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CHAPTER TWENTY

S errik had sent her away.

Not because it was something he had wished to do.

But because it was something he had needed to do.

His self-control had been dangerously close to shattering. The alcohol and the pain of having a part of his soul ripped from him had left his guard down. Her nearness, her scent, the warmth of her body when she had embraced him—the surge of wild desire in him had been almost overwhelming.

It had been centuries since he had felt the touch of another.

Eighteen hundred years since he had known it in the waking world.

And Ava…

His little butterfly.

Little brass bird, all crass chirps and sharp edges, the crone had said. The oldest sister was only partially correct, he had to admit.

At first, he thought Ava was a butterfly made of the thinnest glass. Beautiful. As sharp as a razor, yes, capable of cutting those not careful in how they handled it.

But delicate. Easily shattered.

He had been wrong. She was not so easily broken. She was made of metal—easily bent. Easily malformed. Easily rendered into a shape that did not resemble herself any longer.

And life had done that to her. A life of loneliness had twisted her into a formation that left her sharpest edges facing out. A thing that lashed out at the world that had done nothing but harm her.

Now trapped within a world designed to do nothing but cause harm.

That was why he had sacrificed his own memory in exchange for hers. There was so little happiness he could feel in the butterfly’s life. So little joy she had to hold onto. To give up what tiny sparks she had? To rob more of that from her felt as though he would be committing the same cruel acts over which he loathed his half-kin.

Never mind the fact keeping her aligned to his viewpoint simply made things easier. An act of sacrifice on his part clearly aided such things. Mathematically, it made logical sense.

But those were not the only reasons why.

No, there was something more dangerous beginning to lurk within his heart. More dangerous and more problematic.

Desire.

He wanted her. He had felt it when she was beginning to learn to wield magic. He had dismissed it as simply an errant moment. A stray thought that grew out of control.

Now, he was not so certain.

He watched her as she wandered the Web with those two idiots. Watched her as she contended with the Eyes and with the sisters. She was terrified. But still, she marched on. Kept her head held high. And met a world of monsters she could not hope to understand with an air of flippant defiance he knew was little more than a paper shield.

But a shield she wielded as though it were made of solid steel. As if nothing in this world or any other could make her yield.

It made him want to prove her very, very wrong.

He wanted to make her beg.

It made him want to break her.

The images played through his mind again, rushing forward unbidden. Sinking his fangs into her throat, flooding her blood with the venom that would leave her supple and begging for him. Pleading for his touch.

He would bind her in his golden threads. Spread her wide. And he would take her—not as a man, but as his true self. In this fantasy of his, in this impossible dream that he would never allow to come to fruition, he pinned her down and claimed her.

Mated her.

Bred her.

His little butterfly.

Caught in his web.

Begging for his grotesque, terrible body.

For the disgusting monster in the darkness to come forward. For all the horrors he would wreak upon her tender flesh. To fill her to straining, to ensure no man could ever have her like he could, ever again.

He could taste his poison on his tongue, dripping from his fangs in anticipation of an event that he would never allow to come to pass. He had never mated with anyone in his hideous true body, and he never would.

What the Morrigan and Arachne had brought into the world was an abomination. He was never meant to exist. He was the product of the hubris of creatures who believed themselves to be gods and comported themselves accordingly.

He had no right to impose that upon anyone.

Let alone reproduce.

But it did not stop the mind from wandering.

Or his glamored body from tightening in response to the fantasies he conjured. Of Ava’s sharp tongue silenced by his manhood as he pushed it down her throat.

He was not a kind lover.

He was not a patient lover.

When the impulse struck him, it was a dangerous affair.

He needed Ava. He needed her to side with him against his half-kin. And ravaging her like a beast was no way to keep her aligned to his cause. So he would suffer through his desires. He would abate them in the privacy of his rooms when she was not haunting his dreams.

And he would let the loneliness ache in his heart the way it always had.

He had never expected this weakness within himself.

For eighteen centuries, he had schooled himself, concealed himself, in ice and stone. Had made himself a creature of calculation and plans spanning hundreds of years. Had taught himself to view the world as a complex game of strategy where emotions were merely weaknesses to be exploited in others.

And yet.

His fingers traced the rim of a crystal glass, still tinged with the faint impression of her lips from when she had drunk from it. Such a mundane thing to fixate upon. So… mortal .

The Web was changing around him. He could feel it. The vibrations in his carefully constructed prison had altered since her arrival. Possibilities and dreams that had been closed for centuries now trembled with potential. A door, long sealed, now whispered hints of opening.

His little butterfly was the cause.

She had collected the first key from the sisters. Serrik had felt a strange, burning sensation in his chest when the crone had violated her memories—a sensation he eventually recognized as anger. Not calculated. Not strategic.

Pure, protective rage.

How curious.

It was more than desire she inspired in him.

More than simply lust.

One he could resist, he knew.

But the other?

The other worried him far more.

He approached the massive window that looked out over the impossible landscape of his prison. The trees had begun to bloom with silver flowers—something they had not done in over six hundred years.

Change was coming.

He pressed his palm against the cool glass. Beyond it, lightning flickered in a sky that had no clouds. The Web always reflected his moods, whether he wished it to or not.

And now it felt electric with desire, just as he did.

“My little butterfly,” he whispered to the empty room. “What have you done to me?” He closed his eyes, drawing in a breath he didn’t need. There was work to be done. Plans to be adjusted. He could not afford this…distraction.

Yet he found himself returning to the harpsichord. His fingers drifted to the keys, playing a melody he had not played in centuries. A song from his youth, before his imprisonment. Before his world had turned to ash and pain.

The music flowed from him, soft and yearning. It spoke of things he could not allow himself to name. Of longing. Of hope.

Of futures he had never permitted himself to imagine.

As the final notes faded into silence, Serrik straightened his back. Smoothed his features back into their customary mask of cold indifference.

He would control this weakness. Master it. Use it if necessary.

The butterfly would fulfill her purpose in his grand design. She would help him destroy his kin. Help him end the threat they posed to her world and all others.

And when it was done—when the Web lay in tatters and his vengeance was complete—perhaps then…

No.

There would be no “then” for him. His path ended with destruction. With the final fulfillment of his vow.

The loneliness would end only with oblivion.

Oblivion…for them both.

Ava jerked awake with a gasp, her heart pounding. The dream clung to her like cobwebs—Serrik’s face inches from hers, his golden eyes blazing with an intensity that made her stomach flip. His fingers had traced her jaw, tilted her chin up. Those perfect, cruel lips had hovered just above hers…

And then he’d stopped. Pulled back. His expression shifting to something unreadable before he’d just sent her away. Like flicking a light switch.

“Dammit,” she muttered, pressing her palms against her eyes. She was not supposed to be having those kinds of dreams about the genocidal spider fae who’d dragged her into this mess. That was just…psychological trauma. Stockholm syndrome. Something like that.

She hadn’t really paid much attention in psych class.

Either way, it definitely wasn’t attraction. Not real attraction, anyway.

“Ava?” Ibin’s voice came from somewhere nearby. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”

Ava blinked, her surroundings coming into focus. She was sitting on grass at the edge of the garden. The sisters’ cottage was visible in the distance, smoke curling from its chimney.

Nos stood a few paces away, his back to them, seemingly keeping watch. Or brooding. Fifty-fifty shot.

The morning light—if it even was morning in this impossible place—caught on the stitches that held his mismatched parts together, highlighting them. It reminded her of the fact that she really knew shockingly little about her two companions.

He was also missing his coat. Looking around, she realized she had been using it as a pillow. Aw.

“I feel vaguely like someone used my brain as a punching bag,” Ava finally replied. Her head throbbed, but not just from the crone’s intrusion. The space where Serrik had been in her dream felt raw, an almost physical ache.

“I expect that wasn’t a comfortable experience.” Ibin handed Ava a flask. “Drink. It will help.”

The liquid inside was cool and tasted faintly of mint and honey. It did ease the pounding in her head, though nothing could fill the strange emptiness she felt.

“What did she take?” Ibin asked, her green eyes searching Ava’s face.

Looking down, she saw Book lying in the grass. And next to it, a mirror shard. The memory of what had actually happened was crystal clear—the crone had been about to extract all the memories of her mother, when she’d managed to summon Serrik in an act of desperation. And he had traded the memory of his mother—well, one of them—instead.

The crone had been dubious, but agreed. And—Ava didn’t understand how —Serrik had offered up one of his own memories in exchange. A sacrifice that had left Ava untouched but shaken to her core.

Why would he do that? She still didn’t get it.

“I don’t remember,” she lied, not meeting Ibin’s eyes. “Just…something from childhood, I think. Must not have been anything important?”

Nos turned, his mismatched eyes narrowing. “The crone does not take unimportant things.”

“Well, she did this time.” She shrugged. “Or, whatever it is, I don’t remember it, because she took the memory of it. So, there you go. I don’t remember what she took, Nos. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Neither of them looked convinced, but they didn’t press further.

Ava stood, brushing bits of grass from her clothes. “We got what we came for, right? So let’s get moving.” Picking up Nos’s coat, she plucked all the bits of grass off it and then unfurled it. “I appreciate the makeshift pillow, Nos.” She tossed it to him.

He caught it, grunted something that resembled an acknowledgement, and shrugged his peacoat back on.

Book was beside her, looking deceptively ordinary in the strange light. She tucked it under her arm, drawing comfort from its familiar weight.

“I agreed to lead you to the door.” Ibin rose gracefully to her feet. “And I will.”

“I appreciate that.” The next thing she picked up was the mirror shard. It’d changed in shape and size since the old woman had handed it to her. Now, it was about ten inches long and four inches wide at the base, and came to a jagged point. At least she had something to stab somebody with if she needed to. In its reflection, she caught glimpses of possibilities—herself with the spiral tattoo from Book’s illustration creeping further up her arm, her eyes harder, her expression haunted.

More warnings about the future. Tucking the shard into the side pocket of her backpack, she slung her bag over her shoulder.

Ibin looked off, troubled. “The door is close to the center. It stands at a nexus point in the Web. A place where realities…overlap.”

“Sounds perfectly safe. What could go wrong?” She smiled. “Maybe I can drop another train on somebody.”

Nos made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Please. No more trains.”

“You are no fun.” She stuck her tongue out at Nos, which earned her an eye roll from the older, stitched-together fae.

With that, Ibin laughed and started walking, and Ava and Nos followed.

As they headed down the path, the garden began to thin around them, the carefully tended plants giving way to wilder growth. The path beneath their feet transformed from neat flagstones to rough-hewn cobbles, then to packed earth. As the hallways of the Baroque building returned, twisted up in the trees and vines, she was almost relieved to see them.

Except something was different. There was something weird about the floor. It looked disturbingly like bone. “Please tell me we’re not walking on a skeleton.” Ava grimaced.

“Not a skeleton,” Ibin replied. “Just bone.”

“Mm, not helping, sorry.”

“It does mean we’re getting closer.” Ibin was now trying her absolute best to be cheerful.

They walked in silence for a moment. “So…can I ask you both a sensitive question?”

“Why were we both imprisoned?” Ibin smiled at her, beaming smile flawless and beautiful. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask. Why are we, charming wonderful people that we are, trapped in here with the worst of the worst?”

“I…guess? Yeah.” Ava shrugged. “Seeing as this place is filled with the world’s most dangerous fae.”

Ibin pretended to be offended. “I’m hardly dangerous in the traditional sense. I just wouldn’t shut up. You see, after I wound up crashing my aeroplane into the countryside and wound up getting cursed by some lovely milkmaid that I swore I thought was just a milkmaid—I really thought she was, I promise.”

Ava was really starting to piece Ibin’s story together and it was turning out to be a really fun one. “Sure, sure. Go on.”

“Well, suddenly the milkmaid turns out to be some Seelie enchantress who is now mad at me because she thought I really loved her, and since I’d knocked her up, she thought it’d be a real laugh to make me a stork.” Suddenly, Ibin wasn’t Ibin. Well, Ava supposed that wasn’t fully accurate. Because Ibin was, in fact, still Ibin.

Ibin was now simply, suddenly, a bird. Where was once a tall, elegant, beautiful woman, transformed in a swirl of gossamer and feathers—into a stork in flight.

Ava shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d seen it once before.

It didn’t stop her from screaming and ducking as if she had been attacked by a bat.

Ibin laughed—still a bird, though the beak didn’t open or move—and landed some twenty feet away. Flapping her feathers and tucking them against her sides, she turned her head to watch them. “You did bring it up.”

“I know, I know.” It was Ava’s fault. And she did feel stupid for shrieking. “So what do you mean, you wouldn’t shut up?”

“I used to be human!” She flapped her wings, and in another swirl of feathers and gossamer, was once more a woman. She smoothed her hands over her hair. “And I, like you, used to believe in a world where magic didn’t exist. Where we were safe from forces outside of our own rapacious violence. I thought the world needed to hear the news.”

“You tried to warn people about the fae?” She arched an eyebrow at her. “How’d that go?”

“About as well as you can imagine. Turns out people have been warned for generations and nobody cares.” She threw up her hands. As Nos and Ava caught up, they all resumed walking together. “But that didn’t keep Queen Abigail from setting before me a three-strikes-and-you’re-out clause. Which I broke about sixteen times before she sent me here.”

“Your turn, Nos.” Ava smiled.

“No.” Nos didn’t look at them.

“Come on.” Ibin nudged his shoulder. “It might help her understand your cheery disposition.”

With a disgruntled sigh, he relented. “I was a loyal servant of King Valroy. But he thought me a spy. He tortured me, seeking information I did not have. When his work was finished and my tongue spilled no secrets, he realized his mistake. For where a traitorous poison had not seeped in my veins before, it certainly did then.” Nos grimaced, barely visible from under the veil of his dark hair. “Yet I could not be executed for a crime for which I had only just been discovered innocent.”

“So…life imprisonment. For a treasonous act you didn’t, nor would ever, commit.” The circular logic made Ava’s head hurt.

“Indeed.”

“And you look like—I’m sorry, you resemble a character from a famous novel because?”

Nos stared straight ahead and kept his tone flat. “King Valroy collects human works as a matter of morbid curiosity. Mary Shelley’s fictional piece had recently become popular. It served as a work of inspiration.”

Ava felt her face go cold. “Fuck. Nos—I—I’m sorry.”

He nodded once, as if accepting her condolences, but said nothing.

Yeah.

Fuck the fae.

Maybe they did all deserve to die. “And you both still want to go on living? You still want the fae to keep existing?”

“Of course we do!” Ibin laughed. “The fae can be amazing. And wonderful. And create such beauty. And the sex ”—she grunted—“oh my gods , Ava, the sex. ”

Ava couldn’t help but laugh as well.

“You’ve simply met the dregs, I’m afraid.” Ibin sighed wistfully. “Just because you’ve been stuck in here with us bastards doesn’t mean an entire race that has existed since the first tree bloomed to life and the first wolf howled in the darkness all deserve oblivion over it.”

“Right.” She hugged Book to her chest, frowning thoughtfully. The debate raged in her head. And she got the feeling it was going to keep raging for a while.

They walked in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. Ava found herself glancing at Nos with new understanding. His bitterness made a lot more sense now. She’d been dragged into this mess unwillingly, sure, but at least she hadn’t been turned into a Frankenstein cosplay by some vindictive fae king with a literary obsession.

“It’s just ahead.” Ibin stopped at the edge of a new archway. “Beyond this point, we reach the mirror chamber.”

The archway in front of them was different from the others they’d passed. Its edges were lined with tiny fragments of reflective glass, each one showing a different angle of their faces as they approached.

“Is anything around here fun? Like, anything? Or is everything a horror show?”

Nos moved to stand beside her, his expression grim. “This place was designed to punish and torture, Ava. The mirror chamber shows reflections of possibilities—things that might have been. Things that could still be. It is designed to disorient. It is designed to turn away all those who might seek to reach the mirror you seek. It will test your resolve—and if we are lucky, it will break it.”

“Yuh-huh.” Ava sighed. “More supernatural mind games.”

“One shard won’t free him, Nos. We have two more attempts to change her mind. I’m more concerned she’ll fall into one of those possibilities and never come back out,” Ibin warned, her normally cheerful tone now serious. “The mirrors will try to confuse you. To make you doubt. Remember why we’re here.”

“To find the door.” Ava clutched Book tighter.

Ibin nodded. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

They stepped through the archway.