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The pixies chattered rapidly in high-pitched voices as they swept down on us, incomprehensible words almost drowned out by the buzzing of their wings. Da
“Get back here!” Da
“I have a better idea!” I shouted, straightening up and grabbing hold of Quentin’s hand. “Follow those Barghests!” I ran after them, towing Quentin in my wake. May and Da
The Barghests ran through the door and down the hall, making a sharp left after about twenty yards. The four of us followed, speeding up as best we could in our effort to escape the flock of pixies, which seemed devoted to stabbing us. May yelped in pain but kept ru
It was pretty, but I was more concerned with getting the massive oak door shut against the pixie influx. I shoved against it; it didn’t budge. “Da
“On it.” He reached over and gave the wood a small, almost dismissive shove. It swung away from me so fast I nearly fell, and slammed shut with a concussive boomthat echoed through the entire room. “Better?”
“Much,” I said, and turned to study the others.
Quentin and May were both bleeding from a variety of small cuts, and one of May’s barrettes was missing, making the hair on that side of her head stick out at an odd angle. Only Da
“You didn’t warn me about the attack pixies,” he said. “I woulda brought a flyswatter. Maybe a can of Raid or somethin’, too.”
“You can’t use Raid on pixies!” said May, looking horrified. “It’s . . . it’s . . .”
“Probably messy.” I shook my head. “I didn’t tell you about the attack pixies because I didn’t know they were here. I thought the place was empty.”
“The cliff exit,” said Quentin. We all turned to look at him. He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “There was that time right after Evening died, when you fell? Remember?”
“How could I forget? But how do youremember? You weren’t there.”
“I told him,” said May. I raised an eyebrow. “What? It was fu
“No, listen—the cliff exit didn’t have a door on it. The pixies probably got in that way and decided this was a good place to stay. No one was killing them. That’s sort of an improvement over the way things worked before.” Quentin paused before adding, reluctantly, “Maybe they even saw it as a sort of victory over the Countess Winterrose. She’s gone, and they’re still here.”
“Which also explains why they reacted so badly to us. They think we’re going to start killing them again.” I glanced at the door. “Anybody feel equipped to explain the lightbulb to a swarm of feral, pissed-off pixies?”
“Not it,” said May.
Da
When a Barghest growls, smart people pay attention. I straightened, to face them. “Da
“Iggy! Lou! Daisy! You stop that right this second!” Da
“What—” I began.
I didn’t have time to finish. A spider easily the size of a goat lunged out of the shadows between the hanging tapestries, where it must have been pressed practically two-dimensional in order to stay out of sight. The Barghests yelped, the smallest cutting and ru
May shot me a look. “Remind me to neverstart another home improvement project with you.”
I didn’t dignify that with a response. I was too busy pulling the knife from my belt and charging forward, toward the massive spider.
The folks at Home Depot definitely didn’t have any pamphlets for this sort of thing.
IF THERE’S ANart to fighting enormous spiders, I somehow managed to live to adulthood without learning it. The creature seemed to consist entirely of lashing limbs and fangs the size of my forearm, which was enough to give even the Barghests pause. Da
“We need an exit!” I said, taking up a defensive posture while Da
“The pixies are still out there,” said Quentin. He sounded dismayingly calm, given that we were sharing the room with the sort of thing that inspires arachnophobia. Maybe it was the fact that he had a Bridge Troll between him and the giant spider.
“Have you ever heard the phrase the lesser of two evils?” I asked, jumping back as the spider took another swing at me. It seemed to realize that this approach wasn’t working as well as it could have, because it turned and raced six feet up the wall, hissing at us. “Open the damn door!”
“It’s your funeral,” said May. She grabbed the door handle, pulling as hard as she could. It didn’t budge. “Quentin? A little help here?”
“On it.”
The spider hissed again, spitting a long stream of something sticky-looking in my direction. I dodged to the side. The sticky substance splattered against the floor instead of against my legs. “Da
“This day just gets better and better,” said Da
I was so distracted by the pixies that I didn’t notice the second spider until it dropped from the ceiling and grabbed me. Then I was being jerked into the air, so rapidly that I lost my grip on both my knives. Something pierced the skin at the back of my neck, sending what felt like liquid fire pumping into my veins. May screamed.
After that, everything went black.
I’VE WOKEN UPin a lot of strange situations, including “in the Court of Cats” and “halfway to being transformed into a tree.” That probably says something about how much time I spend unconscious. Waking up wrapped from feet to shoulders in a silk cocoon and dangling upside down from the rafters of Goldengreen’s throne room was a new one on me, though.
I blinked, trying to get my eyes to adjust as I strained to see what was around me. More cocoons hung to either side, the heads of my companions poking out the ends. Da
“Worst knowe ever,” whispered May angrily. It sounded like she was hanging to my right, somewhere on the other side of Quentin. “I realize that your memory isn’t always totally reliable, but couldn’t you have at least triedto remember the giant spiders? That seems like the sort of thing you’d want to mention beforeyou came for a visit.”