I don’t look at Vothe even once the whole way back to my room, and he initiates no conversation, his silence conveying oceans more than his words ever could as my chest grows tighter and tighter with overwhelming hurt.

We reach my room and I pause, my hand on my door’s handle. I can sense Vothe pausing too, feel the storm that’s gathered between us, just as I can feel Sylla’s multiple eyes on me from her preferred resting spot, ensconced in the hallway’s tunneling webs. I peer up and spot her dark figure in spider form near the ceiling, watching us intently, her Death Fae stillness infusing the atmosphere that surrounds us all.

“Trystan...” Vothe says, and I can hear both his struggle and capitulation to the mob in it. His unwanted apology for his cowardice. Because we both feel this thing growing between us.

“Just go,” I say, wanting to throw a blaze of fire straight through Vothe’s power, to drive him away for good. I keep my eyes focused on the door’s handle, knowing that if I look at Vothe, my lightning will ignite something I won’t be able to hold back.

He pauses for an agonizing, infuriating moment longer, so much hanging in the air between us, as I internally rage—I don’t want you! I don’t want you if you can’t move past all this right now when it matters!

Vothe lets out a wavering exhale, then turns and leaves. The sound of his boots thudding against stone sends a shard straight through my heart. I don’t move. I just stand there, trembling now, my hand on the door.

“I’m struggling,” I admit to Sylla.

There’s a rustling in the webs, like a brush over linen.

I glance up to find her still curled up near the ceiling, but morphed into her petite human form, save for eight dark eyes. She doesn’t say anything, but a deeper silence descends—a Death Fae silence—and I’m filled with the sensation of tunneling down, the torchlit dimness of the hall darkening further. And I can feel it in the preternatural silence.

Her understanding.

Enveloping me like the dark mist that’s now curling from the walls, and it’s bolstering. Soothes my trembling and takes an edge off the ocean of anguish that’s threatening to undo me.

I turn, open my bedroom door, and gasp.

Gleaming, glittering webs scallop down from the ceiling and decorate the tops of every window, looping like curtains. I’m stunned by the splendor of the designs—elaborate geometric renderings that fractal outward, more intricate than anything I’ve ever seen, mesmerizing in their delicate, lacey beauty.

I step into the room and absorb it all in wonder. Countless spiders hang from the designs on long, silvery strands, their attention set on me, as if in joyful anticipation.