Yet, here she was.
Silently shutting the door behind him, he headed back to the den. Ibin was still asleep where she was perched, the firelight casting her snowy-white feathers in amber, and glinting from the sheen of those that were jet black.
Sitting in his chair, he resumed his reading. Tomorrow, he would seek to convince Ibin of logical sense once more. There was one option ahead of him—one route that Ibin might agree to. One tactic he might attempt that the sweet-hearted stork might be mournful of but see sense in.
It would pain him to have to make a deal with the cretin he had in mind. But the individual he was thinking of was powerful, and if anyone in the Web could keep both their wardensandSerrik from turning Ava into the potential weapon that she could become? It would be him.
Ibin would see sense in that. And with the cretin’s particulargifts,it would be a…kinder way to deal with the human than many. She would not enjoy it. Oh, she would loathe it at first. But that was what he adored about his winged companion. With enough cajoling and enough careful explanation, she would come around.
He had to have hopeenough to try.
Because if she did not see sense in ensuring that Ava was of no use to Serrik or the wardens?
It would spell disaster for them all. Not just the denizens of the Web.
But entireworlds.
Ava sat straight up.
She went fromasleeptoawakeat the same speed that a bomb goes off at the moment of detonation.
Spider!
That was all she could process.Spider! Spider-spider-spider-spider!“Fuck—fuck—fuck—” She scrabbled out from under the tangled mess of blankets, furs, scarves, and miscellaneouswhateversand ran for the bathroom.
For the second time in two days she tried to throw up something she didn’t intend to eat.
But nothing came up as she hunched over the antique toilet—the kind that had the tank up mounted on the wall—and jabbed her fingers down her throat.
With a groan, she lowered her head to the porcelain rim. “Fuck you,youcubicasshole!” Her hands were shaking as she pushed herself up to her feet. Adrenaline was a helluva drug.
Walking to the mirror, she stared at herself in the mirror. She…lookedokay. Tired, sure. Like she’d been through hell, sure. Which she had been—more or less. Her hair was doing that thing it liked to do when she went to bed with it wet. Namely, literally everything all at once. Combing her hands through the curls in an attempt to get them to be a little less obnoxious, she sighed.
She’d made a mistake, hadn’t she?
A real,realserious mistake.
Lowering her head, she let out another long groan. What had she done? Entered into a contract with a psychopath and agreed to commitgenocide,that’s what.
But if she didn’t do it, he’d just try again with someone else. And again, and again, and again. She was…saving people. The whole human race. Right?
Fuck.
Fuck.
And she was also saving herself. There weren’t any good answers. That was the problem.
It was when she looked back up at the mirror that she noticed something odd. Pulling aside the collar of the chemise, she leaned in closer to the silvered glass. “What the?—”
There was ink on her skin.
Tattooink.
Ava didn’t have any tattoos.
But there it was, just about an inch under her right collarbone and two inches toward her arm. It was just around the joint of her shoulder where people magically got shot with arrows in movies and always survived. It was small—about the size of a quarter.
And it was the outline of a spider, in the thinnest, dark green ink. It was a Celtic knot representation of a spider, and was extremely delicate. And…one of its legs was missing? Not entirely—like it was broken off just a bit after it started. It was the second to last leg on its right side. Whichever one that was.
