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It’s…a…limb… Maddy crouches down. Not just a limb! It’s a leg…connected to a body. Who’s trapped in here with her? She breaks down the thick network, working up the figure on the ground until she reaches the head. Then she rips the lattice from the face of the other prisoner.
Maddy gasps and falls back onto the cushy ground. It can’t be! She checks again, shocked by the representation of the person inside there with her. It’s Nim!
Nim! She’s trapped in here.
Maddy grasps her shoulders and tries to wake her. “Nim! Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Nim doesn’t answer, but she shifts in place, rolling from side to side. “Spiders everywhere…on me…sucking my blood.” She whimpers and shifts some more, shaking her head back and forth. “Spiders… Spiders.”
Maddy presses her palm to Nim’s forehead, trying to force healing power into the seer. The vampire magic combats the Fae magic, making her frown at the resistance. Hunkering closer, Maddy imagines freeing Nim from the spider webs which surround them.
Nim whimpers again, and she gropes at the air as though she’s waking from the magic she’s been under.
Maddy wraps Nim’s face, pressing one palm to each of her cheeks. “Please, Nim, wake up. It’s me, Maddy.”
Nim groans, but her eyes don’t yet open.
“We have to find a way out of here. We have to get out of here. Come on, Nim.”
Nim’s eyelids flutter then slam back closed. “So many spiders,” she whimpers, tears seeping from the corners of her eyes. “They’re biting me. Over and over.”
“Fight them back, Nim. I’ll help you.”
Nim’s whole body jumps as though she’s been struck, and Maddy tries to pour as much magic into her as she can. How long they stay like that, she doesn’t know, but she keeps hold of Nim while she flinches and whimpers. Her eyes open and close again as though she’s almost free then drawn back in. On it goes until finally, Nim screams, a blood-draining, heart-shattering wail.
“Nim,” Maddy shouts into the unconscious Archivist’s face. “Wake up!”
Nim’s eyes slam open, and she jumps to her feet, panting and stammering. She bats at the webs all around them. “What-what-what… I don’t know. Where am I? It’s so dark. Why are there spider webs everywhere?”
Maddy climbs to her feet and places her hands on either side of Nim. “Calm down. We’re together,” Maddy looks around, “wherever here is. I think it's some kind of mind-prison made with Fae magic.”
Nim scowls at Maddy. “How long have I been here?”
“A week maybe? I’m not sure how long I’ve been here. Time could be different.”
Nim scrubs a hand over her face. “How did you wind up here with me?”
“Spider came to Veritas, and I think he stung me. He put his leg in his venom and stabbed me with it.”
“Better than getting stung by his butt.” Nim gives me a sheepish smile. “That’s what happened to me and then I wound up here. Butt transport.”
The out of place comment forces a barking laugh out of Maddy. It shouldn't be funny, but it is, and it breaks through the tightness in her chest. “That shouldn’t be funny.”
Nim shrugs. “But it is.”
Maddy laughs again, and it’s nearly hysterical. After a moment, she collects her composure and gestures to the non-defined realm they’re in. “How did you get here in the first place?”
Nim frowns. “I portaled myself by mistake. I used the book, wound up in the Faerie world, and Flea and Spider were there.” She stares at some place far away. “I’d almost freed Flea from Orion’s control, and that’s when Spider stung me.”
“And that’s how you wound up here?”
She scrunches her face in thought. “I’m not sure, but there was another point it felt like I was moving after I moved from the Faerie world to here. The Faerie world was better than this one, though, but it’s all Fae-made. It’s all a prison.”
Maddy grins. “They moved your body in Veritas, too. Maybe that’s when all the moving happened in your head, too.”
“Maybe,” she says. “Do you know how to get out of here?”
“No. When I first got here, I spent several days hunting for a way to get out. Then I laid down to rest, and that’s when I couldn’t wake up. I just had nightmares over and over. Have you figured anything out since you got here?”
