She guides me to a small residential cottage that is as dark inside as the wood its made of. All of the windows are shuttered against the daylight. “Soleil, I’m here.” Haven calls.

“Goodness, I’m sorry. I should have made myself more presentable,” a deep voice rumbles, and as my eyes adjust to the dark light, my breath catches in my throat. I realize why she had been dodgy about her friend before.

He’s a spider.

A giant spider.

“It’s alright,” Haven murmurs softly behind me, blocking me from scampering out into the street. “Soleil is a proper gentleman, aren’t you?”

“Oh, goodness me, where are my manners?” He steps forward. “Sorry, it’s a bit difficult for my eyes in the daytime, but I wanted to be sure that I caught you today.” He is all man from the waist up, his hair is long and onyx, with four shining eyes that stare out at me through absurd spectacles that sit atop a shockingly normal nose. His features are striking: broad but angular, strong. My eyes root themselves to his face, as alien as it looks, to avoid dragging them across his chest and down to the eight, large, hairy appendages. “Haven tells me great things about you.”

Another carriage wreck plows through me.

“Oh, she’s going down.” Haven gathers a chair from the corner and sets it behind me and Soleil steps, steps, steps, and steps towards me, but Haven waves him off. “She’ll be okay. Just a lot of surprises today, I think.”

“I think I have a–” he scuttles back into the shadows and a fan is tossed into the light. Haven catches it easily and flaps it in my face.

“Thanks, Sol.”

“Will she be okay?” his voice is soft, concerned. Confusing. I see stars and my mind swims painfully between my ears.

“Yeah, I think so.” Haven rubs my back gently. “Hey, Sybil. You’re going to be okay, right?”

“Yes?” I squeak and tuck my head between my legs.

“Do you think she’s scared of me?”

Haven chuckles, “Of course she is. No one sees driders in this day and age.”

“You didn’t seem to mind me too much.”

“We grew up together, Sol.” Haven says, exasperated. “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine.”

I don’t feel fine right now. I feel nauseous. I take deep breaths through my nose and out of my mouth until the world stills around me. I sit up, my eyes still closed, and I smile. “Sorry,” I mutter. “This is so incredibly rude of me.”

“Not rude,” Soleil says gently.

“Natural,” Haven pats my shoulders. “Better?”

“Yes, I think so.” I gather up my courage and let my eyes fall open. It’s easier this time, now that the initial shock has worn away.

He smiles at me, his teeth sharp behind his lips, but they don’t seem too dangerous. I still feel myself trembling at the sight of them, against my rational judgment. “So. You’re the roofer?”

“That’s me–are you sure you’re okay?” His eyes are impossibly gentle, and I try to focus on them, but… there are four of them. Six of them? I start to feel dizzy again.

“I’ll be okay,” I lie. “Don’t… arachnes… spin?”

Soleil has the grace not to look offended, smiling sideways at me. “No, not all of us.”

“He’s a scribe,” Haven supplies cheerily.

A pair of large, spindly legs, lift in a shrug around him. “Doesn’t pay the bills. I make more money fixing peoples’ roofs.”

“Great, uh… what was your name?”

“Soleil, Miss Whitman,” he crosses an arm over his middle and bows over it, his silky black hair cascading over his shoulder in the process.

“Right.” I caught that earlier, didn’t I? I flounder for some way to salvage this exchange. “How much do you charge? And when can you start?”

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His dark eyes glitter cheerfully at me. “I can start tonight.”

“We just didn’t want to scare you,” Haven tells me. “Call it a friendly neighbor gesture.”

I glance between them, feeling returning to my fingertips and toes. “Do you do this to every person who comes into town intending to stay long?”

Soleil looks embarrassed, and Haven answers for the both of them. “Of course we do. Show of good faith to the right people, of course. I’ve never been wrong yet.”

Soleil nods uncomfortably.

“Right, well.” I stand and dust myself off. “It was really nice to meet you, Soleil,” I say genuinely. “I apologize for my current and… future skittishness. I mean no offense.”

He smiles, and it reaches his eyes again in a beautiful display, like light glittering on obsidian jewels in white alabaster. “None taken, I look forward to chatting in the future.”

I look at Haven, “Now, if neither of you minds, I’d like to run screaming from this room.”

“Maybe a little less screaming?” Soleil suggests with a playful grin.

“She’s already so much nicer than Greg,” Haven chuckles over my shoulder as she turns me back toward the doorway and I swear I hear Soleil chuckling behind us.

Via and I start on the long journey home, arms laden with supplies and the deed that Maggie hastily tucked into my pocket when my hands were filled. With Via’s sudden appearance and my secret out, it’s as though every one of the townspeople came out of the woodwork: each one bearing gifts and friendly greetings. Each authentically kind and welcoming. Many that weren’t quite human, but were far more passable as mortal men than Soleil. A haven for misfits, it seemed. Like me.

“Did you know about all the people in town?” I ask Via as we climb the hill back home.

Her lips tighten. “Why, should I have?” she asks, offended.

So no, then. “I mean, they live on your land.”

“Everyone lives on my land, Sybil.” She reminds me.

“Well, sure, but…” my voice drifts off, and I realize I don’t really know what else to say. “You don’t… live in the area?” I ask.

The small goddess sighs. “Don’t let the physical embodiment fool you, I’m an omnipotent being beyond your mortal comprehension.”

“Did you really raise a zombie girl?”

She stares ahead, and I feel the annoyance that I didn’t address her statement roll off of her shoulders. “Do you really want to know that?” She bites back.

I think about it. I decide I don’t. I do, however, decide that needling a goddess until she leaves me alone might become one of my favorite pastimes in this life.

When we arrive back at the house, Amelia runs out of the house, as if she’s been waiting for us since the moment we left, watching out the window.

She stops when she gets to me and helps gather the load from my arms. The others follow behind until my arms are empty and Via still struggles beneath the weight of her own burdens. I take pity and help take some from her little arms. Henry comes up behind us and pats her gently on the head.

She scowls up at them, but they don’t seem dissuaded, seeming to smile down at her kindly.

“You finally got a proper bedroll and blankets. Perfect timing, too.” Lasis says, leading the way into the house. I stop at the threshold, my eyes struggling to find just one spot to land.

We’d been gone most of the day, and in the time left alone, they’d all but re-built the inside of the house. The rotten floorboards have been replaced and sealed, shining like new. There are no more holes in the walls, every gap filled with a clay and grass slurry. The ladder to my loft has been fixed, and the protective rail repaired. The stove has been cleaned to a shine, and the little table has been fixed and is surrounded by little chairs–enough for everyone to cram themselves around it. Overcome with emotion, I set my bundle onto the table and climb the ladder into the loft, where a brand new bed frame awaits me.

“Does she like it?” I hear Morgan ask Rose quietly.

“I think she does,” Roderick whispers back.

“She just hiked up a whole mountain carrying all of this stuff,” Amelia scolded, “Give her some space.”

Jun tuts and starts sweeping everyone out of the one-room building. “That includes you, my dear,” they say, commandeering the lead.

“Lady Sybil, we’ll be outside!” Willard calls.

“I will not be–AAH!” Via cries out as Henry gently snatches her up by her shirt in two fingers and pulls her from the house.

The sudden silence is as comforting as it is startling. I swing my legs over the ladder, staring at the empty room below. I bury my head in my hands. As thankful as I am for the moment of silence, to let my thoughts finally catch up to me from the past three days, I am also struck with the realization that I will never have to be alone again. “We were waiting for you,” Maggie had said. And I knew in the deepest of my hearts that she meant me. Not another necromancer, not a kind-hearted traveler interested in farming. Me. Sybil Whitman. I was exactly in the space I was meant to be, in this timeline, in the last timeline–in any timeline. I’d never have to worry about watching my family fade from view, my eyes following their backs until I can’t see them anymore. I’d never have to worry about being separated, or watching them die. Not like that.

I knew that whatever it was I was meant to do here, in this place would keep me long and happy for the rest of my days.

And it did.

For years.

Until, of course, Antonio de Cardenas completed his invasion of the southeastern border and usurped the land’s king.