What’s he so sensitive for, anyway? she thought as she got out her knife to cut the rest of the roll free. It’s not as though he volunteered to help. All he ever tells me is “be careful.” Anger pulsed, hot and bright, and her lip twisted. Isaac had been the first other apprentice she’d met, her first real friend; they’d fought the Dragon and survived the terrors of Esau’s fortress together. But he still thinks he needs to protect me.

“Alice!” Isaac’s voice came from outside. At the same time, she felt a surge of alarm from the tree-sprite, who was still on guard in the maple tree.

“Be right there!” she shouted back, sheathing the knife. “Are they coming?”

“I think so,” Isaac said. “But you’d better get out here.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE CENTURY FRUIT

“WHAT IS THAT thing?” Isaac said.

“It looks like a daddy longlegs,” Alice said.

“With about a hundred wasps riding it,” Isaac said.

They stood atop the stone wall, looking toward the three setting suns. Here and there, a wasp was visible in the grass, but they were all still, watching the progress of the gargantuan spider. Eight long, multi-jointed legs the size of steel girders supported a gray oval body, flecked with tiny black spots like hundreds of eyes. As Isaac had said, dozens of wasps were clinging to the bottom of the thing, which was considerably taller than the courtyard walls. It moved slowly but inexorably, and every footfall shook the rocks like distant thunder.

“If that many get inside the walls, we’re not going to be able to keep them away from the flower,” Isaac said. His earlier peevishness, Alice was glad to see, had been forgotten in the face of this new threat.

“Yeah,” Alice said. “I think we have to try and stop it before it gets here.”

“How? All we can reach are its feet. You don’t have anything that can fly, do you?”

Alice shook her head, then looked at him speculatively. “Not exactly. But I might have an idea . . .”

It took a few moments to explain the plan, and a few more for Isaac to admit that he didn’t have anything better. They slithered down from the wall into the grass outside the courtyard, Alice dragging her flyswatter behind her.

“Can’t you clean that thing off, at least?” Isaac said. “It’s covered in wasp goo.”

“We’re both covered in wasp goo,” Alice said. “Get on with it.”

Isaac sighed and thrust his hands in his pockets. He closed his eyes, and his form began to change. He grew slimmer, and color drained out of him, like he was becoming a black-and-white sketch of himself. Finally his features softened and changed, and instead of a boy standing in front of Alice, it was the snowy figure of the iceling.

“Here,” Alice said, setting the flyswatter down.