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at the center of the Loom of Life. As the Flawless, her thread will be long and all-encompassing.”
    “I cannot be the Flawless. My travels to other nations have worsened me, and, well, I am not Flawless.” My fatigue blemished me in every way.
    Abwar of the Ever Always said, “With the condition of the rest of Morimound’s women, we can’t be too particular. With the laying on of hands, she becomes the Flawless.”
    “No! I insist not!” My imperfections would displease the gods and bring the city to ruin. I had only become an enchantress for the chance of curing my somnolence, and I refused to trap myself within yet another tedious role.
    Priest Abwar slid his hand under my sleeve to fondle my naked arm. Salkant of the Fate Weaver traced a finger’s two-remaining knuckles down my neck.
    Heat washed and crashed inside me, and I felt as if I had dived into a bubbling, sulfurous springs. I was drenched; nauseating steam spread through my chest.
    “Look at her sweat,” Priest Abwar said. “She burns with the power of the gods!”
    Salkant of the Fate Weaver nodded. “And trembles with the weight of destiny.”
    Priest Abwar withdrew his hand first and turned his gaze to the goggling, pregnant virgins. “Acolytes, return these bundles of blessings to their homes. Sunset nears.”
    The priests left, and the girls began to plod away from the Court. Once I resumed control of my breathing, I said, “Spellsword Deepmand, you should have stopped the priests from inducing me. I mean, inducting me.”
    “My apologies, Elder Enchantress.” He laid a gauntlet over the gilded plates covering his chest. “The priests speak for the gods, and I thought your protestations appropriately humble.”
    Maid Janny lifted her face from its formerly demure position. “You should’ve known something was deeply wrong, with her acting humble.”
    After a firm sniff, I underwent the process of turning around to return to my carriage. Pregnant girls stood still to watch me pass, and I recalled the priest’s egregious claim that they had not quickened.
    “You will have felt your child kick, of course.” I gestured to their gravid figures.
    They looked among each other, nervous, saying nothing.
    “Or a fluttering, a tapping, something reminiscent of a growling of the stomach?”
    A few girls appeared uncertain. One said, “I don’t think so, Madam Enchantress.”
    “Nonsense. All women in your advanced state quicken, all those with child.”
    “Then you must be right,” one said.
    “Doubtless so.” Yet, I did not feel reassured. Quickening was a crucial event, when the Fate Weaver tied a soul’s thread to a child. Its absence was unthinkable.
    Agitated, I approached a group of mature, pregnant women who had waited under a banyan tree during the proceedings. They were embracing the virgin girls, perhaps their daughters, and accompanying them away into the gardens.
    “You,” I said to one, “have you quickened?”
    “Me? No.”
    “What about you?”
    “No, Lustrous Enchantress.”
    “And you? You must have quickened.”
    “I don’t think so, Flawless.”
    “Do not call me that.” I stormed through them in a flurry of gowns to the next cluster of women. “Which of you have quickened?”
    They looked away and held their silence. The air seemed to have left the sky, for I could not breathe and I gagged on my tongue. The ground appeared a long way below me, and I fell toward it.
    I landed on my cane, catching myself. Deepmand steadied my shoulder.
    “Elder Enchantress?”
    I fled to the next pregnant pack, finding the same lack of response.
    Reaching out, I touched two of their bellies. “Do you not understand? You would have felt your babies move, you had to have felt them.”
    They shied away from my desperate tone, and I tugged at a glove, at last pulling it off. My bare hand gripped their engorged waistlines, one after another. Once I finally thought I felt something then realized it had been the shaking of my