“They really don’t seem to know what to do,” he mused quietly. The rest of the intruding gang were huddled behind him, flat against the damp wall. They were as unobtrusive as they could make themselves in the moving shadows cast by the elevated torches that sputtered and burnt above them. “That must be why they have this curfew going on. The moths are taking them. Of course, it may always be in place. Whatever—” he turned to face the others “—it’s going to help us.”

It was not hard to creep unseen through the darkened streets of the Glasshouse. Their passage was quite unimpeded. They followed Pengefinchess, who moved with a weird gait, halfway between a frog’s leap and a thief’s creep. She held her bow in one hand, in the other an arrow with a wide, flanged head for use against cactacae, but she did not have to use it. Yagharek moved with her, a few feet behind, hissing directions at her. Occasionally she would stop and gesticulate behind her, flattening against the wall, hiding behind some cart or stall, watching as a brave or foolhardy soul above her pulled back the curtain from their window and peered into the street.

The five monkey-constructs scampered mechanically beside their organic companions. Their heavy metal bodies were quiet. They emitted only a few strange sounds. Isaac did not doubt that for the cactus people of the dome, the regular diet of nightmares would that night be amended to include some metallic scuttling thing, some clattering menace that stalked the streets.

Isaac found walking in the dome deeply unsettling. Even with the red-stone additions to the architecture and the spitting torchlight, the streets seemed basically normal. They could have been anywhere in the city. And yet, stretching over everything, creeping inwards from horizon to horizon, encircling the world like some claustrophobic sky, the enormous dome defined everything. Glimmers of light came through from outside, warped by the thick glass, uncertain and vaguely threatening. The black lattice of ironwork that held the glass in place ensnared the little townscape like a netting, like a vast spider’s web.

At that thought, Isaac felt a sudden shuddering lurch of emotion.

He felt a vertiginous sense of certainty.

The Weaver was somewhere nearby.

He faltered as he ran and looked up. He had seen the world as a web, for a split second, had glimpsed the worldweb itself, and had sensed the proximity of that mighty arachnid spirit.

“Isaac!” hissed Derkhan, running past him. She pulled him with her. He had been standing still in the street, gazing skyward, desperately trying to find his way into that awareness again. He tried to whisper to her, to let her know what he had realized, as he stumbled after her, but he could not be clear and she could not listen. She dragged him with her through the dark streets.