Page 148 of The Spider Queen

I paused, cocking my head to the side as I replied. “I don’t. I didn’t grow up religious.”

He leaned back in his chair and peered at me. “After everything you’ve seen—things that are impossible in the mortal realm—you still don’t believe in Heaven and Hell?”

“Are you going to tell me your story, or do you want to get into a theological debate?” I sniped. I gently pushed away my empty plate, and a moment later, it disappeared. Another took its place. Aromas of delicacies I’d never experienced gently teased my senses. Otherworldly, no doubt.

“Heaven and Hell do exist, Poppy. The Guardian of the Bridge weighs the souls of the dead, judging them at the end of their lives. Good go to Heaven. Evil go to Hell. You’ve heard of Purgatory, of limbo? This—my domain—is what humans call Purgatory.” He gestured to the room, but clearly he meant beyond.

“You weigh souls?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. “How?”

“My spiders. They are the judges. I am merely the lord over them. Or I was, until I was imprisoned. Another took my place and used his own to judge.”

“There’s another? Like you? One who commands spiders and weighs souls?” I was trying to wrap my brain around his explanation, but like anything to do with Thane, there was a lot to take in.

“Not another. Animposter. Only the true Guardian of the Bridge can command an army of spiders.”

“But I called an army of spiders—”

“I’ll get to that.”

“Okay,” I said with a nod. “So what is this imposter Guardian using to weigh souls, and how has he gotten away with it for years while you were locked away?”

Thane sighed and rubbed his forehead. “This is coming out in pieces—and not the way I want it to. My brother, Poppy. My own brother imprisoned me. His name is Xan, and with the help of a powerful mage, he was able to imprison me. The mage wove a spell to make it appear as if Xan were me. His wasps were also charmed. Gods, deities, those that could’ve intervened, had no idea what he’d done.”

“Why? For power?”

“To help Lucifer overpower his brother and rule the realm you know as Heaven. Heaven and Hell truly exist Poppy,” he reiterated. “And like Xan, Lucifer has always been jealous of his own brother’s realm. He wants it for himself as Xan wants to be Guardian of the Bridge. But Lucifer wants so much more, and he won’t be happy until he rules over it all.”

“So Xan betrayed you. And Lucifer plans to betray his own brother, too. A betrayal of two brothers,” I murmured.

“Yes.” He paused. “Don’t you see, Poppy? A war is brewing between Heaven and Hell, but the battles won’t be waged in either realm.”

When I frowned in confusion, Thane said, “Earth. The war will rage on Earth, and all of humanity is at stake.”

It was a heavy thought. Power, greed, jealousy. Maybe they weren’t human emotions at all—maybe they’d belonged to the gods first.

“How is your brother wrapped up in all of this? Why imprison you and impersonate you?”

“Remember what I said, for generations Xan has been pretending to be me, the Guardian of the Bridge. Instead of sending evil souls to Hell, he’s been sending them to Heaven to lie in wait like wolves in sheep’s clothing. When the right time comes, Lucifer will start a war, and then his army of evil souls will arise from within and topple Heaven.”

“A Trojan Horse,” I said in understanding. “How do you know all of this? If you’ve been imprisoned, how do you know this was Xan’s plan?”

Thane looked away from me to stare off into the distance, like he was envisioning all the things that could come to pass if Lucifer succeeded. “Because we, too, share a mental connection. We’re twins.”

Chapter 5

“Identical twins?”

“No. Fraternal. With the power from the mage, Xan was able to conceal himself and pretended to be me.”

“So how do we stop all of this? How do we prevent Lucifer and the war from coming to Earth?”

“Before we can even do anything, we have to free me.”

“Free you? I thought you were already free?”

He shook his head. “I am released from my prison. But Xan warded Purgatory so that on the very slim chance someone was able to liberate me, I still wouldn’t be able to leave my realm. A prison within a prison, if you will. We have to break the wards on Purgatory if we have any hope of stopping Xan and Lucifer.”

“So how do we get out of Purgatory if we can’t leave it?”