Page 109 of Spellwright

“All I want is the book,” Penbrook said calmly, casting his mask to the floor. “You didn’t have to curse everyone here to display your anger at being summoned.”

“You did this.” Sebastian’s accusation slid icily through the room, a deflection.

“I’ve never used my magic in this way—to cause chaos, to rouse fear. To hurt another person.” Penbrook’s voice darkened on these last words, suggesting that tonight could be an exception, if that was what it took to stop Sebastian from unleashing his ruin of curses once and for all.

As the magicians stepped closer to each other—with their forced audience helplessly tangled in the luminous webs around them—Fia and Andromeda slipped into the maze of immobilized guests. Fia thought she saw at least three Cloaks caught in the threads among them, and she had to assume the others had met a similar fate.

No other help would be coming anytime soon.

“The fault is hers too.” Sebastian’s charge slipped like waves over rocks, crashing into Fia. She knew he meant her. As much as she didn’t like to consider it, she thought he might be right. All those times she’d unintentionally provoked him while searching for her mother’s spellbook, and he must have lashed out, spewing magic, aiming for her across the distance without care for who else he struck in the process.

“And you? You’re not at all to blame?” Penbrook scoffed, and oh no, it sounded like he’d masked a yawn.

“I never said that.” Sebastian sighed as if he were growing bored of the conversation—and wanted to end it. At any moment he might release another curse, one that would likely be far worse than the unnatural webbing.

Fia couldn’t just stand there. She crept along, slippers crunching on broken shards of glass, dampening the soles in champagne. She felt the weight of a hundred expectant gazes, all the guests’ eyes wide and beseeching beneath the gauzy veils. Everything within her screamed, Don’t touch it, don’t touch it! But how else could she help them? How else could she free Grace?

She hissed her friend’s name, searching all the obscured faces for the one she knew best, but it was even more impossible to recognize anyone now than it had been before. Except for Gwendolyn Blair, whose golden songbird struggled against the webbing from atop her coil of hair. His normally sweet voice pealed too high and frantic, like these muffled notes were the last he’d ever sing.

Fia could no longer see the magicians as she tiptoed over to Gwendolyn and poor little Rin, and she tried to tell herself Penbrook would be okay, but it seemed a wishful, foolish hope given his last legs and dying breaths. Beside her, slow-footed and wobbly, Andromeda was another reminder of the curse draining Penbrook’s very life, despite the show he was putting on.

Gwendolyn blinked rapidly behind the webbing, and Fia reminded herself to focus. She reached out one shaky hand, expectant of the spider that might be lying in wait. Her fingertips grazed the lacy web. It was cold to the touch, sending an unpleasant prickle up her arm, and she jumped back, hands tucked to her chest, as the thread delicately chimed.

Andromeda, less timid, dug in her nails, trying to tear the golden webbing that had caught two dancers in the middle of their rotation. The strands rang like bells, refusing to unravel.

Impenetrable, just like the cursed webs Dominik Honestly had written about in the Herald that had stretched over the cradles of the sleeping babes in the night. Elena had said they had to be slashed apart with a knife.

“Fia,” came a hushed voice, and she spun round, papery skirts whispering.

Mask discarded, Grace stood before her, black hair frosted with strings of golden webbing. It draped from her elbow too, and trailed on the floor behind her black dress. As if she’d nearly been ensnared and had just managed to escape.

“Grace! But how…?” Fia caught her friend up in a hug, only to wiggle back with a shiver.

“Goodness, Fia, they’re just cobwebs,” Grace chided softly.

“They’re a bit more than that,” Montrose said, appearing at Grace’s shoulder with his mask pushed up on his head, holding back his blue-black hair. Webs hung tattered from his coat, and he plucked at them uselessly.

Grace reached out, slashing an extraordinarily long thread from his sleeve with some sort of blade. “It didn’t do anyone any good to panic. Look at them now.”

“Not everyone is as brave as you. Not everyone comes armed.”

“Do tell,” Andromeda prompted dozily.

But Montrose seemed not to hear. His brown eyes filled with stars as he looked at Grace. That same look Fia had always wanted someone to turn on her.

That same look Penbrook had given her.

Her heart skipped. How could she only have realized this now?

And how could she have left him alone with Sebastian?

“I don’t know if I’m brave,” Grace admitted.

“Capable,” Fia said, and Grace smiled at being so well understood.

Grace turned to Gwendolyn, who was furiously humming her displeasure at being ensnared in the web while they stood around talking. With a quick swipe of her arm and a glint of silver, Grace freed the startled songbird from Gwendolyn’s hair. It burst into the air, stunned silent except for the frantic flapping of its bright wings.

“Where’d you get a knife?” Andromeda asked, sounding rather impressed through the sleepy slur of her words.