“Go and find Tallah. Go and find the girl. See if we can do something, or purge everything living that would be better off dead. We’ll figure it out as we go.”


    Vergil grimaced, “That’s a terrible plan, Sil.”


    She gave him another glare. He was growing immune to those.


    “I’m exceptionally well-equipped for terrible plans.” Her poke in his ribs would’ve worked better if not for Tummy’s armour. “I seem to recall you’re no different. I’m still mad for the ideas you put in Tallah’s head.”


    “It worked out. We’re here.” Granted, he hadn’t planned on being all the way here, and especially not on dealing with an alien species’ crisis of being. But in the grand scheme, things had worked out again.


    Sil poked him again, harder, finding a suitably soft spot in his armpit to stab. “You left Mertle to deal with the entire headache. I just hope, for your sake mind you, she’s managed to disengage and separate from Tianna and the entire mess. She’s alone to try and explain why her constant in-house healer and companion just went poof together with her lover. Both you and Tallah are to blame for that.” Her mismatched eyes pinned him to the wall and her voice was laden with thorns. “There will be a reckoning, Vergil. If something’s happened to her, I will do unspeakable things to you.”


    “Oh. Hadn’t thought… but… they’d leave her alone if she’s not Tallah. Wouldn’t they?” It sounded brittle even to his ears.


    “Not if they’re competent enough to put together that it was awfully convenient how their missing sorceress showed up at the exact right time. I wouldn’t bite on that. Tallah would’ve had Tianna in chains by the night’s end if she were still in the Guard. Next time shut up and let the adult find a solution. You’re as bad as Tallah.”


    Vergil deflated and pulled back, avoiding meeting Sil’s eye. She was right. He hadn’t thought things quite that far and now he felt bad for what he’d convinced Mertle and Aliana to do on their behalf. He’d hate himself if something had happened to them because of his idea.


    “Anyway, let’s plan well this next part,” Sil went on with an annoyed sniff. “Oldest, how do we reach that birthing place you mentioned? If we’re going to try and fix anything in here, it should start from there, from the original body.”


    Before the spider had a chance to answer, the doors shook. The entire cavern shook and trembled as whatever was outside slammed against the stone.


    With thunderous noise, the thick slabs began opening. Webs holding the doors locked tight snapped and whip-lashed across the room to pulp at least two spiders not quick enough to get out of the way. With an agonising, tortured scraping of stone grinding against stone, the two slabs cracked open.


    Vergil drew his sword and took position in front of the gap, shielding Sil behind him. The spiders arrayed around, waiting with grim determination for whatever was coming through. Luna was on his shoulder, drawn into a tight, shivering ball.


    “I thought you said she couldn’t see us here,” Sil said to the Oldest as it came next to her leg and waited.


    “She shouldn’t. She knows we are here but does not come. Mother keeps her blind.”


    “I doubt that very much.”


    When the doors separated enough for a person to walk through, fire ignited beyond, two pinpricks of flame growing in intensity.


    Relief overpowered Vergil’s fear and he let out a whoop of joy. “Tallah!” he called out and rushed to meet the sorceress.


    The sorceress stood in the gap between the doors, looking as bewildered as all the spiders, her hands aflame, hair spilling over her shoulders in a tangled mess. He would’ve hugged her if, instead, she didn’t look over her shoulder, grimaced, and then rushed in past him. She grabbed the back of his shirt, her hands still hot, and dragged him backward.


    “Fine place the two of you chose to hole up in,” she snapped. “Sil, get me up to date.”


    Tallah turned, planted her feet, extended her arms towards the doors, and pulled on invisible threads. As they had opened, so the doors shut.


    “If you can understand the spiders or they you, tell them to bar the doors. That thing out there’s got my scent and I don’t think it missed my flight to here.”


    “The false mother is distracted in the feeding grounds. Maybe not for long,” the Oldest said. “Welcome to our Knowing, friend of friends.”


    Tallah spared the spider a long glance and then her eyes snapped up to Sil. “Explain.”


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Vergil shrank back from her attention, feeling very much a child next to her as Sil gave a quick account of their situation and the events of the past few hours. Tallah listened and nodded along without much commentary. By the end, after the summarised explanation of what they’d uncovered, she gave him a long, appraising look.


    He expected her displeasure. He’d fed Sil something that could’ve been poison. Hadn’t been much use in defending her even after Tallah had spent so long training him. Barely kept his head in the forest—


    “Good job, Vergil. You’ve done well. Give me your helmet.”


    “What?”


    Before he knew it, the horned thing was in her hand, yanked by some means off his belt. She took one look at it, shrugged, and tossed it casually into a rend. “You’re done wearing this. The ghost’s strength isn’t worth what’s happening to you.”


    “What?!”


    But Tallah was already walking past them to get a gander at the library for herself. He wanted to rage at her to get his artefact back. It was his! He didn’t care about whatever effect it had on him. It was bloody his, and he’d choose if to ever part with it.


    Then the first of her words hit him in full.


    She’d praised him.


    “Don’t look so pleased with yourself.” Sil kicked him in the shin without any rancour. “Not many get that from her. Congratulations.”


    “Are you both just babying me? Like, so I don’t break down or something?”


    Sil only answered with a smile and went to stand by Tallah.


    “Ludwig took the mask?” she asked matter-of-factly.


    “And when I find him,” the sorceress answered, “I may fuse it to his face.”


    “Wouldn’t recommend it. Takes forever to clean off burnt skin. Where do you supposed he’s gone.”


    “Where else? To find the girl. Why, I couldn’t tell you. I believe he means to kill her.”


    “I wish him luck, though that’s hardly any way to repent for ancient crimes.”


    “I hardly think he wants to repent. I don’t pretend to understand the mad and how they think.” She raised a hand to the webs and ran her fingers ever so gently down one thread. “This is new. I agree, it needs protecting.”


    Just like that… Vergil joined them, head suddenly light.


    “So, we’re really helping the spiders? We’ll save them? Just like that?”


    She’d decided on a course of action like it was nothing. How?


    “Do you just… accept the responsibility?” Voice cracking halfway through, he swivelled his gaze to the two women, then turned to the gathered spiders. Unreadable black and red eyes met his and something tightened inside his chest. Wanting to help had been easier before Tallah arrived and made it all real.


    Now they would be responsible for all those here. For Luna even. His mouth worked but no sounds emerged as he struggled to articulate what exactly he felt.


    Sil laughed softly, “Either say what you mean to say, Vergil, or close your mouth. You look like an imbecile. I thought you wanted to help.”


    “I do. I just—”


    Tallah’s hard gaze never wavered, “Would you rather I burn them?”


    “No. Of course not.”


    “Then we will help because we are here now. Because we can,” she said, words carrying the argument’s finality.


    She turned to the Oldest, not waiting for anything more from Vergil. Sil still looked at him, smiling as if proud in some way.


    “I thought the two of your were villains,” he found the words and forced himself to match Sil’s smile.


    “Never said we’d be doing anything for free. I expect to be well compensated for all this.”


    She was lying. He could see it in her eyes. Still, he let out a slow breath. Part of him had agreed with Tallah’s alternative, disgusted that they were to help the very torturers that had hurt Erisa. Part of him tried to reconcile the horror and disgust with an understanding of fundamental differences.


    It was best that Tallah had decided on shouldering the responsibility.


    “Do you know how to weave soul thread?” Tallah asked the Oldest.


    “I do not know what that is.”


    She opened a rend and pulled out a black, buzzing gem. A feeling of wrong washed across the room when she held it out.


    “I need what’s in this extracted and turned into thread. I need that thread sewn into me. Do you understand that? Is it something you can do?”


    The white spider that hung on the edges of the room came forward and reached two reverent claws for the gem. She handed it over and it, in turn, turned it over on each side.


    “We can do this, yes.” Its voice was odd, like there and not really, musical. It hadn’t spoken before, and Vergil wished it still hadn’t. “This is… terrible. Angry like the false mother.”


    “You want Anna?!” Sil was at once horrified and unbelieving, a hand to her mouth. “Of all things, Anna?”


    Tallah staggered as if slapped.


    “Don’t all of you yell at me at once. Yes, I need Anna. As good a time as any to get her." She thumbed over her shoulder. “That thing out there is an Egia and I have trouble fighting it. We need someone with a more multilateral perspective if I’m to have a chance of it.”