Eve looked miserable anyway. “Not good enough, or she’d be here, right?”

“So not your fault.”

Eve raised her eyebrows. “What if it were me missing? Wouldn’t you guys feel guilty, somehow?”

That shut Claire up, because she would, and she knew it. Even if she’d had nothing to do with it, she’d feel she should have done something.

She was still thinking that over when she felt the tingle of a portal opening nearby. Claire felt a spike of alarm drive deep, and grabbed her phone to look at the tracking app she’d loaded on it. Yes. An unplanned portal was getting forced open, right here, in the shadows about a dozen feet away.

“Get to the car!” she yelled, and sprinted for it. Eve didn’t ask why, thankfully; she just tore off in pursuit, and Michael bounded ahead to jump in the driver’s side.

A flood of spiders poured out, skittering across the concrete floor—bouncing, as if they were being poured out of a giant bucket.

Thousands of Bobs, only larger, the size of small Chi huahuas. Eve shrieked and threw herself into the backseat, slamming the door as one launched itself toward them; it hit the glass and bounced off. Claire kicked one away as she jumped in the passenger seat, and Michael locked the doors. “What the hell?” Eve yelled. “Oh my God, it’s like Attack of the Giant CGI!”

“It’s Ada,” Claire said. She and Michael exchanged a look. “She’s tracking me. She’s got to be.”

“Why?”

Symbols flashed in front of Claire’s eyes, the symbols she reviewed and committed to memory every single morning. “Because I know her secret,” she said. “I know how to reset her, kind of like wiping her memory. Myrnin won’t do it, but I will. And she can’t have that.”

“Great,” Michael said. “And where do you have to go to reset her?”

“Guess.”

“You are just all kinds of fun right now.” He fired up the engine and hit the gas. Claire hid her eyes as they drove over spiders, because that was just sick and kind of sad. The spiders chased them for a while, then milled around in the distance and one by one, turned up their legs and died.

Ada hadn’t been able to keep them alive for long, which was great news for the next person in the parking garage.

“Kim first,” Claire said. “Eve’s right. Something could have happened to her.”

“You’re sure.”

“I’m sure Ada would expect me to come running. I’d rather let her wait. And worry.”

Chapter 10

10