Aven cut one thread with a knife drawn from a hidden pocket.
Two more attached.
“GO!” Darcelle looked at Kyren.
“For once, listen!” Kyren’s eyes shifted toward the insects moving beneath a nearby root.
Zamuraki.
Only a handful.
Not enough.
He concentrated.
Nothing happened.
“Come on.” One insect stopped.
Its antennae moved.
“Kyren!” “Just—” More emerged.
Ten.
Twenty.
Lurline noticed.
Her ruined face turned toward him.
For the first time her expression lost its amusement.
“What are you?” Kyren stared back.
The Zamuraki gathered around his boots.
“People keep asking me that.” Lurline ripped a leg free from the ice.
Aven cut another thread.
Eria pushed Kyren backward.
“You are not fighting that thing.” “I’m not.” “You’re doing the face.” “What face?” “The face you make immediately before doing something stupid.” Darcelle nodded.
“She is correct.” Kyren looked toward Aven.
The assassin’s arm was being pulled open by the threads.
Lurline advanced.
If they left, she would reach him.
If they stayed, Kyren had no idea what he could actually do.
The Zamuraki answered before he decided.
The swarm moved.
Dozens poured over the roots toward Lurline.
They climbed her damaged legs and disappeared into wounds opened by Aven’s arrows.
The Jorogumo screamed.
Aven felt the control weaken.
He tore his wrist free.
“LUNAR!” His eye became completely black.
Gold flooded the other.
The arrow between his fingers changed until one half seemed to contain light and the other an absence of it.
He aimed at Lurline’s remaining eye.
She understood.
Webs erupted from the trees.
Aven released.
Lurline twisted.
The arrow missed the eye.
It struck her upper jaw.
Half her face disappeared in a burst of black and gold.
The shockwave threw Kyren onto his back.
Darcelle hit the ground beside him.
Eria struck a tree.
Silence followed.
Kyren coughed.
“Everyone alive?” Darcelle lifted her head.
“Unfortunately.” Eria groaned.
“Don’t joke.” “That wasn’t a joke.” Kyren sat up.
Smoke and fragments of web drifted through the clearing.
The destroyed piano lay in pieces.
Several keys were still making faint sounds where they had landed among the roots.
Aven stood unsteadily near the centre.
His bow remained raised.
Lurline was gone.
Not dead.
Gone.
A hole opened in the earth where her abdomen had been.
Thick webs lined the tunnel.
Aven approached it.
“Don’t,” Kyren said.
The assassin looked toward him.
Kyren stood.
“You tell us to run and then you’re going to crawl into her hole?” Aven looked back into the darkness.
“She’ll warn the others.” “Others?” Darcelle asked.
Aven’s expression told them the answer before he spoke.
“That was one Jorogumo.” Eria went pale.
“We know what she was.” “No.” Aven looked at the webs.
“You know what one looks like.” He turned toward them.
“You don’t know what they do.” Kyren thought of the Jorogumo’s voice.
The music.
The strange heaviness that had entered his body.
“She controlled me.” “Almost.” “What’s the difference?” “You woke up.” Aven wiped black fluid from one of his knives.
“Most don’t.” Darcelle hugged her lute closer despite the crack now running along its side.
“Why did she know you?” Aven did not answer.
Eria stepped between him and the children.
“Who are you?” “Someone who kept you alive.” “That isn’t a name.” “Aven.” “From where?” His eyes moved toward the deeper forest.
“Far enough away.” “Not an answer.” “The only one you’re getting.” Kyren studied him.
“She said your village belonged to them.” Aven’s jaw tightened.
“You listen too much.” “Elves tell me the opposite.” “Start listening to them.” Aven retrieved one of his arrows from the ground.
Kyren noticed his hand trembling.
Not from exhaustion.
“You’re still hearing her, aren’t you?” Aven stopped.
Darcelle looked between them.
“Hearing who?” “Lurline.” Aven stared at Kyren.
“Go home.” “That’s a yes.” “Go home.” “What happens if she gets control again?” Aven suddenly crossed the distance between them.
Eria raised her hands, ice forming over her fingers.
Aven ignored her.
He crouched until his golden eyes were level with Kyren’s.
“Listen carefully.
If you ever hear music in a part of the forest where there should be none, you turn around.
If someone beautiful appears where nobody should be, you do not speak to them.
If someone knows something they should not know, you do not wait for an explanation.” Kyren held his gaze.
“And if they offer piano lessons?” Darcelle covered her face.
Aven stared at Kyren for several seconds.
“Especially then.” He stood.
“The Green Path is no longer safe.” Eria looked at the hole.
“Was it ever?” “Safer than it is now.” “Why?” Aven glanced toward the tunnel.
“Because Jorogumo do not hunt alone when they know prey is worth returning for.” Kyren felt a chill.
“Returning for?” Aven looked directly at him.
“She had you unconscious and could have bitten through your skull.” Nobody spoke.
“She didn’t.” Kyren remembered Lurline pulling him toward her mouth.
“She tried.” “After the others arrived.” Aven’s expression darkened.
“Before that she was putting you to sleep.” Eria understood first.
“She wanted him alive.” Aven nodded.