Threads That Bind

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York First published in the United States of America by Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2023Copyright © 2023 by Kika HatzopoulouPenguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.Razorbill & colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.The Penguin colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Books Limited.Visit us online at PenguinRandomHouse.com.LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATANames: Hatzopoulou, Kika, author.Title: Threads that bind / Kika Hatzopoulou.Description: New York : Razorbill, 2023. | Audience: Ages 14 years and up. |Summary: In a world where the children of the gods inherit their powers, Io, a descendant of the Greek Fates, must solve a series of impossible murders to save her sisters, her soulmate, and her city.Identifiers: LCCN 2022051339 (print) | LCCN 2022051340 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593528716 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593528723 (epub)Subjects: CYAC: Gods, Greek Fiction. | Private investigators—Fiction. | Murder—Fiction. | Sisters—Fiction. | Fantasy. | Mystery and detective stories. |LCGFT: Fantasy fiction. | Detective and mystery fiction.Classification: LCC PZ7.1.H3865 Th 2023 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.H3865 (ebook) |DDC [Fic]—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022051339LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022051340ISBN 9780593528716 (hardcover)ISBN 9780593696064 (international edition)ISBN 9780593528723 (ebook)Cover Art © 2023 By Corey BrickleyCover Design by Kristie RadwilowiczDesign by Alex Campbell, adapted for ebook by Michelle QuinteroThis book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.pid_prh_6.0_143667515_c0_r1 CONTENTSCoverTitle PageCopyrightDedicationPart I: One to WeavePrologue: SnapChapter I: FrayingChapter II: A WraithChapter III: The Right Thing to DoChapter IV: A Throne Gilded with Knocked-Out TeethChapter V: Half a LieChapter VI: Creature of CuriosityChapter VII: OccasionallyChapter VIII: RedChapter IX: RecklessChapter X: A Cautionary TaleChapter XI: ChimeriniChapter XII: Play the PartPart II: One to DrawChapter XIII: We Ora SistersChapter XIV: The House of NineChapter XV: And the World EndsChapter XVI: Something Sharp and SerratedChapter XVII: A DelightChapter XVIII: You, MostlyChapter XIX: The Neo-MonsoonChapter XX: What You Had ToChapter XXI: His Gaze Was a WarningChapter XXII: Wait It OutChapter XXIII: CrepesChapter XXIV: The Shape and Timbre of ItChapter XXV: An Acute Sense of DiscomfortChapter XXVI: Brass GleamedChapter XXVII: Yours to Give and Yours to TakeChapter XXVIII: Black Wings Were StitchedChapter XXIX: Red RainChapter XXX: Dying SoldiersPart III: One to CutChapter XXXI: An ExposéChapter XXXII: Your PenanceChapter XXXIII: Gods-Damned ReckoningChapter XXXIV: The Whip Is DeathChapter XXXV: Endless Shades of GrayChapter XXXVI: Over His HeartAcknowledgmentsAbout the Author_143667515_ TO GEORGE AND MY FAMILY,OURS ARE THE THREADS THAT BIND PART I ONE TO WEAVE PROLOGUE SNAPTHE STREETCAR SLICED ahead inches above the tidewater. As it came to a stop before the station, the cables groaned with the weight of the overpacked carriage. Passengers twisted their heads to glower up at them. Just the other day, a cable had snapped over at Sage Street, emptying passengers into the malformed canal. Three had ended up in the hospital; the bay water was cruelly cold, even this close to summer.The old lady in the back of the streetcar twirled her liver-spotted fingers over her chest, as if tying an invisible knot. She wasn’t moira-born, held no true substance between her fingers but air. It was a common gesture, meant to ward off the youngest sister of the Moirae, the goddess of Fate who decides when a life-thread is to be cut.Knot it once, the saying went, and she will know you’re still fighting.In the Silts, people added a second verse: Knot it a thousand times, and she will still cut it.The old lady wasn’t from the Silts. She wore a fur-lined coat, pristine and unpatched, and her gray hair was styled in upper-class fashion, braided and pinned at her nape. But her hairpins were missing the jade stones that should have decorated them, dull bronze shells left in their absence.The cables squealed in farewell when the streetcar took off. The old lady waited for the passengers to clear the station, then started over the bridge, tugging a shopping cart behind her, its wheels echoing piercingly over every dent on the bridge. The streets were empty, yet she glanced at every shifting shadow and fleeting sound.Her husband, who’d been twenty years older and enjoyed frightening his guileless wife, had told her something foul swam the flooded streets of the city of Alante at night. It hid in girls’ shadows, he taunted, curled around their ankles, and never, ever let go. The woman had buried him a long time ago. She rarely thought about him nowadays but had begun to think of the foul monster daily. She could swear she felt it. A shackle around her ankle, dragging behind her.How she wished to be moira-born, to feel the threads of life solid and whole in her fingers. She quickened her step, eager to be safe at home: nestled in blankets on her armchair, spirit-laced tea in hand, the latest episode of her favorite drama playing on the radio.It must have already started; when she slipped into her apartment, she went straight for the radio, filling the room with the familiar voices of the cast, then began putting away her meager groceries—chamomile tea, a packet of cheese crackers, and a discounted jar of dried figs—when she suddenly sensed the impress of a body moving through air.A hand clasped her mouth. The jar slipped from her fingers, clattering to the floor. She struggled to get free, kicking, elbowing, scratching blindly at her assailant. Her bun came undone, white wisps of