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Maddy clenches her teeth as she tries to keep from crying out in the relief, and her shoulders droop with relief. The heaviness dwindles as the rumble of the spiders running over the network of webbing fades. “But they’re gone.”
Nim nods. “Yeah. I don’t know why, though. Why are they retreating? It doesn’t make any sense. They were going to win.”
Maddy pushes her hair out of her face, and she squints at a bright light in the distance. She points. “Do you see that?”
Nim turns to look where Maddy’s pointing. “I don’t see it.”
The webs around them begin to glow. But the light grows stronger and brighter, rushing toward them both. Finally, it breaks through the lacing, splitting the web. The light surrounds Maddy, but it doesn’t wrap around Nim. The illumination starts dragging Maddy across the ground.
She reaches for Nim, groping the air as she tries to catch Nim’s fingers. “Come on!”
But Nim’s hand passes through Maddy’s palm, and she cannot hold onto her as the light begins to drag Maddy away. Their fingers don’t meet, and she tries to get out of the light, but she can’t.
“I’ll be back for you,” Maddy promises. “I’ll come back for you.”
Nim stands completely still as the light speeds up and whisks Maddy out of Spider’s realm.
* * *
Maddy gasps and bolts upright,blinking wildly and groping the air around her as her vision clears. Slowly, the surroundings come into focus, and she squints at a nearby figure.
Cora’s standing beside her, blood pouring over her chin and down her neck.
Maddy licks her own lips, wincing when her tongue hits her teeth points. Her stomach twists, reminding her she hasn’t eaten for a while. She points to Cora’s mouth. “Why is your mouth so bloody? What happened?”
Cora points to Caleb as he appears by her side. “It was his idea. Ask him.”
Chapter20
Caleb
Caleb stares at Alec as the confusion from Spider’s attack clears. “What are you doing here?”
Alec raises an eyebrow as though it’s a foolish question, and his upper lip curls. “You’re all running around like fools. We cannot leave our chance at survival in the hands of clueless mortals.”
Spider’s body collapses into the ground, shuddering and twitching in a grotesque postmortem display. Carefully, Caleb remembers Maddy and how Spider attacked her, and… and… His blood chills in his veins, and he trembles. Surely, she’s not…
He scrambles to his feet and rushes to Maddy's side. She’s laying in a heap in the middle of the corridor. The others are slowly coming to as well. Yet Caleb only has eyes for Maddy. He strokes her cheek. “Maddy?”
She doesn’t respond. For a long moment, he stares as horror creeps through him and twists his intestines around his heart. Finally, her chest rises and falls. His shoulders droop, and he sags from relief. Tears flood his eyes, but he doesn’t have time to cry. Kenna did him no favors by turning him into a human right now.
Caleb leans close to Maddy, relieved she’s still alive even as her breaths stutter as though it’s growing harder and harder for her to take them. He leans close to her ear and whispers how much he loves her. On the next breath, the strain to breathe seems a little less, and he squeezes her hand.
Carefully, Caleb turns to Alec. “What do you mean, we’re all running around here like fools?”
It’s as though Alec’s smelled something putrid. His bland expression screams his disdain. “Since Orion’s been freed, the Faeries have arrived from their kingdom.” He pauses. “We really don’t have much choice, did we?”
“So, all the Faeries here to help?”
Alec sniffs. “Don’t be silly. Not all Faeries are good.” He pauses as though he’s evaluating Caleb, and he sneers. “Including Sylvan. You should know that by now. Are all you mortals good?”
“Sylvan helped us before.”
“I doubt he did anything other than serve his own purposes, whatever they were.”
Caleb doesn’t agree or disagree, and he considers demanding Alec explain what his purpose for ‘helping’ the idiot mortals is.
Before Caleb can ask, Alec’s eyes narrow. “I’ll help you retrieve the weapon, and I’ll give it to you. Before that, I’ll also help you save Madeline.”
