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CHAPTER TEN

A va walked along beside Ibin as Nos led them through the Web. The moment they left their rooms, the Victorian chambers ceased and once more became the enormous overgrown Baroque archways of the Web. It would be beautiful, if it weren’t so terrifying.

It felt like around every corner something was about to jump out and kill her. Even still, it was hard not to appreciate what she was looking at. Tucking the book under her arm, she took the time to drink in some of the detail of her surroundings.

The marble floor had a crack that wove through it like an earthquake had ripped the room in two. Between the sections, snaked a little brook. The water was crystal clear and glistening as it burbled and ran between the rocks. She could see rainbow-colored fish, like koi, darting around underneath lily pads and between reeds.

Sunlight was drifting in through the cracked and shattered windows, filtered by the trees and vines that had taken their place.

Birds—several of them resembling macaw parrots—flocked from tree to tree.

“Careful,” Ibin whispered to her loudly for dramatic effect. “Birds.”

Ava shot her a look. “Har har.”

Ibin grinned and hugged Ava to her side. “I couldn’t resist, forgive me.”

“Look, it flew out of the wardrobe at my face, it scared the hell out of me.” She chuckled. She would’ve made the same joke if she were in Ibin’s shoes. Which Ibin didn’t wear. Ibin went barefoot, it seemed. Fae.

“You know,” Ibin started, trailing off thoughtfully. “There are a lot of very handsome men and very beautiful women here in the Web.”

“Holy shit, you really are trying to set me up.” Ava laughed harder. “I was joking, but you’re not! You’re hoping I fall for some fae freak-ball and make this easy for you.”

“Well…” Ibin scratched the back of her neck. “That’s not to say that it wouldn’t, but that isn’t the only reason, I’m also thinking of your happiness and your safety?—”

“And yours.” She rolled her eyes.

“If we both benefit, isn’t that best for everyone?” Ibin’s smile was nervous. Wavering. “What’s better than a deal where everyone wins?”

“One where I’m not a pet on a leash. Or in a cage. Or in a prison.” There was the bitterness again.

“Shame that we cannot all have what we want.” Nos was still walking ahead of them. His steps were stilted, and he moved with a slight limp.

“You’re limping. Are you okay?” She didn’t want him hurting himself, even if she didn’t like the cranky fucker.

“Old wounds.” He kept going.

Ava frowned. “War injury?”

Nos glanced back at her with his mismatched eyes—one vaguely white, the other vaguely orange. And in them, she saw entire civilizations of history. She realized how stupid she’d been to open her mouth. “No.”

“I—I’m sorry.” She had really stepped in it. “I didn’t think?—”

“No. You did not.” Nos faced forward again and returned to his silence.

Ibin placed her hand on Ava’s back and smiled in sympathy but said nothing.

The Web around them continued its impossible architecture. A stained-glass window melted into a wall of living moss. Vines twisted through marble columns that seemed to breathe. Sunlight fractured and reformed in ways that made Ava’s eyes hurt if she looked too long.

They walked for what seemed like ten or fifteen minutes without speaking. And the longer they walked without speaking—or meeting anyone—the longer Ava became suspicious that something was wrong.

Especially because Ibin wasn’t talking.

Or looking at her.

Something was up.

Especially with Ibin’s hints about meeting someone that she might like.

Only one way to know, she supposed. “Um. So, are we going to talk about where you’re actually bringing me? Or are we going to keep doing the supernatural equivalent of awkward small talk?”

Nos stopped. Turned. Looked at her with an expression that was equal parts annoyance and exhaustion. “And what, precisely, do you mean?”

“Well, can I ask specifically what you’re taking me to go see?”

Silence.

She knew it. “Ah. So you’re bringing me not to see something or a group but some one in particular . Someone you think I’m going to be interested in, or who you think will be interested in me.” She shook her head. “Fess up.”

Ibin stared down at the floor.

“Allow me to put this very simply, Ava. You are a mechanism.” Nos’s tone wasn’t unkind, just matter-of-fact. “A key. Not valued, perhaps—but necessary.”

The book under her arm seemed to grow somehow heavier. Like it was trying to slow her down. Or get her to change her mind.

“Oh, how flattering. I’ve been upgraded from ‘worthless’ to “necessary mechanism.’ You charmer, you.”

Nos stared down at her with his mismatched gaze. “I do not mean you ill will, Ava. I do not wish you harm. But harm you shall bring. To us, and to all who dwell here, and worlds beyond if we are not careful. And neither I, nor Ibin, can protect you from the things that will come for you. That are coming for you. Do you understand?”

She hesitated. She did and she didn’t. But she nodded anyway.

“There are those who live within these corridors who can keep you protected from them. And some who may choose to do so for a price that we will allow you to set. Do you understand?” Nos was lecturing her like a school principal.

And Ava felt just as small. She nodded again. They weren’t selling her, not exactly. They were taking her to someone so she could…have a chance to sell herself. There was a big difference. She guessed. “You’re not selling me?”

“No. We are allowing you to do the negotiation.” Nos turned and resumed his walk. “We are not. Contrary to what I originally advised.”

The next five minutes were the most uncomfortable five minutes of silence in Ava’s life.

They entered a corridor where the floor was made of water. Not beside water. Not near water. Made of water. Crystal clear, impossibly solid, fish swimming beneath their feet as though this were the most natural thing in the world.

“How—” Ava started.

“Magic,” Ibin and Nos said in unison.

“Right.” Ava sighed. “Stupid question.”

A massive archway loomed ahead. It was constructed of what looked like twisted metal and living tree roots, intertwined so completely that Ava couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Intricate symbols—some resembling mathematical equations, others looking like they’d been drawn by a child having a fever dream—crawled across its surface.

“Through here, things become…more complicated.” Nos studied the archway.

Ibin’s hand found Ava’s shoulder. A warning. A comfort. “Remember. No contracts. No promises. Not until you’re sure.”

Right. Because that had worked out so well for her so far. She looked at Ava and Nos and frowned. Could she even get into an agreement with another fae when she was bound to Serrik? Was that even possible? She didn’t know how anything worked in this world.

The archway pulsed. Like a heartbeat.

“Be careful with him.” Nos grimaced. “He is…unpredictable.”

The symbols on the archway began to move.

Ava gripped the book tighter. “I don’t think I like this.”

“In that, we find something in which we are agreed,” Nos grumbled.

The archway opened.

And the Web revealed another of its impossible secrets.

The space beyond wasn’t a room. Wasn’t a landscape. It was… possibility. Raw and unformed. Like watching the moment before creation, when everything could become anything.

Iridescent threads—some thick as tree trunks, others thin as spider silk—crisscrossed the space. They weren’t just threads. They were pathways. Histories. Potential futures.

Curiously, though she knew she shouldn’t, she reached out and touched one of the threads. It vibrated like a plucked guitar string. Somewhere in the distance, Ava heard what might have been a laugh. Or a scream. Or both.

A battlefield. A child’s laughter. The moment someone’s heart breaks. The instant before a star dies.

She turned to face Nos and Ibin.

But they were gone.

The archway was gone.

She was alone. Standing somewhere in the woods. The Baroque estate was gone, and instead she was…standing beside a pond. A waterfall emptied into it from a rocky crest up above.

The moon was high above. It had been daytime only moments before. Now, the stars twinkled overhead in arrangements she didn’t recognize—strange nebulas filled the sky with swirls of color.

“Well, well. Hello, little one. Hello, indeed. ”

Slowly, and with not a small amount of dread, she turned to face the source of the voice. Leaning up against a tree nearby, was a man, his hooves crossed in front of him.

Hooves.

He was a goat from the waist down, but with longer fur. A satyr? Or were they only satyrs if they were Greek? She didn’t know the rules. His fur was blond, almost white, as was his long hair that hung loose around his shoulders and his bare chest. He had spirals of dotted white lines tattooed along the tanned skin of his arms and twisting along his abdomen and onto his back.

The man was gorgeous, though she supposed that wasn’t terribly uncommon, now that she’d met more of the fae. It seemed they were either beautiful or terrifying—or a bit of both. He had dark eyes that creased at the corners when he smiled at her, and the smile, for what it was worth, seemed genuine.

Gracefully, he pushed from the tree and strolled toward her, still smiling at her with all the charm in the world. As though she were the only thing in the universe to him in that moment. He held his hand out to her. His nails were pointed and black. “Rig. And you must be Ava.”

“Y—yeah.” She held out her hand to him. That’s what you were supposed to do, right?

He took it, and like a true gentleman, bowed and kissed the backs of her knuckles.

Her cheeks went warm—was she actually blushing? Holy shit. She didn’t know she could blush. Huh.

When he rose, the tenderness—no, the intimacy in his gaze—made her feel warm again. He took just the smallest step closer to her. “Ibin did a poor job in describing to me your beauty, Miss Ava. May I extend my deepest apologies for your mistreatment thus far at the hands of my people? You have suffered greatly.”

“I…I suppose.”

He lifted a hand to her cheek, those sharp nails grazing over her skin, as he gently tilted her head up toward him. “Too much, for someone who has committed no crime. Done no wrong but only been wronged. Would that I could steal the tears from your eyes…” He leaned in, as if to kiss her.

Slowly, her eyes began to drift shut.

And somehow.

Someway.

Somewhere in the back of her head.

The little guy she had manning the radar station in her nuclear brain submarine finally stopped making moony eyes at the sexy satyr man and realized he should hit the big red button labeled DANGER. The red alarms flashed.

And her eyes shot open. She took a step back. “I’m sorry, I—that’s lovely—but I was really into poetry. Never quite did it for me.”

“Hm.” Rig smiled, shrugged, and snapped his fingers as if he had simply missed out on a fish on a hook. “Shame.”

“Sure. Right. Um.” She let out a breath. “I honestly—I’m getting the feeling this was probably a mistake. I should go.”

“No, please. Stay.” He lifted his hands in a show of harmlessness. “Forgive me my poor manners. It has been a great deal of time since I have had pleasant company of your persuasion, and I…let my overeagerness get the better of me.” He chuckled. “Sit. Drink some wine. Let us talk of what the future may hold.”

Translation; you’ve got a bad case of the locked up and hornies. She kept that to herself. She didn’t know this guy well enough to snark at him that hard. She also wasn’t in the position to close any doors at this point. All she had was bad options. So listening to any bids for new options was probably not a bad idea.

“All right. As long as we agree that I get to leave if I want to. When I want to. No closed doors, no clauses, no charms, no chains, no tricks.” She pointed at him. “I learned my lesson with Braega. I’m not doing that again.”

Rig laughed again. “If you wish to walk away this night, your freedom will be yours to take. I shall do nothing to stop you from acting upon whatever you desire. I have long since tired of my kind eking out contracts with yours in bad faith. We have power, fantasies, pleasure—the fae world has only grown wider, as you humans have chiseled yours into a shape smaller and smaller.” He waved his hand in the air as he orated. “Why would I ever have to trick you into anything? I have so much to offer in honest exchange…”

He made a good case; she had to give him that. “Then why are all the rest of the fae I’ve met so far such, well—” She didn’t know how to put it.

“Ne’er do wells?” Turning on his heel—well, hoof—he led her along the edge of the pond toward the side of the waterfall. Waiting for them was a Parisian style café table, looking like it had been ripped out of some cliché date scene in a classic movie. There was a candle lit, a bottle of wine, and it was set with white linens. Hell, there was even sliced bread and dipping oil.

“I was going to go for something stronger and far more offensive. Let’s go with yours.” She couldn’t help but laugh a little at how comically over the top the scene was before her. She almost expected a pair of dogs to be eating from a single plate of spaghetti beside them.

“I get the sense that modern language has evolved since my time imprisoned here.” He pulled out the chair for her. The chairs didn’t match, which she noticed was kind of the theme in the Web. It seemed they just collected whatever floated in.

“Regressed. The word is regressed.” She sat in the chair as he pushed it in for her. It was funny. She’d never been on a real date. Oh, sure, she’d been on dates. But nothing…formal. Nothing with a “gentleman.” Nothing where the guy pulled out the chair for her or kissed the backs of her knuckles.

That had Rig chuckling in turn. “I enjoy it, for what it is worth. And, might I add, that I wish for you to speak your mind with me. The subjugation of females amongst the human populace is irritating. I do not desire a meek or mild partner. Quite the opposite, in fact, which is why your arrival here has given us both a unique opportunity.”

“You’re in luck, then. You hit the jackpot.” She studied him. That was interesting, though. “But I’m curious as to why.”

“Well, then.” He drew out the silence between his words as he poured them both a glass of wine before sitting at his end of the table. “Let our negotiations begin, sweet Ava.”