Page 105 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“What…?”
I looked down and swiped away a single strand of silk.
Weird.
Trying not to get spooked before I’d even knocked on the door, I stepped forward again, but another tickle against my arms and legs had me scrabbling at the rest of me, too. Then something brushed against my neck, and I clawed at it to rip away a braid of silk nearly as thick as a noose—just as more flung around my body and I finally saw the culprits flying past my eyesight from every direction.
Spiders.
“Hey, stop.”
I ripped away handfuls of thickening cobwebs as they wound tighter and tighter around me, but the spiders didn’t answer me. More and more came flying from the trees, from Ms. Pincette’srooftop, from nowhere and everywhere all at once, until I couldn’t tear their strands off fast enough.
“Stop,” I said again. “I’m not going to hurt you!”
Even before I’d finished that last word, though, I was ripping out my crescent knife to hack at the ropes of webs careening around me, and the spiders hissed in unison. They spiraled around me so fast I could barely keep track of them, pinning my arms to my sides until I dropped my knife.
Oh, I was going to kill Rodhi for not warning me about this.
I tried to backtrack, figuring I’d talk to Ms. Pincette another time, but my foot caught on a gnarled root and I fell, landing with a painful thump on my ass. Heart thumping, I looked down to find my body completely encased in a web so tight around my ribs that I could barely scrape in deep enough breaths. Several dozen spiders scurried up to where I had fallen, still attached to their strings and ranging in size from a marble to a dinner plate.
The largest of them, a birdeater, rubbed its hind legs against its abdomen in a hissing rattle.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
“Well, you could have asked thatbeforeyou tied me up!” I cried. The birdeater hissed again, and I amended quickly, “I’m Rayna. Rayna Drey—” My mind tickled with the thought that according to Dyonisia, I was RaynaReeve… but I wasn’t going to accept that as reality until it was proven.
“Tessa wasn’t expecting a visitor of that name,” the birdeater said, “so why are you here? To spy on her? Kidnap her? Kill her?”
“What? No! I’m her student! I just wanted to talk about…an assignment.”
“Lies.You brought weapons.”
“Yeah, in case stuff likethishappens.” I could feel the rest of my knife handles pressing against my thigh in the suffocating cocoon around me, and wished for the first time in my life that Ihad the power of Object Summoning to conjure them out of their sheath.
The spiders were crawling closer, their hundreds of eyes reflecting my terrified face, and I sucked in a breath to send a cry of help to the jungle.
“Leave her be.”
I could have cried in relief at the sound of Ms. Pincette’s voice.
My Spiders, Worms, & Insects instructor had appeared in her doorway, folding her arms across her chest.
“Leave her be,” she repeated. “She is not here to spy, kidnap, or kill me. Though I am certainly interested to hear why sheishere,” she added, arching an eyebrow at me.
Reluctantly, the spiders unwound their webs from around me. As soon as it was thin enough, I ripped my way out and scooped up my crescent knife, locking it in a tight fist until the last of them had scurried away.
Finally, I sheathed it and returned my gaze to Ms. Pincette.
“To what do I owe this very unexpected visit?” she asked, lips pursed.
I hesitated, still trying to gather my breath. Knowing that the jungle would have helped me get out of that predicament didn’t stop my skin from prickling all over as if in preparation for spider venom.
“Ms. Drey?”
I unleashed a breath and asked, “May I come in?”
Just because I’d seen what Ms. Pincette had done for me in my memories didn’t mean she’d be willing to help me again, especially now that she knew Dyonisia had a closer eye on me. Plus, her own memories had been wiped clean by Steeler last year and she didn’t have her own recollection of any type of past relationship with me. But unless there were more vicious spiders inside her home, it wouldn’t hurt to ask—even if I was ninety-nine percent sure she was going to say no after what had just happened.
