“You see, Adon, we encountered your friend—” The King stopped speaking, suddenly.

There was a loud racket from somewhere around the floor level. A noise of something thumping against thin metal.

Adon, King Alistair, and Rosslyn all turned their heads at once.

Adon! The sound of Goldie’s inner voice reached him from a place he could not see, below the height of Rosslyn’s bed.

“It appears that your friend is behind a ventilation grate in the wall,” Rosslyn said, her expression carefully composed. Adon suspected that she was having trouble keeping herself from laughing, but nothing in her face or body language gave it away.

Could one of you—er, one of Your Majesties—please let my friend into the room? Adon asked.

“It would be my pleasure,” the King said, smiling uncomfortably.

He crouched down in the space between Rosslyn’s bed and the wall, and Adon heard the scrape of metal on metal as the King quickly prised the ventilation grate away from the wall. There was a clink of wood on metal, which Adon guessed was the sound of a screw from the grate popping off and landing uselessly on the floor.

Did he just rip a vent off the wall with his bare hands and nothing else? Adon wondered. I think I would have noticed if he was channeling Mana. Is the King actually super strong?

Adon thought of those hands taking hold of his delicate body and ripping his wings away, and he had to suppress the urge to shudder. He isn’t like that, as far as I know.

Adon heard the King whispering something, although he only caught the word “apologize” from the hushed sentence.

Then the King turned back to face Adon, and he saw Goldie sitting on top of the King’s hand.

I am so happy to see you again, Goldie sent. My eggs hatched! You look great, by the way.

Thank you, Goldie, Adon sent back.

“Where would you like me to place you, Goldie?” King Alistair asked. “My daughter and I were just about to leave for a short while to discuss some matters of state. I assume you and Adon would like to become reacquainted.”

Please put me on the table next to him, Goldie replied. And it will be good to reunite with my friend—and take in the glory of his new form. Thank you, Your Majesty.

The King set Goldie down on the table. Adon turned his back while Rosslyn threw a silk robe on over her bedclothes. Then the King and Princess were gone.

Adon could see six little white spiders on Goldie’s back. One of them glowed with an aura like its mother’s but slightly brighter. As always, whenever he saw it, Adon wondered what the halo of light meant.

How did everything go, Goldie? Adon asked, immediately curious. Your eggs hatched. I see you have the children on your back. Are they all healthy? Any of them, um, talking yet?

They are, Adon. I spent the last week preparing until they were finally born. I have not named them yet. I wanted to get your opinions and get to know them a bit. Well, there is one with a name.

One of the little white figures crawling around on Goldie’s back stopped moving, turned to face Adon, and raised a forelimb to wave.

Hello there, Adon sent.

It really is you, the little spider’s voice came back. I can’t believe it… what are the odds? Was this a plan? Someone’s idea of a joke?

The sound that filled Adon’s mind was shockingly familiar; he recognized it not from this life, but from his immediate previous life. It only took him a moment to pin down exactly who he was talking to. He had heard the other’s voice too many times to forget it, even if he had not received the gift of perfect recall from the Goddess.

Samson?! Adon’s voice rang through the mental space between himself and his younger brother—or, more accurately, the spider who had once been his brother.

How are you doing, Adon? Samson asked.

Adon detected new information in his brother’s tone. He had not noticed before how old his brother’s voice was, but it seemed at once much older than he remembered and also immeasurably youthful. And something more.

Is he unsure of himself? Adon wondered. It seemed so unlike Samson—whose take-charge approach to life Adon had always envied. Even if he had some self-doubts, Samson had never been the sort of person to express them in front of his loser older brother. What happened to him to make him unsure of himself in front of me? He kept all of these thoughts below the surface of his mind so that they could not transmit.

I’m doing well, Adon finally sent. I’m doing the best I can be. I’m in a magical fantasy world, I’ve been trying to make friends—I know you’ve met Goldie—and I completed Evolution and turned into a butterfly. I guess it’s a dream come true. And I’m very happy to see you again!

That last sentence, Adon was not certain about yet. In the back of his mind, he felt the same uncertainty about this reunion that his brother’s tone seemed to express. But Adon was trying to carefully conceal this ambivalence. His relationship with his brother in this life was not set in stone yet. If he had lived a long life in the last world, as Adon suspected from the old-young sound of Samson’s inner voice, then Samson would barely remember Adon.

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I’m glad to see you, too, bro, Samson replied. Congratulations on, um, being a butterfly. That sounds so weird, but then, I’m a spider now… You know, I missed you. We all really missed you. My memories have been pretty mixed up. But I know the family was torn apart after what happened.

What happened? Goldie chimed in. I hate to interrupt the reunion, but I would love to know more about you both. My son and my friend. I’ve never pried into Adon’s past before.

It’s pretty embarrassing, Adon sent. But I guess I shouldn’t feel bad about it. This was literally in another life.

He relayed the details of the incident that led to his death.

So you were on your way to exercise, huh? Samson thought. That’s horribly ironic.

Yeah, I guess the Goddess has a sense of humor, Adon replied, unable to keep a slight bitterness out of his tone.

I am sorry you had such a traumatic death, Adon, Goldie sent.

It could have been worse, Adon sent. It could have been slow too.

I think it messed with our mother in that world, Samson thought. A part of her always believed it was her fault.

Goldie shuddered. That sounds like just how I would feel.

Adon shook his head. I died because I tried doing what she suggested in her last note to me—she wanted me to exercise—but I’m sad she wound up feeling that way. I never meant to cause her any grief.

Maybe you’ll meet her again in this life, Samson thought. Or in another plane of existence someday. I never would have thought I would see you again. It’s haunted me too.

But with reincarnation, you never know how the timeline works, Adon pointed out. I guess you don’t remember any other lives but your last one, but I’ve had many—and trying to put them in any sort of order is hard. I don’t think that just because you and I met again here, and we recognized each other, it means that Mom would even be the same person. I mean, even if she remembered her past life, she might have lived another between this and the life she had with us.

So, even if you met her, you might never recognize each other, Goldie summarized, her voice suddenly small, far away, and forlorn. How sad.

We should talk about the future, and not focus too much on the past, Adon, Samson thought.

It struck Adon that his brother was showing solicitude for Goldie’s feelings rather than trying to follow up on the conversational thread they had just been exploring. Trying to change the subject to keep her from feeling sad. And that seemed strange.

Then again, in this world, Goldie and Samson were parent and child. It was a relationship closer, at least in theory, than any that Adon had as a butterfly. He tried to quell the slight jealousy that he instinctively felt at how close his brother had instantly become to Adon’s dearest friend.

And he failed. At least he could act as if he was not jealous, for now, though.

Good idea, Adon sent. I wonder what sort of spider you’re going to want to be!

I’ll probably try to grow up just like my mama, Samson thought back. She seems to have the hang of things.

Well, I am trying my best, Goldie sent modestly. I took control of a little room downstairs while I was waiting for the eggs to hatch. But I think Samson is starting off with a better base than I did. He has you and me, Adon. Perhaps he can emulate your path and learn how to use magic.

There it was again, rising in Adon’s chest like a sickness. Envy. Fear. Distrust.

He hated the idea that his brother might show him up again—might prove, even in another world, even when they were both arthropods, that Adon was pathetic and that Samson was superior.

Adon thanked the Goddess silently, for far from the first time, that he did not have a face with expressions that he needed to hide.

He forced himself to reply in a chipper tone, Of course! I’ll be happy to teach him some of what I’ve learned, although I have to admit, it’s not much.

At least the royals like me, Adon told himself. The King didn’t bring Goldie in with him when they took me from where I was. That probably means they don’t have a weird thing for spiders like they do with butterflies. Actually, I remember Rosslyn said one of their allies had a similar relationship with spiders to theirs with butterflies. Hopefully that means there’s no chance of Samson ever actually taking my place in their minds. I don’t know why I care so much about this now. Before Samson appeared, I don’t think I was this stressed about my status. Or even close to it.

I appreciate it, bro, Samson thought back at him. Thanks to mama, I have a lot of Evolution Points already banked. I was thinking about investing them into magic stuff, and knowing I have you here pushes me over the edge.

The words were agonizing for Adon to hear.

Awesome, he sent, then lapsed into silence as his inner monologue took over.

I’m still not the best, he thought to himself. Or even if I am the best for a moment, it’s a fragile thing. I can never rest.

Adon wiggled his wings gently. He could tell they were almost there. Not quite ready to fly, but very close. There was a part of him that wished he could just fly away. Travel to parts unknown and never return.

But he would not willingly abandon his friends. Even if Goldie seemed very taken with her new children, that did not mean she would be content to lose Adon—anymore than being friends with the Princess would have made Adon content to lose Goldie.

There’s no reason I have to be in competition with my brother anyway, Adon reminded himself. Stop stressing. It’s the trigger of someone from your old life doing this to you. There is no reason to think you’re in some kind of race with the person who always used to be, honestly, better than you were. Life isn’t that cruel. The Goddess has been exceptionally kind to you in this life. Given you opportunity after opportunity. You’re a crazy magical species of butterfly in a country that loves and honors butterflies. And you dominated that garden where you were born! By the end of your life there, you were killing snakes.

His abdomen flooded with a warm feeling as he reminded himself of both his advantages and how well he had done.

That’s right. You’re not a failure.

Adon felt a renewed desire for forward motion and tried fluttering his wings again.

It was slightly frustrating. They were so close to being ready to fly.

I can’t wait until my wings are ready, Adon sent to Goldie and Samson. I want you two to see me fly, more than anything else in the world. Maybe I can even carry you with me sometime.