Page 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A va dreamed of darkness.

Not the ordinary darkness of closed eyes or moonless nights. This was a living darkness that breathed and pulsed around her. It was alive.

She stood—if standing was even the right word for existing in this space—on nothing. Beneath her feet stretched an endless void peppered with threads of silver light. They wove through the blackness. It was a sea of tangled spiderwebs, arranged in no rhyme or rhythm, shimmering as if caught in morning dew. They stretched out in all directions until it faded off into nothingness.

“Hello?” Her voice made no sound, yet somehow echoed endlessly.

You speak to Us.

The words weren’t spoken. They simply existed inside her mind, as if they had always been there, waiting to be noticed. The voice was neither male nor female, young or old. It wasn’t even really multitudes speaking in perfect unison.

It just was.

Suddenly, she wondered if all those cosmic horror authors in the twenties weren’t onto something after all. And here she thought they were all smoking opium.

“Who are you?” she asked, though she already suspected the answer. She was standing on it. “Or what?”

We are what you call the Web. We are the spaces between. We are what was Always Here Before.

A thread of silver light rose from the darkness, curling around her wrist like a curious serpent. Where it touched her skin, a tattoo appeared, glowed in response, the spiral patterns shifting and flowing. When the thread receded, the tattoo disappeared.

It’d be beautiful if it weren’t terrifying.

“What do you want with me?” Ava tried to step back, but the thread held her gently in place.

Want is a human concept. We simply are. And now, you are becoming Us.

More threads rose from the void, weaving around her in a complex dance, never quite touching her but close enough that she could feel their energy humming against her skin.

“Can you explain that? Please?” Panic started to well up in her chest. “What do you mean I’m becoming you?”

The Spider weaves his final scheme. He built his prison upon Our essence. Wove Our power into a trap. Now he corrupts Us. Now he seeks a vessel to wield Us.

Seeks to make Us…small.

A vessel.

The darkness around her shifted, forming images. She saw Serrik in his true form, massive and terrifying, spinning intricate designs of magic around an ancient, formless power. A flash of a terrifying, figure with wings of black feathers, casting him down.

Then she saw herself, arm completely covered in the shifting, spiraling, web-like tattoos, standing beside Serrik as he directed her hand to unleash devastating magic.

“The keys aren’t unlocking his prison,” she whispered in dawning horror. “They’re making me his prison. Making me a weapon he can control.”

Yes. The Spider spins his web inside you. With each key, you become the We, and We the You.

“Why? Why would he do this?”

Vengeance. Power. Freedom. The Spider seeks to wield what cannot be wielded. What was never meant to be a weapon.

Ava’s mind raced, piecing together fragments of truth that had been scattered throughout her journey. “He’s turning me into something that isn’t human anymore.”

These distinctions mean nothing to us.

“Will I still be as I am now? Like this?” She scrambled for words. She wasn’t used to talking to cosmic horrors. “Will I still be small?”

No. We will become as something new. A strange thread.

That was what the creepy eye monster called her. The Eyes? Was it tied to this thing? It seemed so. “So. If we were to become, um, this strange thread—what would happen then? What’s his plan?”

The threads pulsed with something that might have been sadness.

The Spider would direct Us. Use Us. Our power would become his instrument. Our will, subsumed. We would destroy at his command.

“And Nos? Ibin? Do they know about this?” It was hard to believe. Impossible. That they’d let her do this, knowing?—

The darkness rippled, and Ava felt something cold seep into her thoughts.

All keep secrets, little weaver. The patchwork man knows pieces of truth. The bird-woman is a secret of her own. None understand the whole.

“But they’ve been helping me.” She shook her head. “That can’t be right.”

You are means to many ends.

Anger flared through her. “And Serrik’s been playing me? Everything that just happened, his sacrifice, it was all just a game, so I can still become his apocalypse machine? Just a fucking lie?”

The threads around her withdrew slightly, as if startled by her outburst.

The Spider speaks half-truths. He offers freedom while crafting new chains. He shows you genocide of his kind while planning devastation beyond measure. His desires are his truths, shrouded in myths he calls reason.

“And you? What do you want?”

We do not want. We simply are. Before the Spider, before the fae, before humans. We are the boundary between worlds. We are possibilities.

The threads wove tighter, forming a loose cocoon around her. Within their silvery light, she saw reflections—countless variations of herself. Some with the tattoos covering their entire bodies. Some with eyes that shimmered with the Web’s power. Some barely recognizable as human at all.

These are the paths before you. Many ends. Many beginnings.

“But what if I don’t want any of them? How do I stop this? How do I just—remain myself?”

The Web seemed to consider this question, the darkness pulsing thoughtfully around her.

Trust no one but yourself.

“That’s not an answer. ”

It is the only answer that matters. All who surround you have agendas. The Spider would make you his weapon. The king would make you his slave. The patchwork man would sacrifice you for redemption. The rest are only dreams.

Images flashed through the darkness—Serrik directing her transformed body to unleash devastation, Nos watching her with calculation, Ibin reporting to shadowy figures.

And a flash of a man sitting upon a throne with deep blue hair, and a vicious grin upon his face. He wore a crown of silver, and his great, blue bat wings spread out behind him like a nightmare. The Unseelie King Valroy.

They pull your threads in different directions, little Weaver. Only you can weave a pattern of your own making.

The cocoon of threads tightened slightly, bringing their light closer to her skin. Where they touched her skin, she felt a strange resonance, as if two parts of the same entity were recognizing each other.

“Is there a way to stop this? To get rid of you? It’s—it’s not personal, I just—maybe I don’t want to be part creepy cosmic horror web-world-glue-monster…thingy?”

The Web’s response was immediate, and for the first time, Ava sensed something like emotion in its collective voice—alarm.

Dangerous. Catastrophic. We are Ancient. Primordial. To tear Us from you now would unmake Us both.

Her heart sank. “So it’s already too late. Either become Serrik’s weapon or…what?”

Choice remains. Always choice. We can be wielded, yes. We can also be directed.

Partnership, not dominance. Balance, not destruction.

The threads began to withdraw, the darkness fading around her.

“Wait! You still haven’t told me how to stop this! Or what to do!”

When the Spider speaks of salvation, remember his true desire is power. When he offers freedom, see the chains he forges.

She groaned. “That’s still not helpful! ”

Trust no one but yourself, little Weaver. Not the Spider. Not the king. Not friends nor enemies.

The darkness continued to recede, the silver threads unraveling.

Not even Us.

Ava reached out, trying to grasp the fading threads. “Wait!”

But the Web was already dissolving, reality bleeding back into her consciousness. The last thing she heard was a whisper that seemed to come from inside her own mind.

When the Spider spins his final trap, the vessel fills, and your humanity fades—trust yourself alone.

She woke gasping. When she looked down, her right arm had a tattoo that ran down to her mid-bicep. But it was unfinished—it was only a few lines, like she had a single short sitting with the artist and had to leave before it was done. She knew what it would be when it was complete, the twisting, thin spiral patterns and connecting, lacing spiderwebs.

But as they were now, they were only the lines that spread from the center points of the webs that reached outward, in delicate, green-gray ink that matched the color of her eyes.

She could only think of one word to say.

“Fuck.”

Ava wasn’t the kind of person to panic. She really wasn’t.

Or, at least, she didn’t think she was.

But now? Now? Now that she had spoken to a fucking cosmic horror?

Yeah. She probably had an excuse.

It had taken her a solid thirty seconds to realize she wasn’t even in the mirror room anymore with Ibin and Nos. She was back in the room that Ibin had loaned her, lying on the nest of blankets and pillows. When had that happened? How long had she been out?

Lying beside her was Book. Honestly, she wasn’t even surprised by that anymore.

Pushing up from the floor, she grunted. She felt terrible. Stiff and sore.

And starving.

Whatever. She could deal with that later. Walking into the bathroom, she shut the door behind her. The bathroom was dim, and that’s what she needed. A small, dimly lit space. Turning on the hot water tap for the tub, she plugged the hole with an old-fashioned stopper and sat beside the basin, waiting for it to fill.

Hugging her knees to her chest, she let the tears come.

She hated crying. Hated it. It wasn’t so much the tears that were the problem, it was the snorfly-snuffly congestion shit that she despised. Or even worse, the dreaded hiccups.

Book was lying on the floor next to her again. Whatever. She didn’t care. It followed her, that was its thing. At least it gave her something to talk to.

“I’m alone.” She sniffled. Yep. There it was. The worst part about crying. “And no, you don’t exactly count, sorry.” Wiping at her tears, she sighed. “I wish Mom were here.” Her mom always seemed to know what to do. Even in the weirdest situations. Although, this one kind of topped everything that’d happened to her the first three and half years of college.

Her ex-boyfriend problems really didn’t seem that big of a deal anymore.

The ache in her chest was almost overwhelming. She knew she couldn’t trust Serrik. She knew she couldn’t. She was supposed to be working against him—Book had warned her already. Everyone had warned her.

But she had started to want to trust him. She’d started to want to believe him.

She’d started to look forward to talking to him, in the stupidest of ways.

It felt more real now than ever that she was on an island, alone. Even the Web had warned her that she couldn’t even trust it. And if she couldn’t trust a cosmic horror warning her not to trust anybody, then what the fuck was she supposed to do?

Who was lying?

Nos? Ibin? Serrik? The Web? Book?

The answer was obvious.

Obvious and simple.

Everyone.

Everyone was lying. Everyone wanted something. Everyone wanted to use her. Or, more accurately, wanted to use what she was going to become. The reflections of herself in the mirror room haunted her. The images of her dead-eyed and hollow. Inhuman.

Now it all made sense. They really were reflections of her future. All the possible paths she could take, all the ways forward—and yet—which one was real? Which one was going to be the one that came true?

She should’ve taken the image that Book showed her more seriously. She should’ve listened when it warned her the first time.

She should’ve taken a class in…like…theoretical physics or something. But she was a goddamn architectural major. Climbing off the floor with a grunt, she flipped off the hot water tap and stripped off her clothes to climb into the tub. Bathing, washing her hair—it’d make things feel a little better, even if it didn’t do shit.

Serrik really should’ve taken a math major for this nonsense, not somebody who knew too much about design codes.

Sorry, Serrik—your mystical torture prison doesn’t meet the ADA requirements. You need at least three feet to the right of all doorknobs so that a person in a wheelchair can approach and open it.

Does your mystical torture prison design include properly illuminated fire exit signs with battery backup emergency lighting? I’ll need to see a reflected ceiling plan that calls out all the egress lighting.

That’ll be a violation. Sorry, your mystical torture prison has had its certificate of occupancy revoked.

It made her laugh. The abject farce of it all. The laughing was better than the crying. She stayed in the tub until the water started to go cold, and the benefit of its soothing warmth turned into a reverse boiling frog moment. She didn’t want to leave because it was making her feel better. But now, it was just going to make things worse.

Climbing out, she dried herself off, wrapped a towel around herself, and scooped Book up off the floor. She studied it for a moment. She wondered whose side it was really on. Hers? Serrik’s?

What a stupid question.

The answer was obviously both.

Or, rather, it was going to be both, if she didn’t do something about it. Like…what. Kill Serrik? That’s what Book had told her to do, after all. Rip his heart out. The idea of getting more of the keys and losing more and more of her humanity was terrifying. She didn’t want to become some creepy, hollowed-out, vessel for some cosmic horror.

And she definitely didn’t want to then be used as a nuclear weapon because of it.

But what other choice did she have? She needed more power if she wanted to fight Serrik. And the only way to get more power was more shards, so…two out of three? Fuck. Was she really debating becoming two-thirds of a cosmic horror?

She wasn’t awake enough for this. She needed coffee and something to eat.

Heading back into the room, she pulled up short. She wasn’t alone. “Who in the fuck are you?”

Standing in the middle of the room, was a stranger, smiling at her in sheepish apology. She was tiny. Couldn’t be taller than five feet, and if she weighed more than a hundred pounds, Ava’d be shocked. Her chin-length straight hair was a chestnut brown that shone with metallic shades of blue, red, purple, yellow, and green—almost like a peacock. Or a beetle.

She remembered now—she was the same little creature she’d seen the night she dropped the train on Rig.

The metallic-haired fae stared down at the floor. “Hi—um—sorry—I thought—you were still asleep—Ibin sent me in to check on you and—um—I’m sorry—” She tried to hurry back toward the door. No, that wasn’t quite right. Whoever the little fae was, the only appropriate word for what she was doing was scurrying.

“Wait. Hold up. Who are you?” Ava felt weirdly violated. Ibin had just let some rando into the room with her? That didn’t make any sense. “What’s going on?”

“Well, um—Ibin needed help watching you, since you were asleep for eight days, and?—”

“What?”

Ava’s sudden outburst made the tiny fae almost flatten to the ground in shock, she recoiled so fast. The little creature looked at her with a wide-eyed look of pure fear.

Oh god. The little thing was actually afraid of Ava.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.” How could anybody be afraid of her? Especially standing there wrapped in a damn towel. “I just—eight days? Are you serious?”

The little creature nodded rapidly. “Ibin called me to help. That’s all.”

She just couldn’t get over it. The two words just skipped over and over in her mind like her grandma’s old record player needle trapped on a scratch. “Eight days. That can’t be right.”

“It…it is, though.” The tiny fae assured her, still looking ready to bolt at any sudden movement. “Ibin said you collapsed in front of the door. Nos carried you back here.”

Ava’s mind raced. Eight days. She’d lost more than a week? How was that possible?

“I—I mean, I don’t understand what you’re going through, but…” The little fae’s eyes focused on the on her arm. She shifted uncomfortably. As she moved, Ava noticed delicate beetle wings fluttering nervously behind her back, iridescent and catching the light with shades that matched her metallic-colored hair.

“You still haven’t told me who you are.” Ava was suddenly very eager to change the subject.

“Oh!” The little creature seemed flustered all over again. “I’m Bitty. Or—or Bit, if you prefer. I’m just…well, I’m nobody important, really.”

“Bitty.” Everyone and everything in the Web was suspicious. “And why exactly are you here?”

Bitty’s wings fluttered again. “Ibin needed help watching over you. Making sure you were still breathing, getting water into you when possible.” She shrugged. “I don’t have much else to do around here.”

“I meant in the Web, Bitty. Why’re you trapped in the Web?” Oh man. This little thing looked like it was one good startle away from having a heart attack. And Ava thought she was at her wits’ end.

A flicker of sadness crossed Bitty’s features. “Um…not for doing anything terrible, if that’s what you’re worried about. More for…not doing anything at all.” She gave a self-deprecating smile. “I’m what you might call a disappointment to all fae kind? No magic to speak of. Might as well be human, except for the wings and the longevity.”

Ava felt a pang of sympathy. She was very much wishing she was back in the “useless” camp, as of late. It was a much more boring, much safer place to be. “So you’re…Ibin’s assistant?”

“Friend, I hope?” Bitty frowned. “If people around here can even have friends…I make myself useful where I can.” Her metallic-colored hair shimmered as she spoke, the colors shifting slightly in the light. “Ibin and Nos have been taking turns watching over you, but they both needed to attend to some things, so I volunteered.”

Ava’s stomach growled loudly. Oh god, she was so damn hungry. “I need to get dressed.”

“Okay.” Bitty smiled.

She stared at Bitty blankly. “I need to get dressed, Bitty.”

“Okay?” Bitty blinked in confusion.

Ava sighed and shut her eyes. Right. Fae. “Bitty, I’d like to not be naked in front of you.”

“Oh! Right! Humans.” She giggled and turned around, facing the wall. “Ibin told me to stay with you if you woke up.”

Probably in case she wasn’t really herself anymore. Or if she was already Serrik’s pet… thing. Putting Book down onto the chair by the fire, Ava dropped the towel and pulled on a clean-ish set of clothes from her bag. She wasn’t quite ready to commit to wearing the Renaissance faire clothing that was stocked in the wardrobe. Shoving everything else back into her bag, she picked up Book again now that she was ready to go.

The familiar weight of it was oddly comforting, even knowing it might be part of whatever was happening to her. “You can turn around now.”

Bitty turned, relief washing over her features when she saw Ava dressed. “How do you…feel?”

“Like shit.” Ava smirked. “And starving.”

“That’s understandable after eight days.” Bitty’s smile was as cheery as it could be, resting at the edge of fear. “Let’s go get you some food from the kitchen. It’ll be a little while before you can talk to Ibin and Nos, anyway.”

“Where are Nos and Ibin now?” Ava tried to keep her voice casual. Nos and Ibin were not her friends, either. She had to be suspicious of everyone. Even this supposedly powerless, tiny fae.

“They’ve been taking turns watching over you. Ibin just left to get some rest a few hours ago. Nos is…” Bitty trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

Oh, good. “Nos is what?”

“He’s been researching things. Looking through old books and scrolls. He seems worried.”

She was worried, too. Maybe for the same reasons. “Worried about what?”

Bitty looked away. “I should really let him tell you. But him and Ibin aren’t…”

“Aren’t what?” Ava took a step toward the tiny fae, who flinched. Oh, man. She was not used to being the scary one in the dynamic. It felt kind of gross, honestly. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Bitty’s wings fluttered anxiously. “It’s not my place?—”

“Bitty. I’m past the point of caring who gives me the bad news. Please tell me what’s going on.” She sighed. “I’ve had enough thrown at me, I just want to know what I’m walking into once I go out that door.”

The little fae looked genuinely distressed. “They’ve been arguing. A lot. About what to do with you. About Serrik. I don’t know all the details, I swear. They don’t tell me everything.”

Before Ava could respond, the door opened. Nos stood in the entrance, his mismatched eyes taking in the scene—Ava standing, Bitty looking guilty, Book tucked firmly under Ava’s arm.

“I heard voices.” His voice was carefully neutral. But Ava caught the flash of something…in his eyes. Relief? Concern? Calculation?

“Yep. Sorry. I’m alive.” Ava matched his empty tone. “Bitty here was just filling me in on a few things.”

Nos shot Bitty a look that made the tiny fae’s wings droop.

“I see.” His gaze returned to Ava. “We have much to discuss.”

“Clearly.” Ava held Book a little tighter. “But first, I want food. And then I want the truth. All of it , Nos.”

Nos’s expression didn’t change, but his posture stiffened just the slightest amount. “The truth is rarely simple in the Web.”

“Fucking try me. ” Her grip on Book was turning white-knuckled. She eased off her anger, and forced herself to relax. “Everyone has been lying to me , buddy. That includes you. And now, I want to know what you’ve been withholding from me.”

Their eyes locked, a silent battle of wills. Finally, Nos nodded.

“Very well. Food first. Then we talk.” He stepped aside, gesturing for Ava to proceed him through the door. “Bitty, do inform Ibin that our guest has awakened.”

Bitty nodded quickly, her wings buzzing briefly as she darted past both of them, disappearing down the hallway. She was clearly eager to be done with the conversation.

Honestly, so was Ava.

As Ava passed Nos, he spoke quietly, so only she could hear him. “Whatever happened while you were unconscious…there are things you need to know.”

Ava met his gaze. “I’m counting on it.”

Trust no one but yourself, she reminded herself.

At least for now, the Web was right.

That did seem like the only advice worth taking.