“I went to the Light mages for help. They didn’t want to know—as far as they were concerned it was one Dark mage against another. I went to every mage that I’d gotten to know during my time as Richard’s apprentice, and they all turned me away. They didn’t want to get involved—they were all just waiting for Richard to finish me off. And finally I went to the last place I could think of. Here. To Arachne.” I glanced over at Arachne, still sewing quietly. I knew she could hear me, but she didn’t react. “She could have turned me away like the others. She didn’t. She took me in. Arachne hid me and let me heal and rest, but she couldn’t keep me hidden forever. When I was ready I took the help she gave me and went out to face the people chasing me. The first one to find me was Shireen, and she was . . . different. She was under orders to bring me back, but for the first time she wasn’t sure. I’d spoken to her a few times towards the end, and maybe something I said made her change her mind. Or maybe she changed it herself. She went back to the mansion empty-handed and I never saw her again.

“And then Tobruk came. He was stronger and tougher and better trained than me, but I’d had time to prepare and I knew what he’d do. He could have killed me if he’d gone all-out, but he couldn’t resist playing cat and mouse one last time. And even at the end, he never really believed that someone as weak as me could threaten him. I set a trap for him in an old building, and I killed him and turned the building into his funeral pyre. And then I kept running and getting ready for whoever would come next.

“Nobody came. Days went by, then weeks, then months. Nobody else came after me. And I never saw Richard again.”

I stopped talking. The cavern fell silent but for the whisk of Arachne’s needle. Seconds dragged by.

Luna was the first to speak. “So do we go after this Will guy or wait for him to come back?”

Everyone turned to stare at her. “What?” Luna said.

Sonder looked disbelieving. “Didn’t you hear that story?”

“Yes,” Luna said.

“This guy, Will . . . He’s not just some monster. He’s got a reason for doing this.”

“Everybody who’s tried to kill us has had a reason,” Luna pointed out. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to let them.”

“You said that Catherine girl had a little brother,” Variam said. “You think it’s the same guy?”