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He stared in horror at the spider and her web.
“Language,” Cadence told him.
She walked to his side and searched for what held our attention. She was finally clean of ash and blood, and her damp hair hung limply around her pale face. She stared at the spider like she recognized it.
“That thing,” Cadence said, “feels powerful.”
“It does,” I agreed then turned my gaze to the spindly creature. “Who are you?”
Its dance across the web halted, as if it were pausing to consider my question. A talking spider wouldn’t have been the craziest thing I’d seen, but disappointingly, it carried on about its way without a single word.
“Wait,” I said. “I do know you.”
“You know a spider?” Walker asked and shook his head. “I’m not even really surprised.”
I hurried past him to the left bookshelf. The top shelves were lined with books about combat magic, but the lower ones were all about the gods. Some of them were original accounts from centuries ago, though Mom had rarely let me touch those. Magically held together or not, they were too valuable to be messed with.
There, I thought.
Arachne by Ovid. Luckily, it was a new copy and written in English—I would’ve hated to be slowed down by my lackluster Latin.
Cadence peeked over my shoulder and gasped at the title of the book.
“No way,” she said. “You don’t think that’s her, do you?”
“And of course you know the spider too,” Walker said and sighed.
They gathered closer to see over my shoulder. I flipped rampantly through the pages.
“Arachne is the goddess of spiders,” I explained. “She was a talented weaver cursed by Athena for daring to consider herself better than the gods.”
“Walker,” Cadence chided. “How can you not know this? You really should brush up on your mythology.”
“She’s not a myth,” I corrected and finally found the page I was searching for.
We stared at the beautiful ink portrait of a black widow with an unusual red spot.
“I think she’s in my kitchen.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Walker
I stared at Freya in shock. My mind couldn’t catch up with reality. Freya was barely better off. Her eyes were wilder than I’d ever seen, and she moved frantically, instead of with her usual grace. Cadence was merely intrigued. Her reaction only further proved what Freya told me was true—she would be just fine.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Sure, I can get that Arachne is real, but why would she be here?”
“My mother must’ve summoned her,” Freya explained. Her hands shook so badly, she nearly dropped the book. “She’s trying to tell me something or-or give me something—I’m not sure, but I know that’s her.”
Freya and Cadence flipped through the book for answers. When I walked back into the kitchen, they were too engrossed in their research to notice. I didn’t exactly want to be alone with a goddess, but it seemed unwise to leave her unattended.
“Whoa,” I said.
That spider really was talented.
With her silky, silver web, she’d weaved a brilliant depiction of a battle between two women. One of them was curly-haired and threw her arms up to shield herself. The other woman—taller and grimacing—hid a knife behind her back. Between them was a wispy shield.
“What is that?” I asked the spider.
