“No.No,this can’t be real, this can’t—” Ava stared down at her bloodied palm. It certainly felt real.
A voice whispered to her, the same as before. Both corporeal and not, but she knew she wasn’t making it up.
“Welcome to the Web, little butterfly…now, if you do not wish to be eaten, I suggest you start running.”
“What?”
But that was when she heard it.
Theskittering.Turning toward the noise, her eyes went wide. She didn’t know what they were.
She didn’t want to know what they were.
Somewhere between a rat and a millipede. Too many legs, too much fur, and too many teeth. And too many of them overall—a swarm of them, cascading over the floor and along the walls and ceiling like a great mottled brownish-black wave coming after her, allchitteringandsnappingandshuffling.
Suddenly, the advice seemed wonderfully sound.
Screaming, she ran.
Ava really was having the worst day of her life.
CHAPTER TWO
Ava ran for her life.
From messed-up, million-legged, foot-long, millipede rat monsters.
She couldn’t spare a moment to process the fact that she was running down hallways that looked like they were some bizarre crossover between an abandoned version of Versailles and theJumanjimovie. Trees and vines, ponds and rivers—a veritable jungle of wildlife tangled up with the ornate and elaborately over-detailed architecture.
No, because the millipede rat monsters were chasing her, and she had no doubt they were going to do exactly as the voice said.
They were going to eat her.
So she was going to run likehell.
Not only did she very much not want to die, she very much did not want to die by being eaten by fucked up millipede rat monsters.
Instinctually, she ducked into a room and slammed the door behind her, throwing the latch and the bolt. She didn’t know how she knew what to do. She just did. Taking a few steps back fromthe door, she stared at it, waiting to see if it would hold against the onslaught of the wave of things.
She heard them on the other side—scratching and scrabbling and skittering and screeching.
Holding her breath, her heart was pounding in her ears. She was shaking from the cold and adrenaline.
Long, thin, black legs curled up from under the lip of the door—one, two, then a hundred. Ava let out a long, horrified whine.
But the things couldn’t seem to squeeze in after her.
After what seemed like an eternity, the sound of the swarm on the other side slowly relented…and faded.
They were gone. Letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, she finally let her shoulders fall away from where they’d been scrunched up by her ears.
Turning, she jumped backwards and yelped, startled. “Holy f?—”
Wherever she was, she hated it here already. Really, really,reallyhated it here.
She was in a study. Bookshelves lined walls to her left and right, stuffed to the brim with books and scrolls. The wall across from her was lined with windows, and directly in front of her was a large, beautiful desk that she couldn’t imagine how much it would fetch at an auction house if it were up for sale.
The wall to her right had a large fireplace in the center of it that was lit and cozily burning away as though it were trying to warm the only other occupant that she could see.
