Chapter 10 #2
“We are done here. All of us.” His voice was cold again, the hidden warmth she'd grown to love completely absent. “Pack your things. We leave within the hour.”
“I…” Abigail said, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade, “I am afraid that won't be possible.” She was studying something in her palm—a glass orb that had materialized from nowhere.
“What do you see?” Nos asked.
“Valroy's forces are already moving. They are preparing to overtake this amalgamation of a city.” Abigail looked up, her green eyes serious.
“He is not waiting to build a larger army. He is working now, with what he has.” She gestured her hand, the orb vanishing.
“We have perhaps six hours before he will begin their attack.”
Ava felt the bottom drop out of her world. “Six hours?"
“At most.”
“Then we really do have to leave.” Lysander fidgeted with the edge of his coat sleeve. “We can't possibly stand against Valroy. We don’t have anyone to fight with.”
“We can't run either,” Nos pointed out grimly. “Not with six hours’ head start and him able to move through shadow. He will be hunting for us.”
“So what do you suggest?” Ibin shook her head. “This place is great and all, but makes for a rather terrible last stand position.”
Abigail straightened, and suddenly she seemed taller, more regal.
“We have no army. And none is coming. We work to gather what other allies we can. Then, I suggest we proceed with my plan. I enter the Web, hopefully distracting Valroy. The rest of you, without Ava, and…with or without Serrik, attack the Maze. The realities separate. The crisis ends.”
“And if he isn’t distracted?” Ava felt the dread well up in her stomach like acid.
“Then all is lost.” Abigail's smile was sharp as a blade. “And we hope that those who claim to love us will stand beside us when the moment of oblivion comes.”
The pointed look she gave Serrik could have cut glass. Too bad the spider still had his back turned.
He said nothing in response to Abigail’s jab.
Ava looked around the theater at the assembled group. Bitty and Lysander, both looking terrified but determined. Nos and Ibin, their expressions grim but resolute. Abigail, serene and deadly in her certainty.
And Serrik, standing apart from them all, his face a mask of cold indifference.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” Ava said finally. “But I'm not letting anyone sacrifice themselves unnecessarily. There has to be another way.”
“Then you had better work to find it quickly,” Abigail said gently. “Because time is running out for all of us.”
Serrik made a sound of disgust. “This is madness. All of it.” He stalked toward the exit off toward the left of the stage. “Congratulations to all of you in advance for your most wonderful, heroic, and tragic deaths. I am sure someone will laud your efforts. It shall not be me.”
“Where are you going?” Ava called after him.
He paused at the edge of the theater, not turning back. “I do not know as I care.”
And with that, he was gone, leaving them all staring at the space where he'd been. A door slammed in the distance.
“Well,” Abigail said into the silence. “That went about as I expected.”
“He’s scared.” Bitty chewed her lower lip, thoughtfully. “He’s just scared of losing Ava.”
“We’re all scared of something,” Ibin replied. “That doesn't excuse cowardice.”
Ava closed her eyes, trying to center herself. When she opened them again, her voice was steady. “I should go talk to him. Before he does something we'll all regret.”
“Ava—” Lysander started.
“No. I'm not giving up on him. He’s…he's important to me.
And despite all his bluster, I know he's better than this.” She ran a hand through her hair, scratching her scalp.
“Besides, Abigail's right. We can't do this without him.
If Valroy doesn't follow her into the Web, we're going to need every advantage we can get.”
“And if he refuses to listen?” Nos arched an eyebrow.
Ava smiled grimly. “We hope I get better at controlling my power, or else a lot of people are going to get trains dropped on them.” She started toward the exit, her mind already racing ahead to the confrontation she knew was coming.
Behind her, she could hear the others beginning to plan, their voices low and urgent.
But all Ava could think about was the look in Serrik's eyes when she'd called him a coward. The hurt, the anger, and the resignation.
She'd pushed him away, just like everyone else in his life had done. And now she had to figure out how to bring him back before it was too late.
For all of them.
Ava found Serrik in what had once been the opera house's costume department, now transformed into something that looked like a cross between a medieval armory and a spider's den.
Golden threads stretched across the room in intricate patterns, and clothing items that she guessed hadn't existed an hour ago hung from the walls—sections of armor that seemed to be forged from shadow, a swathe of a scarf whose strings hummed with otherworldly resonance.
He was standing at a workbench, his back to her, methodically placing items into a leather satchel. His movements were efficient, controlled, but she could see the tension in his shoulders.
“Going somewhere?” The sarcasm in her voice was thick. She knew he was leaving.
He didn't turn around. “As I said. Preparing for departure.”
“Departure.” She stepped into the room, noting how the golden threads seemed to part for her without her conscious thought. “You mean retreat.”
“Call it what you will.” He placed what looked like a compass made of bone into the bag. “The end result is the same.”
Ava moved closer, studying a row of weapons on the walls.
Chances are, they’d been props once. But not anymore.
Now, they were very much real. Most of them were beautiful in their lethality—works of art designed for destruction.
“Where’d all this come from? Did I make this, or you, or did it just… appear?”
“I am unsure. And I am not entirely certain that it matters. But they will be useful.” He finally turned to face her, and she was struck again by how carefully controlled his expression was. “For those foolish enough to stand and fight.”
“Serrik…if we don’t, there won’t be anywhere to run to, he—”
“Why are you here, Ava?” His voice was tired. “Have you come to hurl more accusations at me? To tell me again what a disappointment I am, that I no longer wish to bloody my hands with the death of thousands of fae?”
“That's not—I didn't mean—”
“Didn't you?” He leaned against the workbench, crossing his arms over his chest. “You called me a coward. You said I wasn't the man you thought I was. Both of those statements were quite clear.”
Ava felt tears prick at her eyes. “I was angry. I lashed out. I’m sorry. I just don’t understand why you have to kill everyone, if Valroy is the problem—”
“He is a symptom, not a cause.” Serrik shut his eyes.
“He was not the one who disfigured me, Ava. He was not the one who exiled me, who tortured me, who hurled invectives at me from the earliest age. The fae are the true monsters, do you not understand? They have been stealing, eating, tormenting your kind since the dawn of time! Moreover I…” He let out a long, wavering breath.
“I do not know that once I begin, I will be able to stop myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“My true form, Ava. I keep it hidden for a reason. I have worked for thousands of years to keep that part of me controlled. Restrained. It comes with…its own impulses. Its own hungers. And now, for the first time that I find someone who might see me as someone else…she asks me to become exactly what they believe me to be?”
“I’m not asking you to become a monster.” Ava stepped closer to him, her own anger flaring. “I’m asking you to help me fix things!”
“They are the same thing!” The words exploded out of him so suddenly she jumped back in surprise. “Do you not understand that? I cannot be your savior without being their monster. I cannot save anyone without destroying everything I touch. And you will hate me, all the same.”
“That's not true—”
“It is!” His form flickered, the human glamour slipping for just a moment to reveal glimpses of chitinous skin and too many eyes. “You've seen what happens when I lose control. You've felt the terror I inspire. You know what I'm capable of.”
“I’ve also seen you create something beautiful," Ava gestured at the golden threads around them. “I’ve seen you protect people. I've seen you love.”
“Aberrations. All of it.” Serrik's voice was bitter. “Moments of weakness that mean nothing in the face of what I truly am.”
Ava stared at him, feeling her heart break. “You really believe that, don't you? You really think you're incapable of being anything but a weapon.”
“I know what I am.”
“No, you know what you were told you are.
There's a difference.” She moved closer, close enough that she could see the pain hidden behind his carefully controlled expression.
“Serrik, you were a prisoner for two thousand years.
You've spent all that time alone, with nothing but your own thoughts and the echo of other people's fear. Of course you believe the worst about yourself.”
“And what would you have me believe instead?” He laughed, cruel and angry, pointed entirely at himself. “That deep down, I am noble? Kind-hearted? How adorably na?ve.”
“I’d have you believe the truth.” She reached out slowly, giving him every chance to pull away.
When he didn't, she placed her hand on his chest, directly over his heart.
“That you're complicated. That you're capable of both creation and destruction, just like any other person with the power to do both.
That your nature isn't fixed, and your choices matter more than your origins.”
Serrik's breath hitched at her touch. “Ava…”