And as Kai ran, and drew her frightened breaths, another impossibility scraped the corners of her thought: how had she escaped the bed? She was bound. Tied so tight her hands could not slip free. She could not have broken the straps. She had not broken them. She had not escaped, and the nurse did not need to hurry, because she was already caught. This cavern was a single, massive bed, and Kai ran in it and the nurse loomed above mountainous, eyes shining, and oh god Kai ran and ran but there were straps around her wrists and ankles and she kicked against them and could not move and the bars were high as the stars and she ran she was running don’t let that tense shift she was fleeing escaping escaped not about to die but the nurse stood above her with the poison medicine I have just the thing for you dear the needle descended and she could not find Mara but she needed out but there were straps around her arms but she ran into the wall and clawing found a doorknob and the needle pressed into her skin and she was so small but she leaned into the door with all her weight and all she ever had been and ever would be and burst through into black.

She lay sweat-slick upon silk. She gulped cool air, swallowed it like water. She touched her face, but her hand felt heavy, as if gloved. The sheet had stuck to her, she saw by the almost-light cascading through the windows. Silk clung to her face as she tried to draw her hand away.

Not a sheet at all, but gossamer strands. Silk stuck her arm to her side and her hand to her face. She sat up, and the silk at her legs adhered to itself and to the silk that already covered her stomach. She recognized the web even as the spider swelled enormous at the foot of the bed, man-high. Mouthparts quivered with anticipation.

Kai met its stare.

The spider drew back and cocked its head. Fangs closed, tentatively, like a person chewing on her lip. Then the spider said, in Ms. Kevarian’s voice: “You just can’t win, can you?”

Chapter 39

39

Izza watched Margot through the palm fronds as night fell. He worked fiercely. Before, as she spied on him, he’d seemed averse to the paper, as if he carved each line he wrote into his skin. Not tonight. Sweat soaked his shirt, despite the cool wind.

From the outside, she thought, writing looked as interesting as dying.

When the clock tower rang quarter ’til nine, Izza sighed relief, and lowered herself from the wall. She didn’t like leaving Margot, but that wasn’t why she ran down back alleys to the meeting place. She was more than her mind or eyes, and glad to feel it.