Page 80 of The Unseelie Court

As the last of her essence disappeared, returning to the waking world, Serrik found himself alone in his library once more. The dreamscape settled as the ancient throne room disappeared. His library manifested in full, his books righting themselves.

But the hollow ache in his chest remained.

With a snarl of frustration, he lashed out, sending a nearby stack of ancient tomes crashing to the floor. Golden threads erupted from his fingertips unbidden, spreading across the walls like cracks in reality itself.

The Web responded to his turmoil, twisting and contorting around his library. Outside the windows, the perpetual twilight darkened to pitch black, lightning flashing in skies that had known no storms for centuries.

He was losing control. Over her. Over his plans.

Over himself.

And all because of one insignificant human woman who refused to fear him properly.

“Foolish butterfly,” he whispered to the empty room. “You flutter ever closer to the spider’s jaws.”

Yet even as he uttered the warning, he knew the truth that he dared not speak aloud—he was no longer certain who was trapped within whose web.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Ava dreamed of darkness.

Not the ordinary darkness of closed eyes or moonless nights. This was a living darkness that breathed and pulsed around her. It wasalive.

She stood—if standing was even the right word for existing in this space—on nothing. Beneath her feet stretched an endless void peppered with threads of silver light. They wove through the blackness. It was a sea of tangled spiderwebs, arranged in no rhyme or rhythm, shimmering as if caught in morning dew. They stretched out in all directions until it faded off into nothingness.

“Hello?” Her voice made no sound, yet somehow echoed endlessly.

You speak to Us.

The words weren’t spoken. They simply existed inside her mind, as if they had always been there, waiting to be noticed. The voice was neither male nor female, young or old. It wasn’t even really multitudes speaking in perfect unison.

It justwas.

Suddenly, she wondered if all those cosmic horror authors in the twenties weren’t onto something after all. And here she thought they were all smoking opium.

“Who are you?” she asked, though she already suspected the answer. She was standing on it. “Or what?”

We are what you call the Web. We are the spaces between. We are what was Always Here Before.

A thread of silver light rose from the darkness, curling around her wrist like a curious serpent. Where it touched her skin, a tattoo appeared, glowed in response, the spiral patterns shifting and flowing. When the thread receded, the tattoo disappeared.

It’d be beautiful if it weren’t terrifying.

“What do you want with me?” Ava tried to step back, but the thread held her gently in place.

Want is a human concept. We simply are. And now, you are becoming Us.

More threads rose from the void, weaving around her in a complex dance, never quite touching her but close enough that she could feel their energy humming against her skin.

“Can you explain that? Please?” Panic started to well up in her chest. “What do you mean I’m becoming you?”

The Spider weaves his final scheme. He built his prison upon Our essence. Wove Our power into a trap. Now he corrupts Us. Now he seeks a vessel to wield Us.

Seeks to make Us…small.

A vessel.

The darkness around her shifted, forming images. She saw Serrik in his true form, massive and terrifying, spinning intricate designs of magic around an ancient, formless power. A flash of a terrifying, figure with wings of black feathers, casting him down.

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