I’d called for a meeting of the minds to deal with our little spider friend. The girls had taken to shifts guarding me, so it was rare that all four of us were together at any one moment anymore. After all, everyone had lives beyond guarding mine.

  My apartment looked like a crime scene, and not the fun kind. The coffee table was shoved aside, books and papers were scattered everywhere, and the overhead light flickered just enough to make everything feel off. The girls had taken over, as usual. Lily was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling a crystal between her fingers. Euryale perched on the arm of a chair, looking way too amused for someone in a crisis. And Elly—because she couldn’t sit still if her life depended on it—was pacing.

  And then there was the thing in the middle of the room.

  It was still wrapped in the blanket. I didn’t know if that was better or worse, but I could feel it watching us. Every once in a while, the fabric would shift, a ripple running underneath. It wasn’t unconscious. It was waiting.

  “So,” Elly said, stopping mid-step, “do we think it is his?”

  I rubbed my face. “SilentWatcher’s? No clue. If it was, that means he’s been creeping on us way longer than I’m comfortable with.”

  She nodded. “He seemed to be up front with us the other day, so it’s likely not, but that would be the easy answer, the less worrying one.”

  Lily’s voice was soft. “And if it wasn’t his…?”

  “That means someone else sent it,” I muttered.

  Euryale stretched lazily. “Which is worse?”

  “The one that gets us killed first.” Elly remarked, glaring daggers at the blanket.

  Euryale grinned. “Fair.”

  Elly sighed and turned toward the thing. “We need answers.”

  And before I could tell her that maybe unwrapping the creepy shadow-spy wasn’t a great idea—she did it anyway.

  The blanket dropped.

  The thing underneath barely moved.

  It was insectoid, if you could call it that. Long limbs, inky skin that shifted like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to exist, and a smooth, featureless face—except for two depressions where nostrils should have been and way too many eyes.

  A seam split down the middle of its head, parting into what might have been a mouth.

  "You reek of the in-between."

  While its mouth moved, the voice wasn’t spoken. It was inside my head, slithering between my thoughts like an unwelcome guest. My stomach twisted.

  Elly took a step back. “Well, that’s horrifying.”

  The thing turned toward me.

  "You disrupt the order. The Veil is thinner where you walk."

  “Neat,” I said. “That doesn’t explain who you are or why you’re in my apartment.”

  "I was sent to observe. To report."

  Lily’s fingers tightened around her crystal. “Report to who?”

  The thing didn’t answer.

  Elly crossed her arms. “Okay, we’re not doing the cryptic monster routine tonight. Who sent you?”

  "The Watchers. The Silent. The Old Accord. The Hungry Dark. The Burning Sigil."

  I frowned and pantomimed some air guitar. “Those all sound like metal band names.” That had me really wanting to play some Guitar Hero. Maybe later, after the monster interview.

  "They are watching."

  Great. That was real reassuring.

  I pulled out my phone and typed a message to SilentWatcher.

  ME: Is this ‘bug’ yours? We’re about to squash it.

  A pause. Then—

  SilentWatcher: Bug?

  ME: Spidery little spy thing we caught sneaking around. Figured we’d check before we turned it into ectoplasmic roadkill.

  Another pause.

  SilentWatcher: Describe it.

  I looked at the thing. It looked back.

  “Uh… creepy shadow-limbs, too many joints, lots of eyes, makes your skin crawl if you look at it too long.”

  Elly added, “Moves like a stop-motion nightmare.”

  Lily elaborated, “Also, it talked. Well, not out loud, but in our heads. Kept mentioning ‘The Watchers, The Silent, The Old Accord, The Hungry Dark, The Burning Sigil.’”

  I relayed the highlights via text.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  This time, the response was instant.

  SilentWatcher: Do NOT let it leave.

  SilentWatcher: It is a loose thread. A sign that they’re moving faster than expected.

  ME: Who’s ‘they’ exactly? Because we’ve got a lot of names and no faces.

  SilentWatcher: I’ll explain. But if you’re smart, you’ll kill it now and save yourself the trouble.

  I looked at the creature, at the way its body twitched as if trying to slink into the walls. Something about it unsettled me, but that didn’t mean I was going to blindly follow orders from a guy who spoke in riddles.

  ME: You want it dead, then you tell me why. Otherwise, we’re keeping it on ice until we know what we’re dealing with.

  A longer pause. Then—

  SilentWatcher: Fine. But you need to contain it. I’ll send you instructions. You’re about to make some enemies.

  “Great,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes. “That’s exactly what I needed.”

  Euryale smirked over my shoulder. She’d taken to reading my messages without any concern for my privacy. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell her not to anyway...

  “Look on the bright side. It’s not like we didn’t already have some.” She smiled brightly.

  I stared at the mess on the coffee table—crystals, iron filings, salt, and a bunch of other mystical nonsense that looked like it belonged in a scammy Etsy shop.

  “This is stupid,” I said, holding up a jagged chunk of amethyst. “I mean, come on. Magic rocks? Really?”

  Elly gave me a flat look, hands on her hips, no-nonsense fae expression. “Yes, really. Don’t mock the magic arts.”

  Lily was already sketching symbols onto the floor with chalk. “You do realize some human superstitions are based on actual supernatural principles, right?”

  “Right, because the ancient order of basement-dwelling goblins totally cracked the secrets of the universe with dreamcatchers and Himalayan salt lamps.”

  Elly picked up a crystal—looked like quartz, but I wasn’t about to ask—and turned it thoughtfully in her fingers. “You keep joking, Daniel, and I will turn you into a supernatural Faraday cage.”

  I squinted at her. “What does that even mean?”

  She smiled too sweetly. “It means I’ll shove these crystals in places you really don’t want them.”

  Lily snorted. Euryale, lounging on the couch like none of this concerned her, grinned.

  “Fine, fine,” I muttered, throwing up my hands. “Let’s make our ghost-proof hamster ball or whatever.”

  Elly rolled her eyes but started setting the crystals in place. “We’re making a particular sort of Faraday cage, but instead of blocking electromagnetic interference, we’re blocking supernatural resonance.”

  I plopped down onto the floor beside her and flicked a piece of hematite. “Still sounds like bullshit.”

  Lily, kneeling on the other side, sprinkled salt in careful lines. “SilentWatcher said the key is harmonic resonance. Basically, certain materials disrupt supernatural signals, either dampening them or blocking them entirely.”

  “So,” I said, watching as they arranged the crystals in a rough circle, “we’re fighting magic with overpriced hippie shop junk?”

  “Call it what you want,” Elly said, adjusting one of the stones, “but this will keep our spidery friend from screaming for help.”

  I looked at the shadowy, spindly-limbed thing still bundled up in a blanket in the corner. Its too-many-jointed arms twitched occasionally, and I wasn’t a fan of how it had just been watching us this whole time. It was too quiet. Too still.

  “Fine,” I said, shaking my head. “Just tell me where to put this stuff so we can get this over with.”

  Euryale yawned. “You should listen to them, you know. They know what they’re doing.”

  I waved her off, but I did what they said. Maybe it was nonsense. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, the faster we built this thing, the better.

  SilentWatcher had warned us—by making this, we were sending a signal that we knew we were being watched and wouldn’t stand by helplessly. It was the kind that of message that would attract worse things than this creepy little bastard in the blanket.

  And I had a bad feeling that meant our problems were only just getting started.

  “Alright,” Lily said, rolling her shoulders. “Let’s see what kind of woo-woo nonsense actually works on this beastie. Despite the principals behind it, these things are finicky and highly individual.”

  I pointedly chose to not make a comment, though I practically had to chew on my fist to hold back. Instead, I sat back on my heels, arms crossed as Elly arranged the first set of crystals around the struggling creature. Amethyst, quartz, hematite, and a few others that I refused to acknowledge as anything other than expensive gravel.

  Elly took a deep breath. “Starting with amethyst for clarity, quartz for amplification, hematite for grounding, and—”

  I smirked. “And bullshit for bullshit?”

  She flicked a small shard of something sharp and unpleasantly pointy at my forehead. “Daniel, shut up. You’re about three snide remarks past your quota now.”

  Lily exhaled, fingers twitching in anticipation. “Let’s see if this one works.”

  The creature twitched under its blanket, chittering softly, like a spider trying to talk. The crystals pulsed faintly, but nothing changed. The air felt… wrong, but the thing itself was still out of sync, its form flickering like bad reception.

  Elly frowned. “No good. It’s resisting.”

  Euryale, still reclining on the couch like she was watching a particularly amusing sitcom, raised a brow. “Try something less passive. That thing is an intruder, not a guest.”

  Elly chewed her lip, then started swapping stones. Garnet replaced amethyst. Obsidian replaced hematite. Tiger’s eye instead of quartz.

  “Garnet for blood,” she murmured. “Obsidian for severance. Tiger’s eye for focus.”

  I frowned. “That sounds—”

  Before I could finish, the effect was immediate. The creature jerked as if something invisible had just grabbed it. The air grew thick, humming with unseen tension. Shadows flickered across its form, and its limbs spasmed in erratic, unnatural movements.

  Lily shivered. “Yeah. That’s doing something. Closer.”

  The creature let out a sharp, strangled sound—almost a whimper, almost a scream—before it started to solidify.

  Not completely. Not yet. But its form stopped jittering so much, and I could make out details instead of it looking like a living glitch.

  “Better,” Elly said, but she still wasn’t satisfied.

  She swapped again.

  Jet instead of obsidian. Selenite instead of tiger’s eye. Bloodstone instead of garnet.

  “Jet for banishment,” she whispered. “Selenite for purification. Bloodstone for binding.”

  The humming in the air intensified. My ears popped.

  The creature froze.

  For a split second, its many eyes—I wished I hadn’t seen how many—focused on me. My stomach turned. The wrongness of it seeped into my skin like cold oil.

  Then, with a sound like a plucked string, the universe seemed to snap into place.

  It was no longer phasing.

  It was here.

  Fully. Completely.

  No flickering. No distortion. No escape.

  The thing slumped, its body no longer resisting reality.

  Lily exhaled. “Well… that was unsettling.”

  Euryale chuckled. “You think it was unsettling? Try being it.”

  Elly wiped her hands on her jeans. “It’s locked in now.” She glanced at me. “So, Daniel, still think this is all just overpriced hippie junk?”

  I swallowed. “…I am willing to admit I may have been slightly incorrect.”

  Lily smirked. “Slightly?”

  “Let’s not get carried away.” I cleared my throat nervously. “So it’s not dead, right?”

  “No, it’s just isolated, so it can’t escape back across the Veil. It also can’t report. It’s like a phone without service.” Elly explained.

  “We can try to get some information out of it, once we figure out how to understand it.” Euryale suggested.

  The girls nodded at each other, each eyeing the creature as if just staring at it would be enough inspiration to understand it. I had no doubt that Elly would scour the Elfnet to find out more tonight. The other two had their sources, as well, I was sure.

  I, on the other hand, tried not to look at it, but, in my head, I knew something had changed. This wasn’t just about some spidery spy thing anymore. This was proof that we had crossed a line.

  A line we could never uncross.