Ava winced. This was not the place she wanted to wind up being trapped.
BUT THERE ARE WAYS.
The Eyes shifted, its impossible limbs folding and unfolding. The darkness around them rippled like water.
FOLLOW.
And then it was moving away from them, deeper into the strange not-room.
Ava looked at Ibin and Nos. “Are we seriously going to follow the terrifying leg-eye-spider-thing?”
“You have a better idea?” Ibin asked.
She didn’t.
So they followed.
The Eyes led them through passages that shouldn’t exist—corridors made of shadow and things that flashed like bits and pieces of memories from her childhood. Rooms constructed from echoes of lost conversations. Everywhere Ava looked, threads gleamed—some thick as ropes, others fine as hair.
The Web. TheactualWeb. Not just the place Serrik was imprisoned, but the thing itself.
“What is this place?” she whispered to Ibin as they walked. “Really?”
Ibin shrugged. “I don’t really know. As far as I can figure? Reality’s backstage,” she whispered back. “Where all worlds and possibilities…connect.”
“That’s not actually as helpful as you might think it is.”
“I know,” Ibin admitted. “But it’s the best I can do.”
The Eyes stopped abruptly. Before them stretched what looked like a perfectly ordinary door—wooden, slightly weathered, with a simple brass knob. The same damn door as number three.
Ava glared a hole at Nos.
Who studiously refused to look at her.
HERE.
WHAT YOU SEEK.
Ibin looked at the door suspiciously. “And what exactly do you think are we seeking?”
THE FIRST KEY.
Ava looked down at Book. It felt warm again, but not burning. Just…alert. When she looked back up, the Eyes were staring at her. All of them. Itcouldsee her. She froze.Shit.
WE KNOW WHAT YOU SEEK. WE WISH TO HEAR YOU SPEAK IT.
Ava swallowed nervously before glancing at Nos and Ibin. Ibin shrugged. Looking back to the Eyes, she did her best to sound firm. “Three keys…and a mirror.”
The Eyes’s limbs twitched in what might have been approval.
BUT BE WARNED, STRANGE THREAD.
THE KEY CHANGES THE LOCK. AND THE LOCK CHANGES THE KEY.
“Do you guys have some kind of supernatural requirement to be as cryptic as possible?” She was terrified. Absolutely terrified. But the stupid jokes kept her safe like a shield. If she keptmaking jokes, it meant she was still alive. Even if her pitch was an octave higher. “Like, is there a quota you have to fill?”
The Eyes’s many eyes blinked out of sync for the first time.
