The mage’s gaze darts around as he squints for the source of my voice. At least that means my spell is working. I try to relax, although given the spiders, magic web, and maybe-insane wizard just on the other side of the barrier who would likely not hesitate to hurt me again should he escape, I am not terribly reassured.

Unlike Ossina, Raz is conscious, the spider-helmet half melted on the floor beside him. Looks like Yedzaquib’s attempt to harvest his knowledge is experiencing a setback.

“It is the fire mage from before,” I tell Zyneth. “Raz.”

The mage’s eyes focus in on my area as I speak, and he leans forward with a frown. “What game is this? Have you sent some other creation to torment me, Spider?”

He thinks I’m one of Yedzaquib’s sentries. I’m not sure if that puts me in a more or less dangerous position.

And despite my previous insistence on freeing the prisoners, I am suddenly less certain if Raz also falls in that group. Do I think he deserves to have his brain drained by a giant arachnid until he’s sent into a coma? No. Do I want to be anywhere near him as a free man? Also no.

“Ignore him,” Zyneth says. “We’ll deal with them later. Do you see the arcana crystals?”

Raz stands up, stepping to the edge of his field as he cranes his head toward Zyneth’s voice. “Intruders? You play a dangerous game.” Psh, yeah, he’s one to talk. “Yedzaquib likely already knows you’re here. Help me out of this foul nest and I can make sure we all escape.”

Zyneth ignores him. “There’s six other cells I can make out from here—a smaller one is two more down from you. That might be it.”

“You are already trapped,” Raz yells as I start to pick my way from the raving mage. “You don’t even realize, you are already in his web! Please, I can help. I can create a distraction. An escape route. Lend me your aid!”

When neither of us reply, he sits back down in a huff and snatches up the half melted spider sentry from the floor. He crooks a hand over the object, and red magic begins to flicker into the spider like an inverted flame. I don’t know what he’s planning, but I’m not wild about the idea of sticking around to find out.

My invisibility flickers off as I move past the next cell, which has yet another person trapped inside, a spider clamped around their head, leeching purple magic back up its thread and into the ceiling. I shudder, wondering how many more people are in Yedzaquib’s lair. How many people have been whisked away to vanish beneath the Athenaeum over the years?

[Arcana crystal located,] Echo suddenly pipes up.

And there it is. Right where Zyneth said it would be, a shining, red crystal glows from behind a field. I flicker a quick Inspect on, and verify the crystal is 82% charged. While I’m at it, however, I also notice lines of mana circuits funneling into the crystal. I trace them back to the other cells in the room, steadily draining mana from the prisoners and back into the arcana crystal. Damn. So that’s how Yedzaquib charges his crystals.

But that’s a dilemma for later. This crystal should be more than enough for what Gillow needs. Now the question is: how do we get it out?

I could let the predator absorb the field with its void again. Although I’d need Zyneth to snatch it while I’m disrupting the barrier, as I don’t seem to be aware of my surroundings while I’m tapped into that magic source. How he’d get over here without tripping any of the webs, I have no idea.

We might need to take the whole system down. The field and the webs at the same time. If we could interrupt the primary arcana crystal’s circuit, that might do the trick. But how?

[Your magic has been identified.]

Abruptly, my Refraction spell kicks back in. Zyneth lets out a shout of warning and Raz gives an angry cry. I brace, my attention snapping back to Raz—had he escaped? But he’s still behind the barrier, merely looking my way. Zyneth is, too.

Actually, they’re looking above me.

From a hole in the wall to my right, spindly white lines unfold like petals of a flower, pulling the massive abdomen of the spider from the shadows. Yedzaquib steps into the room, all eight of his legs undulating with unsettling precision as he raises to his full height.

Yedzaquib tips his head as he looks straight at me with unblinking black eyes.

“An elegant design,” he says, and in an instant he’s leaning over me, his face only a few feet from mine. I’d barely even seen him move. “Though might I recommend eight limbs instead of four. Far more stable, you see.”

Shit, he can definitely see me. No sense in wasting more mana, I end the Refraction spell.

A smile spreads over his face. “Your cooperation is appreciated. I should like to avoid conflict, if possible.”

The contrast of his impassive gaze against his faint, pleasant smile sends shivers through me.

“We do not want to fight,” I say, and the spider laughs.

“How wise of you.”

I take a nervous step back, mind racing. How the hell are we going to talk our way out of this one?

“Yedzaquib,” Zyneth calls. The arachnid’s head swivels in his direction, his face betraying no surprise at the sight of Zyneth in the stairwell. “If you speak truly about wishing to avoid conflict, then we would also appreciate if you let us leave in peace.”

“I always speak truly,” the spider says. “You make it sound as though I’ve trapped you here. Of course, you are welcome to go—though I don’t ever recall inviting you inside.”

With the spider distracted, I decide to push my luck and scuttle hastily away. I backtrack along the wall, leaving the arcana crystal behind as I pass the cell with one of Yedzaquib’s prisoners and approach the one containing Raz. The arachnoid doesn’t try to stop me, he doesn’t even look at me, but with one casual step in my direction, he closes the gap.

It takes a lot of self-control to not freak out over the sight of all those legs creeping silently in my direction.

“Spider,” Raz hisses at Yedzaquib as I hurry past his barrier. “Coward. Let me out of here and I’ll show you all that arcana knowledge you’re trying to pry from my mind first-hand.”

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The arachnoid turns to face him, one of his limbs stabbing down right in front of my path. I scurry to a stop, unsure if its placement was intentional. The limb was mere inches from stepping on me.

“You will be released when you cease in the destruction of my property,” Yedzaquib says, gesturing to the half-melted spider clutched in Raz’s white-knuckled grasp. “You agreed to such an arrangement: You would trade me knowledge to avoid prosecution by the City Guard. I do not see why you would take issue with the agreement now.”

I try to edge around the spider’s leg, but the limb slides back, blocking my path. I’m starting to suspect the placement is intentional.

“You didn’t mention that knowledge would be forcefully pulled from my head,” Raz snarls, slamming the dead sentry against the barrier. He sure is acting brave for facing down a spider person twice his size. Or maybe he’s just stupid. “You didn’t mention how long you’d trap me here.”

Yedzaquib shrugs. “When agreeing to the terms, you didn’t ask.”

I try moving back the other way, between the barrier and Yedzaquib’s leg, but his foot shifts again, closing the gap.

“Er,” I say, “not to interrupt, but if Zyneth and I are free to go…”

“Of course,” Yedzaquib says, using one of his human limbs to gesture dismissively toward Zyneth. “There is no reason for you to linger.”

Once again, I try to dodge around the leg, and once again, I’m blocked. I might be irritated if I wasn’t so busy struggling to suppress a rising tide of anxiety. “Great,” I say. “But I cannot help but notice you seem to be doing this on purpose.”

Yedzaquib finally looks down at me, and Raz also seems to notice me for the first time. He frowns in confusion; I guess he doesn’t recognize me in this form, which is just fine by me.

“You would be correct,” Yedzaquib says. “You will be remaining here.”

I’d been expecting that, but cold fear washes over me anyway. I’ve never encountered anyone this powerful before. Not even the predator frightens me like this. The predator at least is easy to understand: It has a one-track mind, only motivated by how it can get its next meal. But this man isn’t just strong, he’s intelligent, cunning, and cold. I’m not even touching any of his silk, and I already feel trapped in his web.

“You said we could leave,” Zyneth protests. He’s drawn both of his daggers and stepped into the room, though stopped at the first thread that crosses his path. He’s still over fifty feet away. Too far to help.

“I said you were free to go,” Yedzaquib says, though his gaze remains fixed on me. “You trespassed in an area of the library you were not given access to. As payment, I shall keep your homunculus. It intrigues me. A fair trade for your freedom, I think.”

“You will not,” Zyneth growls, at the same time I splutter an objection.

“I am not a homunculus,” I say. “I mean, not like a normal one. I am a human—I am alive! I have a soul.”

“I see that,” Yedzaquib says, voice as impassive as ever. “It is quite curious. One soul, yet more than one mind, it seems. Such a thing should not be possible.”

Something happens then that’s hard for me to describe. The spider’s leg lifts up, yet it also appears to stay rooted in place. It’s like a second leg appeared on top of the original, like a glitch in a video game, though the moving one is wispy and transparent. Before I can react, the intangible leg stabs into me.

“Gah!” I stumble back out of surprise rather than pain, but I still feel a ghost of a touch, a kiss of wind against my soul, and then a tight pinch as the bond between the predator and I is plucked like a string. The vibration rattles my mind, and the predator must be feeling something similar, because it swells with irritation as it takes a swipe at our aggressor. The void spikes out around me with the predator’s anger, though I yank the magic from its grasp the next moment and suppress the attack. The void snaps back around me once more, but clips Yedzaquib’s ethereal limb as it retreats, which vanishes in a puff of mist.

“Don’t touch him,” Zyneth cries, slashing at one of the strings. The magic line holds for a moment, taut against Zyneth’s blow, then flashes and snaps. Zyneth pounces on the next one.

“Ah, yes. I see,” Yedzaquib says, unmoved by either the predator’s brief attempt at an attack and Zyneth’s slow dismantling of the web. “Not impossible—merely an unusual iteration. My, the gods will not be pleased when they discover this. Tell me, little soul. Are you even aware of what it is you house?”

I’m still shaken from whatever he did to my mind. The way it felt like he’d reached right into me and touched the core of who I am, as casual as a tap on the shoulder. The predator is angrily pacing my mind, demanding to be released, almost like it’s offended by what Yedzaquib did.

“The predator?” I ask, trying to focus as the mental reverberation dies out. He can sense the predator?

Zyneth is continuing to Tom Cruise his way across the room, flipping, rolling, and hacking his way through the web. He’s nearly halfway, though the lines are at their thickest toward the center.

“An interesting descriptor,” Yedzaquib says. “Though I suppose not entirely inaccurate. I imagine there’s a very interesting story behind how you came to encounter this remnant.”

I can only gawk. “You know what it is?” The Library hadn’t had any information on the predator—none that I could find, anyway. If Yedzaquib knew, why wasn’t it in any of his books? “Can I get it out? Can you help me?”

The spider looks down at me in amusement. “I do know what it is, and it can be removed—quite easily, in fact. However, I don’t feel you’re in any position to be asking for a favor, do you?”

Okay, he maybe has a point there. But no matter how dangerous this guy is, if he has a way to get the predator out of me, then I have to try. My soul flutters with hope, and the predator notices. It watches uneasily, suddenly paying attention.

“You want knowledge, right?” I ask. “I am from another world. I know a lot about a lot of things this place has never even heard of.” Mostly movie trivia, but who’s counting? “I want to make a deal. You get this thing out of me—the predator, or remnant, or whatever it is called—and you can take whatever knowledge you want.”

For the first time, Yedzaquib’s lips part when he smiles, revealing a mouth of needle-like teeth. “I am intrigued, little soul.”

“No!” Zyneth shouts, doubling his slashes at the web. The way Yedzaquib doesn’t even react to his lines being cut, as if the act is inconsequential, is more than a little unsettling. “Kanin, don’t!”

But surprisingly, it’s Raz who cuts in next, with a barking laugh. “You’re right, Spider, we don’t ask enough questions when we make our bargains. And I suppose this magic the homunculus is asking you to do would leave his soul intact, would it?”

The arachnid looks up at Raz, still smiling. It’s such a small, normal gesture, and yet it might be the most unsettling thing I’ve seen Yedzaquib do so far. “No. It wouldn’t.”

I go cold. “Uh. I would like to amend my offer.”

A crack of lightning shakes the room as electricity zaps along the lines of webbing, and dozens of the strings snap and go out. Zyneth charges ahead.

Yedzaquib chuckles, hiding his spines of teeth once more. “Plenty of time to discuss your offer later, when you are part of my collection,” he says to me. “At the moment, your friend is becoming a nuisance.”

Yedzaquib is on Zyneth in an instant. He spears a leg toward Zyneth as the cambion leaps backwards, diving away from the attack and springing to his feet once more. The spider’s attack only punctures air, but he doesn’t falter, his eight limbs a blur of horrifying movement as they race after Zyneth to deliver more lethal stabs.

Zyneth moves in a way I’ve never seen. Even when he was fighting the predator, he hadn’t been this agile, this hyper focused, not a single movement wasted. He ducks and weaves, every step placed on a spot of empty floor free from Yedzaquib’s web, like some kind of goddamn ninja. When a spear of white gets too close, he blocks with his electrified blades, which skip off the spider’s glossy limbs with a spark of light. Despite the impressive display, however, the gap between their abilities is clear. Zyneth is giving it everything he has to avoid being stabbed, while the grin on Yedzaquib’s face makes it clear he is merely toying with his opponent.

This fight isn’t going to last long.

What do I do? I nervously skitter to the left, then right. There’s no way my glass could even scratch Yedzaquib’s shell. I could maybe get close enough to try to grab a leg with the void, try to trip him up—but given his strength I’m pretty sure that would result in me getting punted across the room, and that’s assuming I don’t just get stepped on. Could I use Lightbeam? Would the laser form be strong enough? I might be able to distract him at least. Give Zyneth an opportunity to run away.

But what then? Zyneth wouldn’t run, not without me, and Yedzaquib could overtake either of us in seconds. No, I need a bigger distraction—something Yedzaquib can’t ignore.

Raz slams his hand against his barrier once more. “Let me out!” he shouts. I eye the mage.

Well. I wanted a distraction.