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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

T hey walked for another few hours before Ava was finally too tired to continue. Not that she was looking forward to sleeping, mind you. Because she knew what was going to happen when she did.

Serrik.

And she would have to deal with what she knew. And how that clashed with what she wanted when she was around him.

They found an area that was pretty secluded—an alcove that was tucked off to the side of the long, overgrown hallway, shrouded by two ash trees that had flanked the doorway and created a natural archway. It was beautiful in the fading sunlight that drifted in through the leaves, creating dancing patterns of amber sunlight on the broken marble floor.

Setting down her things on the ground, she leaned Book up against the trunk of the tree inside the alcove, and got ready to hunker down.

“Can you summon us food or bedding?” Bitty was arranging sticks in the center of the alcove to make a fire.

“I…I mean, I can try.” Ava cringed, remembering the time she made apple trees explode through space. “My magic tends to be a little—um— large. ”

“Large.” Bitty furrowed her brow and looked up at her, clearly not understanding what in the blazes Ava could possibly mean by that.

“It’s—” Ava gestured aimlessly. “Hard to control. I tend to do things with it that aren’t suited for smaller tasks like, well, food and bedding. But dropping gigantic house-sized objects on people? Or blowing holes through reality? I’m your gal, apparently. ”

“O—oh.” Bitty’s eyes went a little wide. “Maybe you should not do that, then. I can forage for us. I’m very good at that.”

“I skipped the Girl Scouts, sadly.” Ava sat down by the pile of sticks, and helped Bitty stack them up into a cone shape. “But I learn fast.”

“Once I get the fire going, if you can keep it alive, I’ll go get us food.” Bit was just so damn cheerful , despite their current situation, it was hard not to feel a little bit of it wearing off. “I hope you don’t mind eating fruit for dinner.”

“I’ll be grateful for anything.”

After they arranged the kindling, Bitty stuffed some dry leaves into the sticks and rustled through a fabric satchel she wore hanging off her hip, and produced a flint and a striker. After a couple of strikes, the leaves ignited.

Ava watched, finding the whole thing oddly fascinating. Camping was never her thing. Now that she was surrounded by people who could wield magic and summon whatever they wanted with a simple gesture? To see a fae resorting to manually making a fire was…odd. And it gave her a moment to reflect.

Bitty was surviving.

Somehow.

But it was more than that.

In all this nonsense, and against all odds, she wasn’t just surviving, was she? She seemed…happy. Neurotic, sure. Jumpy, absolutely. But happy to a certain degree. She considered Ibin a friend. “Do you like it here?”

“Hm?” Bitty looked up from blowing on the embers. The kindling was really starting to get going. “Oh, well, I wish things weren’t so dangerous. I like it when things aren’t trying to eat me all the time.” She giggled. “So, maybe not? But in Tir n’Aill, people were mean to me. Looked down at me for being worthless. Meaningless. I was going to have a life begging for scraps, if I stayed there.”

Ouch.

“But here?” Bitty looked out of the archway of the alcove. “We’re all outcasts. Exiles. Broken in one way or another, cast out for one reason or another.” She shrugged. “Nobody’s mean here. Dangerous, but not mean. ” She frowned. “I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

“Yeah. It does.” Way more than Ava cared to admit. Maybe she should just…stay in the Web, like she was now. Find a place to set up a nice little home for herself, and learn to survive.

Keep her power out of everyone’s reach. Serrik’s. Valroy’s. Whatever Nos and Ibin were up to. It was an option she hadn’t really considered. Inaction as a form of action. But how long could that really last, before somebody forced her hand? Before it all fell apart?

“What do you think I should do, Bitty?” She reached over for a slightly larger stick now that the fire was going stronger. Snapping it into two smaller chunks, she placed them diagonally on top of the burning bits.

“You’re asking me? ” The fae laughed. “That’s a silly thing to do. I have no idea. I think you have no good options.”

“How so?”

“Well, all the good options I see are temporary. All the permanent ones are bad.” She frowned. “And temporary good options are how we got into this mess into the first place, isn’t it? Trusting luck to hold out forever.”

“Seems it.”

Bitty stood and brushed off her dress. Her wings buzzed behind her. “I’m going to go forage for fruit! Keep the fire going, I’ll be back soon.” Her smile fell like a brick. “Unless I die. In which case, I won’t.”

“Well, my advice is, don’t die.” Ava chuckled. “And if you do, I’ll avenge your death. I’ll go drop a train on whatever it is that killed you.”

Bitty actually looked flattered. “Does that make us friends?”

“Sure.” The fae were so strange. “It absolutely makes us friends.”

“Friends.” The word was a whisper of awe. With a beaming smile, Bitty dashed off.

No, Ava amended her thought. The fae weren’t just strange.

They were fucking bizarre.

Bitty had not died. And she had returned with her apron filled with fruit. There were no apples, which had made Ava laugh harder than it should have—and it had been impossible to explain to Bitty why.

But they had eaten half the fruit, tucked the rest away in Ava’s backpack, and settled down for the night in front of the burning fire.

Ava rather reluctantly fell asleep.

The first thing she became aware of was harpsichord music.

Serrik’s library materialized around her, golden candlelight casting long shadows across endless rows of books. And there he was, seated at the instrument, his long fingers dancing across the keys with inhuman precision. His wild green hair cascaded down his back, the gold jewelry at his wrists and throat catching the light with each graceful movement.

Beautiful. Otherworldly. Deadly.

Ava stood watching him, saying nothing. She knew he was aware of her presence—he always was. This was his game. Making her wait. Making her come to him.

Nope.

Fuck you, buddy.

Not this time.

She leaned against a bookshelf, arms crossed, and waited. The melody he played was haunting and complex. Something that that she suspected he’d written, seeing as it sounded almost impossible for human hands to execute. A reminder of his otherness.

Finally, he spoke without turning. “You are avoiding me now, little butterfly?”

“Can you blame me?”

His fingers never faltered on the keys. “I suppose not. After the…revelation you were given by the Web.”

So he knew. Of course he knew. No matter how little power she felt like she ever had in any conversation with him, he always managed to take it away with a snap of his fingers. They were bound—linked, after all. What she knew, he knew.

“Well, is it true?” The question came out harsher than she’d intended. But she was pissed, and honestly, she felt justified. “It’s one thing to turn me into your weapon. It’s another thing to not tell me that doing so will consume my personality. That I’ll become a walking version of”—she gestured at the space around her—“whatever the fuck you’ve made.”

The music stopped. The silence that followed felt oppressive, charged with tension.

Serrik turned on the bench, his golden eyes meeting hers. “The Web has many facets. Many voices. And it reflects many futures.”

She laughed. Seriously? “That’s not a denial, Serrik.”

A ghost of a smile touched his perfect lips. “No. It is not.”

He rose from the bench, his movements liquid and precise. Every step toward her sent a contradictory wave of fear and anticipation through her body. Her pulse quickened. Stupid, treacherous body.

“What the Web showed you is, as it always is, a possible outcome . One of many.”

“A possible outcome that you’re actively working toward.”

Serrik stopped a few feet from her, close enough that she could smell him—that impossible scent of lightning, herbs, and something citrusy and spicy she couldn’t name.

“I seek freedom, Ava. As do you. Our paths align in this.”

“Do they? Because that’s just one thing on your laundry list of other shit you want.” She forced herself to hold his gaze, despite the dizzying effect it had on her. “And from where I’m standing, you’ll get to walk free while I become something that isn’t me anymore. Something you can use.”

“Is that truly what you fear?” He tilted his head, studying her with those unsettling, inhumanly irised, faintly-glowing golden eyes. “The loss of self? Or is it that you fear what you might become—something greater than human?”

Her tattoo pulsed warmly under her skin, as if responding to his proximity. Scratching at it, she tried to put it out of her mind. “I like being human, thanks. Big fan of eating, sleeping, not being used as a cosmic weapon.”

“Yet”—Serrik took a step closer still—“you continue to seek the keys. To unlock the seals. To bind yourself further to the Web.”

“Because I don’t have a choice!”

“Ah, but in that, you are mistaken, Ava.” His voice dropped lower, a growl that was dangerously intimate. “You could have remained with your friends. You could have rejected this path entirely. But here you are. Alone. Moving forward. Why, if you did not desire some part of it?”

Because she was trapped. Because she was afraid. Because she was seeking more power to fight him with. She needed power to defeat him, didn’t she?

But was he telling the truth? Was some part of her—a part she didn’t want to examine too closely—drawn toward whatever this was becoming? Drawn toward him?

She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.

And like fuck if she was going to say that aloud. “Because I don’t trust them either.”

Serrik smiled then, a real smile that transformed his face from cold perfection to something achingly beautiful. “At least there is honesty between us.”

Ouch. Sarcasm. “Right. Because from where I’m standing, you’ve been manipulating me from the start. Using me to get what you want.”

“Yes.” He admitted it without hesitation. “As you have been using me. My power. My knowledge. My protection.” He took another step closer, now near enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his body. “You take what you need from me, just as I take what I need from you. This is the nature of all relationships, little butterfly. A dance of give and take.”

“Except what you’re taking is my humanity, and you’re planning on using it for genocide . And then what? Once you’ve hollowed me out, taken all that I am, what will you do, when I’m no longer human? Prop me up in the corner like so much furniture? Or a blow-up doll?”

Something flickered across his face—too quick to interpret. Regret? Hunger? Both? “What makes you human, Ava?” He raised a hand, letting it hover near her face without touching. “This flesh? These thoughts? These feelings? What if I told you that all of these could remain, even as you transcend what you are now?”

“I’d say you’re lying.” She’d seen as much. The Web, the images in the mirrors, they’d been clear enough warnings. “You’re just trying to give me a good sales pitch.”

“Perhaps.” His hand finally made contact, fingers brushing against her cheek with unexpected gentleness. “Or perhaps the Web showed you only what it feared—its own existence given emotions it cannot understand.”

Ava should have pulled away. Should have stepped back. Should have rejected this touch, this closeness.

Instead, her treacherous body leaned into it, seeking more contact.

“What are you doing to me?” she whispered. This was wrong. Absolutely wrong. He was a monster. He was going to chew her up and spit her out.

She really shouldn’t want that as much as she did.

Serrik’s golden eyes darkened slightly. “I could ask the same of you.”

The air between them felt charged, electric. The tattoos on her arm were so warm they almost burned. Looking down, she watched as the lines shifted. Moving, realigning as if answering his nearness.

“You want to destroy your entire race.” She was trying to remind herself of what he was. Of what he intended. “You’re going to make me your mindless, hollowed-out machine of mass-murder to do it.”

“Yes.” Turning her face up to his, his thumb traced the line of her jaw, sending shivers down her spine. “And no. What I want has grown…complicated.”

“Oh yeah? Enlighten me.”

His gaze traveled over her face, studying her with an intensity that made her feel exposed.

“The fae are a plague. Parasites. But perhaps some…” He paused, something almost vulnerable flashing in his eyes. “Some could be saved. Those who, like that small beetle, have done no harm. Perhaps there is another way.”

Oh, now he wanted to compromise? “And who decides? You?”

“We would decide.” The word we hung between them, heavy with implication. “Together.”

Ava swallowed the lump in her throat. “There is no ‘we,’ Serrik.”

Even if she almost wanted there to be.

“Isn’t there?” His hand slid to the back of her neck, fingers somehow cool against her flushed skin. She should recoil. She should twist out of his grasp. But god, she didn’t. “Can you truly say you feel nothing? That there is no connection between us?”

She couldn’t. That was the problem. With each dream, the pull toward him grew stronger. A magnetic attraction that defied logic. “You made that happen with that spider you fed me.”

“I have bound myself to many a mortal in that fashion over the centuries. It has never been like this, Ava…” The rumble in his voice, the duskiness of it, left no doubt in her mind. In that, he was telling the truth.

Her cheeks went warm. “It doesn’t matter. What I feel doesn’t matter.” Her voice was barely audible. “Not if what the Web showed me is true.”

“And if it isn’t?” His face was inches from hers now. “If I offered you power without loss? Transformation without emptiness?”

“I’d say you’re still lying.”

“Then why are you still here, little butterfly?” His lips curved into that rare and dangerous smile. “Why do you come to me night after night?”

Because I can’t help it. Forcing down a shiver, she said through a breathless exhale, “To understand my enemy.”

“Ah. Is that what I am?” His lips brushed against hers, not quite a kiss. “Shame.”

The barest contact sent a jolt through her entire body. Her hands came up, intending to push him away, but instead she clutched the lapels of his coat, pulling him closer.

“I suppose I should earn the title, then, shouldn’t I?” He zeroed the distance between them.

Their lips met fully this time, and it was like touching lightning—electric, dangerous, exhilarating. His mouth was like fire against hers, his taste intoxicating. The kiss deepened, his hand tangling in her hair, holding her against him with a strength that should have frightened her.

Instead, she wanted more. Craved more. Needed more. Even as alarm bells screamed in the back of her mind.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing heavily, Ava felt dizzy, disoriented.

“What is happening to me?” she whispered, her voice shaking

Serrik’s eyes were almost black now, only a thin ring of gold remaining around the pupils. “The same thing that is happening to me, little butterfly.” His voice was rough, strained. “The Web binds us together, strand by strand. The more power you claim, the stronger our connection grows. I, the architect—you, the vessel.”

“So you can control me?”

“So we can control it.” He gestured to the library around them. “Together.”

She shook her head, trying to clear it. “I don’t believe you.”

“You do not have to.” His thumb traced her lower lip, still sensitive from their kiss. “But answer me this, Ava—if I wished only to hollow you out, to make you an empty vessel for power, why would I risk this?” He indicated the space between them, charged with something far more complex than simply magic or manipulation.

It was a good question. One she didn’t have an answer for.

“I won’t be used. Not by you. Not by anyone.”

“Good.” He smiled, and for a moment, she glimpsed something genuine in his expression. “I would expect nothing less.”

The dream began to fade around them, the library dissolving into mist, his touch growing less substantial.

“The second key awaits you in the Broken City.” His voice followed her as she drifted back toward consciousness. “Be wary, little butterfly. Not all forgotten things wish to be remembered.”

“Wait,” she called, reluctant to leave despite herself. “Tell me the truth. Just once.”

His eyes were the last thing to fade.

“I already have.”