All the Spyden’s eyes opened at once. “You tricked me!”

It was just the confirmation she needed. Triumph surged through Claire. She gripped the straps of her Hollow Pack tighter and strode out onto the stoop. “You wanted to eat me.”

“Miserable human,” the Spyden spat. “You stand no chance! The queen of wraiths will rule you all!”

Her stomach clenched. What would Sophie do?

“Have a nice night,” Claire said and slammed the door shut.

Chapter Six

CHAPTER

6

Claire half stepped, half tumbled down the slippery wooden steps and crunched onto the beach outside the Spyden’s home. Night had descended around them; the ocean roiled darkly in the distance. She breathed in sharply. Everything hurt. Not the sharp pain of a kick but the ache of the stomach flu all over her body, as though elbows and knees could throw up, too.

“Come on!” the girl said, tugging on Claire’s overlong sleeve. She had let her hair unwind, and it was no longer forming earmuffs around her ears. “I don’t know how long the Spyden has to listen to commands. We need to move!”

Claire couldn’t agree more.

They ran.

Pebbles sprayed up, stinging her ankles, as they darted across the beach. She gasped for breath. The air, thick with damp and salt, didn’t seem to hold enough oxygen for her lungs. In the dark, there was no way to tell the land from the sea, and so it wasn’t until she heard the slap of her boots hitting water and felt cold seep into her socks that Claire knew she’d reached the end of the curved beach.

Her stride faltered, and at last, she stopped. They were as far away from the Spyden’s cottage and its sticky words as they could be without swimming into open water or scaling up the rocky mountainside. Neither of which was an option. Not in the dark, anyway.

Letting her pack slip off her shoulder, Claire sank onto the beach after it. The storm had blown away the clouds, and brilliant stars outlined the jagged peaks of the Needles. The sharp peaks reminded her of teeth, and the bite in her shoulder began to smart. She put her head between her knees and inhaled deeply. What she’d just seen—what had just happened—was too terrible to think about head-on. She could only just glance at it, in quick snatches.

Claire heard the scrape of pebbles, and she looked up just in time to see the younger girl flop onto the beach next to her.

“Threads’ end,” the girl said with feeling and lay back flat on the beach. Tattered strips of cobwebs still clung to her, and the white silk fluttered in the dark with each great gulp of air. She looked like a strange sea creature that had been rejected from the water.