like a gift until you realize you can't unsee, can't unknow."
Nicola looked at him. In the candlelight, her dual-Talent thread blazed with the particular intensity of someone whose fate had just accelerated beyond her control.
"The prophecy said you mend what the Shadow has torn. Is that true?"
"I'm trying to. I don't know if I'm succeeding."
"And the soul the Wheel did not spin — does that mean you're not supposed to be here? That you're some kind of mistake?"
The question cut deeper than Nicola probably intended. Spencer had asked himself the same thing a hundred times since Winternight. Was he a tool the Pattern needed? A glitch it was trying to correct? Something else entirely?
"I don't know what I am," he said honestly. "I just know I'm here, and I'm trying to help."
"That's what I want too." Nicola's chin lifted with the defiance that was becoming familiar. "I want to help. I'm tired of being told to stay quiet and stay safe and let other people handle things. I have these Talents — the sight, the prophecy — and everyone acts like they're problems to be managed instead of tools to be used."
"Because using them recklessly gets you killed."
"And not using them lets the Shadow win."
Spencer couldn't argue with that. The same logic had driven every risk he'd taken since arriving in this world. The calculation that doing something dangerous was better than doing nothing safe.
"If you want to help," he said slowly, "then help by learning control. Not just of your sight, but of your instincts. The ambition that makes you push — it's not wrong, but it needs direction. Focus."
"You sound like every teacher I've ever had."
"Maybe they were right."
Nicola almost smiled. "Maybe. Or maybe they were just scared of what I could become."
"Both things can be true."
They sat in silence for a moment. Outside, the Tower stirred with early-morning activity — servants beginning their rounds, novices heading to breakfast, the vast machinery of the White Tower grinding through another day.
"The prophecy," Nicola said finally. "When it said three would be caught in threads they cannot see — that's your ability? Thread Sight?"
"Probably."
"Then the three who get caught... you'll catch them because you can see something they can't."
"That's the theory."
"But if thirteen flee and only three are caught, that means ten escape."
"Yes."
"And those ten will still be out there. Still serving the Shadow. Still dangerous."
"Yes."
Nicola's expression hardened. "Then we need to catch more than three."
Spencer looked at her — seventeen years old, terrified, fierce, already planning how to change a prophecy she'd spoken in her sleep.
"That's not how Foretellings work. They describe what will happen, not what might happen."
"Then maybe this time, they're wrong."
---
After Nicola left, Spencer burned the paper.
The fire consumed it slowly — Areina's rough handwriting curling into ash, the words dissolving into smoke. But the prophecy itself remained branded in Spencer's memory, each phrase carrying weight he couldn't ignore.
The thread that was not woven.
That was him. The soul that didn't belong, stitched into a Pattern that hadn't spun him.
The soul the Wheel did not spin.
Not reborn. Not part of the cycle. Something else entirely.
He walks the Pattern's edge and mends what the Shadow has torn.
The mission statement he'd given himself since Winternight. The justification for every risk, every manipulation, every moment of playing games with fate.
When thirteen flee the Tower of Light, three shall be caught in threads they cannot see.
The outcome. Three of thirteen. Less than victory, more than nothing.
But Nicola's question lingered: what if they caught more? What if the prophecy wasn't a ceiling but a floor? What if the Pattern-disturbance Nicola created had changed something, the same way Spencer's presence had changed so much else?
Foretellings are Pattern-level truth. They describe what will happen.
But I'm not supposed to be here. My presence changes things.
Maybe it changes prophecies too.
Spencer stared at the ash where the paper had been. Two days until the audit ended. Two days until Liandrin ran. Two Black Ajah sisters still unidentified.
And somewhere in the Tower, someone might have felt Nicola's Foretelling and was asking questions.
Three shall be caught.
But I'm going to try for four.
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