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CHAPTER TWO

A va ran for her life.

From messed-up, million-legged, foot-long, millipede rat monsters.

She couldn’t spare a moment to process the fact that she was running down hallways that looked like they were some bizarre crossover between an abandoned version of Versailles and the Jumanji movie. Trees and vines, ponds and rivers—a veritable jungle of wildlife tangled up with the ornate and elaborately over-detailed architecture.

No, because the millipede rat monsters were chasing her, and she had no doubt they were going to do exactly as the voice said.

They were going to eat her.

So she was going to run like hell.

Not only did she very much not want to die, she very much did not want to die by being eaten by fucked up millipede rat monsters.

Instinctually, she ducked into a room and slammed the door behind her, throwing the latch and the bolt. She didn’t know how she knew what to do. She just did. Taking a few steps back from the door, she stared at it, waiting to see if it would hold against the onslaught of the wave of things.

She heard them on the other side—scratching and scrabbling and skittering and screeching.

Holding her breath, her heart was pounding in her ears. She was shaking from the cold and adrenaline.

Long, thin, black legs curled up from under the lip of the door—one, two, then a hundred. Ava let out a long, horrified whine.

But the things couldn’t seem to squeeze in after her.

After what seemed like an eternity, the sound of the swarm on the other side slowly relented…and faded.

They were gone. Letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, she finally let her shoulders fall away from where they’d been scrunched up by her ears.

Turning, she jumped backwards and yelped, startled. “Holy f?—”

Wherever she was, she hated it here already. Really, really, really hated it here.

She was in a study. Bookshelves lined walls to her left and right, stuffed to the brim with books and scrolls. The wall across from her was lined with windows, and directly in front of her was a large, beautiful desk that she couldn’t imagine how much it would fetch at an auction house if it were up for sale.

The wall to her right had a large fireplace in the center of it that was lit and cozily burning away as though it were trying to warm the only other occupant that she could see.

Ava was pretty damn sure that the fire wasn’t going to do anything for the person sitting at the desk, reclining in the chair, his hands holding to his chest a large, leather-bound book.

The fire wasn’t going to help him…namely because he looked like he’d been dead for at least a hundred and fifty years. His skin was dried and desiccated, lips pulled away from teeth that were stained yellow from rot and time. Eye sockets were sunken, the skin over them only giving the barest impression of something still lingering underneath. Matted, stringy, bits of hair clung to what remained of a scalp.

His clothes were Victorian, or maybe a little older? Georgian? Ava specialized in buildings, not clothing, but the two often went hand-in-hand. The white shirt was mottled and browned from the decomposition of the body, the fabric of his once-likely-beautiful suit eaten away by insects.

If this was a dream, she needed to go back to a therapist as soon as she could afford it. Because as horrifying as the corpse was, she seemed to be unable to focus on it. Instead, she couldn’t stop staring at the book he clutched in his hands. No. Book was too small of a word for it.

Tome? No. That kind of thing was what the word grimoire was invented for. It was enormous—with what looked like… rust? —that had tarnished whatever metal treatment had been done to the page edges. She had never seen anything gilt with anything that rusted before.

It was four inches thick, at least, and probably a foot across by eighteen inches tall. The corners were capped in what looked like…more rusted iron. And holding the book shut were two iron straps that were the kind that would latch shut or lock shut, though she couldn’t see anywhere for a key to go from where she stood.

The leather cover was stamped in a twisting pattern of jagged shapes that were both beautiful and eerie. They matched the same kind of odd mockery of patterns that she had seen around the building.

And even though she had never seen the book before in her life, not even in a dream?—

She knew it was hers.

Simply knew it.

As if pulled by a thread, she walked closer. She had to see it better. It must be worth a fortune.

But she’d never sell it.

Because it was hers.

S he reached out a hand to touch the book.

If you had asked her to place a bet, prior to that night, on whether or not she could tell the difference between a living person and a two-hundred-something year old corpse, she would have taken it.

And, apparently, she would have lost.

It was as she leaned over to touch the book that she heard it.

The familiar sound of someone breathing.

The corpse… wasn’t a corpse at all.

Jerking her hand back, she stared down at the body in disbelief. The sound had snapped whatever weird hypnotic state she’d just been in, and she really focused on the body.

It was the corpse—no, it was a living man. His eyes were shut, the sockets sunken. The skin was as dry as parchment and recessed, like a mummified body in an old cathedral in Europe.

His jaw was just slightly open, revealing that his tongue was long since dried away to little more than a stump.

The fingers that clutched the book were skeletal things with only the barest stretch of paper-thin skin over them. It looked as though any movement at all would crack the surface and render his flesh to dust.

It was the same noise her mother had made as she lay dying in her last moments. It sent a roll of fear through Ava so visceral it sent her staggering back a step.

Should she call an ambulance? How? With what phone? What could they do for him? He was dead. But alive. But dead.

Besides, she was trapped in a…this wasn’t real. None of this was a real world—there were monsters, and all of this was impossible. Entirely impossible. She was just dreaming.

Yeah. She was dreaming. She’d hit her head. Or maybe she was dead. Either way…maybe she should just go along with it…

Ava was shaking. Trembling like a leaf. Her heart was racing, and her thoughts were a jumbled, spinning mess.

She should leave the room. Figure out where she was. Find a way to escape. Get out of here. She didn’t belong here. But she didn’t want to leave without the tome. That tome was hers.

Leaving without it felt like the greatest sin she could possibly commit in the world. Like leaving a pet behind in a burning house when she had the ability to save it. What choice did she have?

“I’m so sorry.” Reaching out again, she carefully took hold of the book.

The body—the man—the corpse— the living corpse— made a sound.

One that was only remarkable in its smallness.

A sound of relief.

And she watched, in shocked horror, as the body crumbled to dust beneath her hands. Like fireplace ash, nothing but gray soot remained.

Something washed over her, and for a moment, she felt dizzy. She shut her eyes for a second, and the sensation passed.

“Well done, my little butterfly. Or should I say…my little thief?”

Whirling, she tried to find the source of the noise, but no one was there. “Hello?”

Silence.

“Who are you?”

Silence.

Ava clutched the book to her chest, feeling its weight—substantial and somehow warm, despite having been held by a corpse for what must have been decades. The dust that had once been a man continued to settle, dancing in the firelight.

Shutting her eyes, she took a slow, deep breath, and let it out. “Hello?” she tried one last time. “Look, I really don’t appreciate the whole ‘disembodied voice’ thing. Ten out of ten for ambiance, but zero points for originalit?—”

She opened her eyes.

And immediately regretted taunting the voice.

She found herself face-to-face with…

There were no words at first.

Except that she was once more certain that she was dreaming.

He wasn’t human. There was no question of that in her mind.

Standing just inches away from her was a creature unlike anything she had ever seen before in her life. He towered above her, easily six and a half feet tall, and broad at the shoulders. His skin was so close to a shade of white that it almost looked greenish-blue.

Never mind the fact that he was…there was no way around it, he was gorgeous. Cheekbones that could cut glass. Sharp, elegant features that screamed refinement, but a strength and hardness to them that made him almost look like an oil painting come to life.

The hair that flowed down around his shoulders and close to mid-chest was a deep, forest green that transitioned in a perfect gradient to an almost toxic-colored yellowish-green at the tips.

He was dressed like—she was terrible with historical clothing— royalty. A black suit that would have looked right at home at a masquerade ball in the sixteenth century, stitched with the finest thin lines of green silk into the pattern of spiderwebs. He wore it over a black wool vest, and a white silk shirt. Jewelry hung around his neck haphazardly, as if he simply collected whatever he liked and wore it without any mind to the rest of it.

But it was his eyes, more than anything else—even his skin color—that made her certain that what she was looking at wasn’t just elaborate makeup or that she hadn’t wandered onto a movie set. His eyes were a shade of yellow-gold that wasn’t possible. The darkness of his pupils were more like slits than they were circles.

Explainable with contacts.

Except for the fact that she could tell in the dim light of the candlelit room and the shadow of his dark hair—that they were glowing.

That, she knew couldn’t be faked. Nor could the way he was staring at her. Like he was seeing through her—like her outer core was transparent, and he could see all her inner workings. The intensity of it made her want to crawl under the table and hide.

It was the presence around him. There was something primal in the way he set every hair on the back of her neck standing on edge.

He let her stare at him in stunned silence for a moment before reaching out his hand. He had dangerously sharp nails that were painted gold. And from the many rings on his fingers dangled chains and charms decorated with jewels of every kind imaginable.

With a crooked finger beneath her chin…he shut her open mouth. But it was like the touch of a ghost. It was there—but it also wasn’t. A whisper. A nudge. But nothing substantial.

He…wasn’t really there.

It was then, that she noticed she could see the firelight through him.

“You are liable to catch flies.” He vanished, as though he had never been there at all.

Now, she was trembling. Well, trembling again. “Where—where am I?—”

“My prison. And now, yours.” He was matter-of-fact. There was nothing she could get from his voice as far as how he felt about the subject.

Prison. “Wait. I’m… trapped here? No. No, let me out. Let me out of this place right now!” She clutched the book harder to her chest like it was a shield.

“Do not make foolish demands, little butterfly.”

He was right. She knew it was a pointless thing to say. Not only was she powerless in this situation, as she clearly was in way over her head, but she’d felt it the moment she set foot in the building.

“What are you?”

“Your kind would call mine the Fair Folk. Though it is more complex than that, it is a conversation for another time.”

Fair Folk? Wait. What? He was the fae? “What the fuck is a fairy doing in Massachusetts , I thought you were all—y’know, European, or?—”

“Our realms may connect in a myriad of ways. And if you think your forests and dales do not whisper with creatures born of my kind by other names, you are woefully mistaken.” He delivered his words with all the passion of a professor giving the same lecture for the twenty-thousandth time. That was to say, none at all.

“What do you want from me?”

“A contract that can serve us both.”

That…didn’t sound good. “I’ve read enough to know you don’t make deals with the fae.”

“And if you wish to ever be free again, my dear, you will reconsider your position on the matter. For the only way to be free of this nightmare is with my assistance. That book you hold will now keep you from death—but as Gregor so neatly demonstrated, there are far worse fates you might suffer.”

Turning, she stared at the chair where the pile of ash that was once the very-much-should-have-been-dead man had been just moments before. She looked down at the book at her hands. The book that she had “stolen.”

Nothing was making any sense.

Trapped in a prison. With a stolen book. Being taunted by a disembodied voice. “I don’t think I should make any kind of deal with you.”

“As you wish.” The door to the room clicked open by an unseen hand, the door swinging open. She expected to be instantly inundated by a swarm of horrible millipede rat monsters. But to her relief, nothing was there. Nothing but an empty hallway of abandoned beautiful architecture and overgrowth. “You will change your mind, soon enough.”

Somehow, she knew he was right.

But she had to try to escape on her own. The voice might very well be lying to her—using her. For all she knew, it was very likely his fault she was here to begin with. Why would she trust him, let alone make a deal with him?

She had to try. Even if it was going to fail.

Even if she had no clue of where to begin.

She headed out into the hallway.

“Welcome to the Web, little thief…”