The thing reminded her of a spider, but she would have welcomed a spider, even a giant one, in preference to this. Its body was a round globe of pallid, eyeless flesh, nearly invisible in the midst of a tangle of limbs. These were arms, dozens of human arms, horribly elongated and twisted into unnatural shapes so that their palms served as the thing’s feet. More arms rose above them, longer than Alice was tall and with three or four elbows each, reaching out above the “legs” to catch and grab. Like the arms in the window, these were all different, thick-fingered men’s hands, delicate young ladies’, even the waving, misshapen fist of an infant.

The edge of the tower roof was lined by a tall, spike-topped iron fence, and the thing was climbing up it, hauling itself hand over hand. For a moment Alice couldn’t see what it was moving toward; then she spotted the thin figure of Soranna, clinging to the outside of the fence, crawling desperately bar by bar away from the monster.

“Soranna!” Alice pushed the devilfish’s light as bright as it would go and waved, trying to get the creature’s attention. It was no good—with its prey in sight, the thing slithered over the top of the fence, heedless of the bleeding rips torn in its lower limbs by the spikes. Soranna took a deep breath, and for a moment Alice thought she was going to jump—

—but instead she pulled herself forward, through the bars, like they were no more substantial than mist. The hands closed on empty air, and Soranna ran toward Alice, gasping for air. The creature spun, pushing itself back over the fence, and landed on the roof. It raced after Soranna, hands slapping the stone with a sound like a hundred people clapping at once.

Alice let go of the Swarm and yanked on Spike’s thread, hard enough to bring him snapping into reality. The little dinosaur snorted and then charged, his stumpy legs pumping like pistons. Within a few yards he had accelerated to a gallop, horns leveled at the multi-armed horror. By the time he passed Soranna, Spike’s feet were a blur.