The Spinner of Dreams by K. A. Reynolds

Author:K. A. Reynolds
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

The Spider Takes the Fox

The red moon had tucked itself behind clouds, the world darkened to cinnamon and black. Annalise couldn’t see her hand in front of her, and the air was as thick as earth. She stumbled forward, feeling her way.

In the silence, screams of agony echoed from someplace below the labyrinth. Tiny sounds followed. The scuttling of many-legged creatures scraped by her feet in the dark.

Only one thing makes that sound, Annalise thought. A thing with too many eyes and legs and fangs, like her dark worry-thoughts. A thing like—

Spiders.

One-Two-Three-Four.

“Mister Edwards?” The scurrying grew louder. Her skin ignited with squirming nerves desperate to run. She scanned for any sign of spiders or her friend, but it was too dark to see. This is wrong. You’ve taken a wrong turn. Go back! Annalise spun around, hand out, searching for the way they’d entered, and felt solid wall.

The entrance had already sealed.

Tiny legs brushed past her ankles. Annalise jumped. She cried out and darted ahead through the blackness, almost too heavy to move.

“Mister Edwards!” The scraping and scuttling grew louder and more frequent. Things wriggled in her hair. She sprinted faster, shaking her arms and body and batting around her head.

“Mister Edwards. WHERE ARE YOU?”

Annalise ran, arms out, straight into a wall. Both hands broke her fall. And both flared in pain.

Cradling her hands to her chest, Annalise staggered right. Whispers of tiny monsters rushed past her feet. Suddenly, her big hand throbbed with sharp lashings of pain—each step forward made it hurt even more. “Mister Edwards!”

Then softly, “Miss Meriwether?”

“Mister Edwards?” Annalise skidded to a halt.

“I can’t see you!” He sounded frantic and too far away. “The Fate Spinner tricked us. She—” His voice cut off at the end.

“Tell me where you are.” Annalise rushed along the slippery, moss-covered corridor, following his voice. The stones got slipperier and slipperier; the horned creature below her dark mark stretched and grew.

“Something’s got me—” He sounded closer. “Keep going—you’ll find the mirror . . . I’m . . .” He screamed. “Hurry!”

Breathing heavy with adrenaline, Annalise pitched ahead in the rusty dark, chasing his voice, until she couldn’t run anymore.

Gauzy strings dangled from above—sliding over her face, sticking in her hair. The farther she drew up the corridor, the thicker the strings became.

Webs. The word spun through her mind.

“Mister Edwards?” Water dripped somewhere close by. The damp tang of swamp clung to her skin. Annalise gulped and licked her lips; she’d never been so parched or famished in her life. “Mister Edwards, keep talking so I can follow your voice.”

“You’re almost there.” He sounded so close, but she still couldn’t see him.

Annalise brushed sticky webbing from her clothes. The pulse of the beast in her hand quickened and thrashed. “I’m coming, Mister Edwards—hang on!”

The red moon suddenly returned to the sky, and a pink blush illuminated the corridor. Annalise found herself at another dead end. And there, strung up in the shadows against the hundred-foot wall, was the largest spiderweb Annalise had ever seen.

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