Threads permeate reality. Connecting everything to everything else, they are too numerous to count. Indeed, they cannot be separated without much concentration. Or a lot of practice. And that’s only if you can see them in the first place.

The weave is what matters. How you wrap the threads around your fingers, pulling things together or pushing them apart. The number of things that can be made with them is limited only by skill and imagination. After you learn to see and understand the connections, you begin to understand how they might be modified.

They’re not real, of course. Every mage has her or his own way of seeing magic and, thus, manipulating it. Each method is difficult to describe, and even now I am painfully aware of how inadequate my own attempt is.

Different approaches to magic lend themselves more readily to different types of spells. Run magic deals in knowledge and divination. Potions are useful for affecting the body of an individual. Incantations help focus more aggressive energies. And thread magic is best suited for protection. It can bind things together to prevent separation, or keep things apart to avoid injury. The threads can even be woven together to create a shield of sorts.

As you begin your own journey you will need to train. The point of training is not to see the threads. As I said, they aren’t real. The point of training is to find how magic manifests to you, how you will interact with it. No one but you can discover that.