“Remember I love you. Please don’t panic. I promise to fix things. It’s not as bad as it looks. How was your walk?” Clotho spit the words out in a single breath. Hair straggled into her face, and her chiton slipped from her shoulder as she barred the door. Sweat beaded her upper lip—at odds with the cooling Underworld zephyrs fluttering the sheers draped across the cottage’s windows.

 

Lachesis blinked, taking a step back. “Clotho? What…” Her gaze dropped to the tabby kitten squirming in her sister’s grip.

 

Miniature claws pummeled Clotho’s arm, puncturing the fine linen of her sleeve. The cat caught sight of Lachesis and paused. An unhappy protest exposed tiny fangs.

 

Lachesis groaned, pressing a hand over her eyes. “No, Clotho, not again.”

 

“It was an accident.”

 

Lachesis shoved past her into the house, stumbling to a halt. “Zeus’s Bolt!”

 

Colored threads crisscrossed the floor in a chaotic spider’s web. The shimmering wool spooled from one side of the room to the other, spiraling under couches and around table legs. Loops caught the elaborate filigree of vases—all remarkably standing—and trailed from outstretched statue fingers. More knots blanketed the hall, capturing everything from marbled columns to a dropped hairbrush in cheerful snarls.

 

The tangle continued around the corner and out of sight.

 

“Lethe stopped by for tea,” Clotho said, her nervous babble competing with the kitten’s yowls. “You know how easy it is to lose track of time with her. I didn’t realize Ailurus was awake. Or that he’d gotten out of his basket. By the time she left, it was too late.”

 

“Always lock the weaving room, Clotho. That’s the rule we agreed on when you brought that furball home.” Blood drained from Lachesis’s face as she followed the mess. More tangles appeared in every room she passed. The strands rewound on themselves, crafting elaborate mazes through furniture and décor. In some spots, the string caught on corners, strained to the breaking point. In others, it hung in lazy hammocks between steps, swaying gently in the breeze.

 

Lachesis stepped into the weaving room, collapsing to the floor.

 

Light flooded the windows, offering the sisters an unobstructed view of the Elysian Fields. To the left, Clotho’s spinning wheel sat surrounded by the raw fibers of humanity.

 

Her sister usually kept the strands organized in precise bundles within reed baskets. But now the filaments lay scattered across the floor. Every single one chewed and mangled, a few snapped beyond repair.

 

A table on the right was laid with a coiled measuring tape and a worn pair of gold scissors denoting Atropos’s territory—miraculously untouched. Either the climb had proved too high or uninteresting for feline amusement.

 

In the middle, an enormous loom—her pride and joy—dominated the space. Threads of time lay across the beams, suspended in place by weights of destiny. A shuttle rested beside the loom, with no more than a finger’s worth of yarn attached. All that remained of the glorious weft she’d prepared that morning. The rest spiraled through the house in a fit of kittenish glee.

 

An entire civilization’s history, waiting for her fingers to weave them into existence.

 

She hiccupped a cross between a laugh and a moan.

 

Clotho knelt beside her, Ailurus continuing to struggle against restraint. “Lachesis, it’ll be all right. We can untangle and rewind the spool. He didn’t harm the weaving you started. With the weft returned, you can finish your work.”

 

The kitten kicked free and pounced on the dangling strand, knotting the thread between his paws and yanking the last of it from the shuttle.

 

“Clotho!”

 

“I’m sorry. I’ll distract him.” Clotho began stroking his back, to no avail.

 

Yarn frayed under his eager claws, once vibrant colors dimming to shades of grey.

 

“Put him in his basket!”

 

Clotho snatched up Ailurus and bolted from the room.

 

Lachesis lifted the damaged fibers, the soft wool sliding through her fingers. Untapped human probabilities tugged at the back of her mind, begging for shape and form. As she traced a fingertip over the frayed end, her thoughts fragmented and broke; the fading colors cast a haze over the possibilities.

 

Sighing, she retrieved her shuttle from the loom and began winding the weft once more.

 

She pretended not to notice the splinters throughout the thread, threatening to introduce weaknesses to the population’s history.

 

Clotho reappeared, lifting a chair to loosen yarn from around its legs. “He didn’t mean it, Lachesis.”

 

“I’ll be sure to weave that into the memories of the people he attempted to destroy,” Lachesis muttered.

 

A sniffle broke the following silence.

 

She caught sight of her sister’s tear-filled eyes and sighed. Forcing her tone to gentle, she sagged in defeat. Bb “I know, Clotho. He’s a kitten and can’t help it. It’s in his nature to play with string—never mind whether that string happens to belong to a people meant to walk into the future.”

 

Clotho tugged a knot coiled around a candlestick. “If we hadn’t taken him in…”

 

“Cerberus would have eaten him. You don’t have to remind me.” Lachesis paused, lifting a snarl involving a dusty napkin, a cedar twig with a row of teeth marks, and a bedraggled feather. The yarn refused to budge regardless of how she worked the knot. “Then again...”

 

“You know I’m sorry,” Clotho said, crawling under a couch, her voice muffled.

 

Lachesis pulled without success on another series of snarls looped around the legs of the table, her temper fraying worse than the yarn. “It’s like every ill intent in the world distilled into a single creature! Not even the trickiest gods have managed to create this much chaos!”

 

Clotho popped up on the other side of the sofa, colored thread tangled in her hair. She muffled a curse as she pulled several strands out attempting to free herself. A loop caught her ankle as she turned to face her sister. She sighed, collapsing on her back. “Lachesis.”

 

“One kitten? One kitten in—what? Thirty minutes? Accomplished all of this?”

 

“Lachesis.”

 

“In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t conceived disasters on this scale.”

 

“Lachesis!” Clotho closed her hands over her sister’s, forcing the older girl to meet her gaze. “Lachesis, this isn’t working.”

 

Lachesis lifted her head, staring at the web around them. They’d unraveled no more than a few arm-lengths, the thread riddled with knots and splinters. Each snarl clotted the vibrant glow of possibility into shadow, Clotho’s vibrant spinning running muddy and dark.

 

Whatever potential remained for the humans was permanently damaged.

 

And the kitten’s handiwork extended throughout the house.

 

Lachesis pressed her hands over her eyes. “I had so many plans for these people,” she moaned.

 

Clotho pursed her lips, twisting a thread around her fingers. “I know. I felt their potential during the spinning.” She gestured to the disaster. “But by the time we solve this Gordian knot, every last soul will have run through their allotted lifespan and passed into dust. Before you’ve even begun their story.”

 

The two shared a look, silent understanding passing between them.

 

Lachesis dropped the weaving shuttle. “I’ll get the scissors.”

 

Atropos’s golden shears bent her upper body toward the floor, the delicate instrument heavier than a marble statute. Lachesis gritted her teeth against the pull. “Help me,” she said, struggling to open the blades. “The first unmeasured cut’s always the worst, especially without Atropos here.”

 

Clotho grabbed one handle, and the two winced as the metal screeched in protest. They pressed down, throwing their weight onto the scissors, and the blades grated through the colored wool. The cut ends shriveled and turned black.

 

A hollow whisper caught hold of the breeze, echoing around their heads.

 

“What are we going to do with these forgotten souls?” Clotho asked, gathering the remnants as Lachesis continued to cut tangles apart. With the first soul severed from its potential, the scissors ceased their complaint and regained their usual heft.

 

Lachesis shrugged. “The bin beside Atropos’s desk where she sweeps trimmed fragments should do.” She sliced through a massive knot around a couch leg.

 

“Where do those pieces go, anyway?”

 

Lachesis contemplated a cut strand as it faded from brilliant blue to deepest black. “Beats me. I never thought to ask. But Hades doesn’t complain, so I assume Atropos and he worked something out.”

 

A crash sounded from the kitchen. They turned to see Ailurus mewing from his upside-down basket. Striped paws stretched between the woven bars, eager to grab for the black threads dangling over Clotho’s arms.

 

Lachesis retrieved the yarn from beneath the leaves of a potted plant. “I don’t think so, you beast. For all we know, you’ve ended the world’s best civilization. The one destined to right all the wrongs of the past.”

 

Ailurus gave a pitiful meow.

 

“All right. Perhaps that isn’t terribly likely.” Lachesis relented. “We’ll release you—once we lock the weaving room.”

 

Both sisters watched the bundle of black threads vanish into the abyss of the bin. As the last clipping snaked into the shadows, the whispered echo dancing on the breeze vanished.

 

Lachesis lifted the incomplete tapestry from her loom, smoothing her fingers over the intricate border pattern. No hopes or questions danced in the back of her mind. Whatever the new civilization had been destined for, now there remained nothing but silence. Sighing, she rolled it into a tidy bundle and set it on a shelf in the corner.

 

She turned and watched Clotho return the scattered fibers to their baskets. Tears glittered in the younger girl’s eyes.

 

Forcing a smile, Lachesis rubbed her sister’s shoulders. “I suppose the beastie could have done worse.”

 

Clotho brightened, brushing a hand against her eyes. Linking arms with her sister, she straightened. “True. Remember when he got hold of your work on Atlantis?”

 

Lachesis groaned, rubbing her forehead. “Don’t remind me: hours of work, shredded in five minutes. So much destruction.” She poked her sister in the side. “Atropos spent a full day and night trimming those souls, muttering over the waste of humanity.”

 

Clotho giggled, pulling the weaving room door closed with a firm click. “As if she actually cared about any of them. Or did you forget how she complained the weaving was looking too polished?”

 

Lachesis lifted Ailurus’s basket, the kitten pouncing on her sandal. She picked him up, cradling him in her arms. He began purring, deep green eyes slit in pleasure. Smiling despite herself, she traced a finger along his striped belly. “I guess they are only humans, aren’t they?”

 

Clotho propped her chin on her sister’s shoulder. Pulling a black thread from Lachesis’s chiton, she dangled it for the cat to swat. “Exactly. There will always be more. When will there ever be another Ailurus?”

 

Lachesis rolled her eyes, watching the kitten’s claws shred the end of the string, his keen gaze bent on destruction.