SIXTEEN: THE SPIDER

Arden

Staggering beneath the weight of a dozen textbooks, Arden questioned every choice she'd ever made that brought her to this situation.

This is what I get for not packing early and bolting from the room.

"Just over here, dear, almost there," Master Odeis demurred as they walked together through the library stacks. Well, Odeis walked: she sauntered, silk frock gliding on the floor behind her dainty heels, her hair so dark it looked more violet than not, the straight locks swaying with every exaggerated tilt of her hips. In comparison, Arden lurched and dragged her shoes, gloves causing her grip to slip and slide on the bottom volume. "I do so appreciate the help, especially after that dreadful Evelyn Harper promised to levy a fine if I used Talent to return the books again. The nerve of the woman...."

In Arden's opinion, Librarian Harper's conditions were more about Master Odeis' lack of care when using Talent to displace the books back into the library than the actual use of it. As for how Arden wound up there, carrying the Master's burdens, she could only blame her own distraction and failure to get out of the room before Odeis picked a victim. Usually one of the boys enamored with the Master's generous décolletage and fitted bodice would volunteer, but there was a Feingarde match during the next period between a favorite in the House of Ignarhl and an up-and-comer from the House of Luxiahl, so they'd been quick to duck from the room once Odeis dismissed them.

Thus, Arden, too slow to pack her satchel, had become the Master's hapless prey.

"Those three go on that shelf there." Odeis eyed Arden, and seeing she wasn't in any state to shuffle books around, sighed. "Oh, allow me to assist."

They delivered the first set of instructor texts, then moved onto the next. Arden followed along, her burden lessened so she could at least walk at a normal pace.

As they crossed the library using the upper mezzanine, a few people milled about the lower level in the main cluster of tables, most packing up as their study session came to an end. Arden's gaze drifted until it landed on an increasingly familiar head of untidy blonde hair. Tiernan sat slumped, cheek on her folded hand, while Master Davidson chattered.

He must be her tutor, Arden thought. She could do worse. Davidson's aggravating, but he's knowledgeable.

Davidson laughed at something he said, and Tiernan slumped further, flopping over like a ragdoll or a puppet with its strings cut.

"Terrible posture," Arden murmured.

"What was that, dear?" Odeis stopped her rather vapid and contrived nattering and followed Arden's glance over the railing. "Oh. The new Bloodless child, is it? I've been told to expect her. I believe she's in my next class."

"Her name's Orla Tiernan," Arden commented.

A slight crease appeared around Odeis' otherwise pert and shapely nose. "A terribly human name."

Arden hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. She'd never heard of the Tiernan family, but Orla was Irish, which in and of itself made it a perfectly human name, but also curious with how many Seraphium from the Emerald Isle had been displaced after Morsath's ruin. At least a third of the population on Bilarthus had been forced to relocate here when the Albion Kingdom collapsed, and the Ominous' attack on Morsath crippled the economy in the smaller Sanctum Liras. It was undoubtedly a coincidence; plenty of Irish descendants populated America's eastern seaboard. Yet, something about the other girl pricked Arden's mind, a stubborn little splinter that kept slipping out of place.

Master Odeis sighed, making an annoyed hand gesture, flicking her fingers as if to dismiss a small child. Among the underyears, she was infamous for her impatience and general lack of care for children or anyone not from a prestigious family. "A fawner," Arden's mother called her, always with a certain tick in her jaw. It was the politest thing she ever had to say about the woman.

As if Odeis read her mind—

"How is your mother doing?" the Master asked as they walked. "Does she plan to come for the cultural festival?"

"I guess," Arden replied, not giving it much thought, certainly not for the likes of Clio Odeis. She was a passable maths teacher but an impossible social leech among the Empire's ton, and it didn't matter if Arden's mother lacked the same clout she once enjoyed; Lysandra Raferty did not lower herself to accept leeches.

The Odeis family descended from Inasiahl—or so they claimed. The main branch of Inas belonged to the Arachnians, those Seraphium like Madam Arbitrator who grew up in a Sanctum to the far east and refused to speak their names outside of their clutch. Thus, "Madam Arbitrator." For the Odeises, it had always been a murky issue among Inasian historians and genealogists, the records always a hair closer to legitimate than they were to forgery. Arden had to admit the Master had a certain insectoid familiarity to her, glittery in some ways, poisonous in others, but she couldn't rightfully say she saw a resemblance between her and Madam Arbitrator. Legitimate claim or not, the uncertainty cast a pall upon the Odeises. No one wished to dabble with uncertainty.

"I hope to see her there. It's simply been too long."

"I'll pass your thoughts to her," Arden said, her voice dry. She realized now why Odeis had been quick to volunteer her for this task. Arden would have rolled her eyes if her manners had allowed for it; she didn't care a wit for ladder climbing, especially not in something as pointless as social status, and trying to wriggle into Lysandra's good graces through her daughter wouldn't do her any good.

Sensing she was getting nowhere, Odeis' plush mouth formed an unhappy moue, and she didn't have much to say after that. She quickened her step, for which Arden was grateful, as the period had drawn to a close and she'd have to rush to get to her next class. She slid the remaining manuals onto their shelves and folded her hands, ducking into a polite half-curtsy—which, for the Seraphium, meant turning your folded, empty palms toward the recipient and dipping your head forward.

"Have a good day, Master Odeis."

"Yes, yes," Odeis said, peeved. Like a spider already searching for its next prey. Counting her blessings to have escaped the web, Arden readjusted the strap of her satchel and departed the library.

xXx

Arden didn't think about Master Odeis or Orla Tiernan for the next two hours, which she instead spent in Kinesiology and Physical Education trying not to wheeze out a lung or drop dead upon the track.

Terrible business, the outdoors. Nature. Fresh air. Dreadful, in her opinion.

After washing, she returned again to the Jupiter Forum, intent on stealing something filling from Callisto Hall and finding somewhere quiet to read. She could say what she wished about her mother, but the women never failed to send the best quality novels that wouldn't reach Bilarthus and Braemere until next year.

Her path happened to take her past the door for Arithmetic and Astral Augury, and it opened to release the class within. Arden had to step aside to avoid Tiernan, who stomped out ahead of the others. A glance at her face showed it to be red, her eyes flat, and her hands curled into white knuckle fists.

Arden looked at the others, then remembered the Cicero girl was in her own maths class, meaning Tiernan had been alone.

Ah, she thought, having the oddest urge to grimace. Odeis was always rude to Cicero—ignoring her raised hand, general short, biting comments meant as backhanded insults. I hope Cicero warned her about Odeis' attitude.

Itla Crane affected a laugh she aimed at Tiernan's retreating back. She leaned into her Drow friend, Sovie Dareth, who wore an annoyed expression and side-stepped Crane to avoid her weight. "She can't even do math! Holy Soliahl, she's just stupid."

"You're going to be reported for bullying, Itty," Peridot Raviril said, gazing after Tiernan with regret in her large eyes. "You really were too mean to her."

"Who's going to report me? Certainly not Master Odeis. Are you?" Crane snapped. Then, she started after the Bloodless girl again, walking fast. Arden heard Dareth curse under her breath as she tried to wrangle Crane in. "Are you going to report me, Tiernan? Are you going to go crying to the Dean, not a full week in?"

Arden didn't know why, but she followed them, remaining a step behind. So far, they hadn't noticed her.

"No, I'm tired of them putting people like her in this school," Crane continued. "Worthless, Bloodless, Talentless Seraphium who drag the rest of us down. Sanctums are falling apart all over the world because of how weak everyone is, and they go out to find runts like this? What is she even doing here? She has no Talent! She has no brains!"

Tiernan's shoulders inched nearer and nearer her ears. Her hands shook so hard, it set her entire body to trembling. The lamps flickered down the length of the corridor.

At this point, Arden decided to cut in. "Stop making a scene, Crane," she drawled, the other girl's head whipping around. "How very common of you."

"Excuse me?"

"There is no excuse for you or your—." She pointed at Dareth and Raviril without moving her hand, a lazy, dismissive gesture. "Spineless toadies. Have you nothing better to do than to harass someone who has not been here for a full week yet?"

"What does it even matter to you?" She sounded genuinely confused, and Arden could understand. She'd hardly spoken more than a handful of words to anyone at Bilarthus, but today, she couldn't seem to control herself.

At six feet tall, Arden towered over Crane, and she leaned closer to use her height to her advantage. "I think I'll write your mother," she said, keeping her tone polite. "To tell her all about that nasty, low-born boy from the House of Vitahl you've been spending time with. How scandalous."

Crane blinked, sputtered. "Wh—? No, I haven't. I'm not. That's not true."

"Of course not. But that won't matter once I write the letter, will it?"

The girl's expression went through various stages of shock, befuddlement, and rage. "You're such a bitch. Is this your thing now, Raferty? You spent all of last year ignoring us, and now you're sticking up for dumb trash—?"

Arden felt it before she saw it; the air rippled, and the heat withered as if a thundercloud had crossed the sun. The lamps didn't go out, but the scant shadows resting in the long, daylit passage swelled and took on impossible, frightful shapes. The tension snapped in Tiernan, and she spun on her heels—.

Arden considered herself well-read and literate, but she simply didn't have the words to explain what happened next. She could only describe it as a wave crashing down upon them with the percussion of a bomb—if said wave were filled with black, roving talons and teeth and wide, mad eyes. It swept over the corridor, spreading in a shockwave from Tiernan's body, and it slammed Itla Crane to the floor, screaming. For a moment, it passed over Arden, blinding her, a frigid, nebulous sensation sweeping across her cheeks like silt in cold water, and she thought she would be joining Crane face-down on the flagstones, but then it flowed past her, vanished, and Arden gasped.

Only moments had passed. Glass glittered on the floor, several of the windows having shattered inward. The lamp fixtures had been twisted into broken, shapeless bronze lumps. Dareth and Raviril both picked themselves up, lurching and stumbling with various bruises, but Crane remained on the floor, sobbing. A crowd gathered farther along the passage, witness to the entire event.

At the heart of it stood Orla Tiernan—pale, shaken, and breathless. She looked at her shaking hands, then to Arden, almost as if she was seeking an answer, begging for it. Arden had none to give.

What in the world had happened?

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