“Aye, we are. We very much are.” She laughed, somehow still mirthful and kind. “You are right to fear us. Right to makesure you are safe from us. All of life is a game for us to win, a negotiation where we can outwit our opponent.”
“So why are you helping me?” Ava still wasn’t sure the old fae womanwashelping her. And that was the whole point.
“Because too many have been broughtto this wretched place.” She grimaced, her haggard old features accentuated in the firelight. “And I have no love for the bastard who did this to you. And all the more kindness for those poor women like me who find themselves at the mercy of the Web.” Braega gestured to a chair by the fire. “Sit, dearie, sit.”
Still reluctant, and fairly certain that the chair was just as likely to start talking to her and eat her as it was to be a normal chair, she walked over and sat in it. Luckily, it didn’t say hello and bite her foot.
Braega handed her the bowl of stew, before fetching herself one of her own. Setting her mug of ale on the flat arm of the chair, she picked up the wooden spoon from the edge and stirred it. She recognized potatoes and onions. She didn’t know what the broth was, but she figured beggars and choosers and all that jazz.
Shewasstarving. “I think I remember something about not thanking the fae.”
“You remember correct, though consider me disappointed.” She clicked her tongue before shooting her a slightly cheeky smile. Her Irish accent was thick, and it made Ava smile. She missed them when she was back in Boston, though you could find them roaming South Boston from time to time. “So. May I have your name, dearie?”
“Mmm.” She scooped up a square of potato and ate it. It was delicious. “No. But I can tell you what to call me.”
“Damn and double damn.” The old woman laughed. “You are good at this. Right. Well, what might I call you, smart little one?”
“Ava.”
“Ava.” She hummed. “The next in the line. And you have that blasted book now, I assume.”
She looked down at it in her lap. “Yeah…”
“Blessed be the soul that gave Gregor the rest he finally deserved. Even if it means you have brought hell upon yourself, dearie. He was foolish enough to deny the master of the Web his wishes one too many times, and look what it got him.”
The master of the Web.“The man with the green hair.”
“Aye, and eyes of yellow, though it’s been many an era since I’ve seen them for myself.” She shuffled over to her seat and sat down into it with a groan. Her chair was covered in thick blankets and padding.“Serrik.”
Serrik.The name lingered in her mind.
“What has he offered you in exchange for your cooperation? Mm?” Braega placed her bowl of food down in her lap.
“My freedom.” She put the bowl of food down on top of the book. She hoped it didn’t mind being used as a TV tray. It wouldn’t surprise her if it was vaguely sentient.
“How boring! How simple! Pah! Take a word of advice from Old Braega, dearie—bargain for far more than just that.Tssh.Freedom is worthless. You humans are the only ones in this or any other world who truly value it.” Braega waved her gnarled hand dismissively at her. “Bid higher. Think bigger. You seem clever. Creatures like him always assume they can outsmart you. That is their weakness.”
“I’ll remember that.” And she’d do her best. She took a sip of the beer before going back to the stew. She stared down at the book. “What is this thing? The book?”
“Nngh, complicated. A collection of spells. All spells, in fact. A pile of useless dreams, it is, though.” Braega chuckled. “Because you’re not a witch, dearie. That was how that bastard Serrik was able to pull you here. So it is useless to you, as you are right now.”
“So hewasresponsible. I knew it.” She grimaced.
“He is desperate to escape this place. And he needs a human to do it.”
“Is there any other way out? For me, I mean. Not him. He can stay here and rot for all I care.”
“No one has ever escaped the Web.” Her voice was dark when she said it. “And it is deadly to try.”
Ava looked toward the closed door. “I won’t last long here, will I? Serrik said I couldn’t die now but with what he said about this place having fates worse than death…”
“No, dearie, you won’t. I’m afraid you’ll become someone’s little human plaything before long.” Braega sighed. “Especially without your eyes, I’m afraid you won’t make it through the night.”
Nothing in her cordial tone shifted when she had said the words.
A cold shiver of fear went down Ava’s spine like ice water. “I’ll be leaving now.” She put the spoon down in the stew a little harder than she meant to. It stirred the thick substance up. And that was when something came bobbing up from the bottom, the dark gravy clearing from the surface of it enough that she could recognize it.
An eye.
