Then she saw herself, arm completely covered in the shifting, spiraling, web-like tattoos, standing beside Serrik as he directed her hand to unleash devastating magic.
“The keys aren’t unlocking his prison,” she whispered in dawning horror. “They’remaking mehis prison. Making me a weapon he can control.”
Yes. The Spider spins his web inside you. With each key, you become the We, and We the You.
“Why? Why would he do this?”
Vengeance. Power. Freedom. The Spider seeks to wield what cannot be wielded. What was never meant to be a weapon.
Ava’s mind raced, piecing together fragments of truth that had been scattered throughout her journey. “He’s turning me into something that isn’t human anymore.”
These distinctions mean nothing to us.
“Will I still be as I am now? Like this?” She scrambled for words. She wasn’t used to talking to cosmic horrors. “Will I still be small?”
No. We will become as something new. A strange thread.
That was what the creepy eye monster called her. The Eyes? Was it tied to this thing? It seemed so. “So. If we were to become, um, this strange thread—what would happen then? What’s his plan?”
The threads pulsed with something that might have been sadness.
The Spider would direct Us. Use Us. Our power would become his instrument. Our will, subsumed. We would destroy at his command.
“And Nos? Ibin? Do they know about this?” It was hard to believe. Impossible. That they’d let her do this, knowing?—
The darkness rippled, and Ava felt something cold seep into her thoughts.
All keep secrets, little weaver. The patchwork man knows pieces of truth. The bird-woman is a secret of her own. None understand the whole.
“But they’ve been helping me.” She shook her head. “That can’t be right.”
You are means to many ends.
Anger flared through her. “And Serrik’s been playing me? Everything that just happened, his sacrifice, it was all just a game, so I can still become his apocalypse machine? Just afuckinglie?”
The threads around her withdrew slightly, as if startled by her outburst.
The Spider speaks half-truths. He offers freedom while crafting new chains. He shows you genocide of his kind while planning devastation beyond measure. His desires are his truths, shrouded in myths he calls reason.
“And you? What do you want?”
We do not want. We simply are. Before the Spider, before the fae, before humans. We are the boundary between worlds. We are possibilities.
The threads wove tighter, forming a loose cocoon around her. Within their silvery light, she saw reflections—countless variations of herself. Some with the tattoos covering their entire bodies. Some with eyes that shimmered with the Web’s power. Some barely recognizable as human at all.
These are the paths before you. Many ends. Many beginnings.
“But what if I don’t want any of them? How do I stop this? How do I just—remain myself?”
The Web seemed to consider this question, the darkness pulsing thoughtfully around her.
Trust no one but yourself.
“That’s not ananswer.”
It is the only answer that matters. All who surround you have agendas. The Spider would make you his weapon. Theking would make you his slave. The patchwork man would sacrifice you for redemption. The rest are only dreams.
Images flashed through the darkness—Serrik directing her transformed body to unleash devastation, Nos watching her with calculation, Ibin reporting to shadowy figures.
