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“It’s not a knife.” Grace poked at the filigreed shroud across Gwendolyn’s face. “It’s a hair ornament.”

It was then that Fia recognized the silver comb Grace so often wore, which sometimes functioned as a lockpick and was now serving as a jagged blade. Only Grace—dear, persistent Grace—could defeat a cursed spiderweb with a pretty antique.

“Grab anything sharp,” Grace directed while peeling back a long stretch of webbing from Gwendolyn’s face. “We need to get everyone out of here.”

Andromeda patted her wreath of braids, done up with small pins, and worked one loose. “It will have to do.”

“There’s glass on the floor,” Montrose said to Fia. “You just need to find a large enough piece.” Carefully wielding a shard that must have broken off from a dropped champagne flute, he sliced at the golden thread that was strung from the nearest shelf to Gwendolyn’s wrist, cutting her limb free.

Fia sifted through the shattered glass at their feet, and just as she selected a fragment, the entire room shuddered with magic. It rattled the very atmosphere of the library, rippling the air and strumming the golden webbing so that it chimed and chimed those high, eerie notes.

Fia stumbled, clutching the shard as books tumbled from the shelves and corks popped on unopened bottles of champagne. Beneath their stringy veils, the guests hummed like a haunting, their voices still trapped as surely as their bodies.

And Penbrook… she couldn’t see him. Didn’t know if he was all right. Or what had caused Thistledown to quake.

Grace swiped her hair from her face, cutting the last thread holding Gwendolyn. The older woman blubbered as Rin swept down from a shelf onto her shoulder.

“There’s no time for that. Come on, we need your help.” Grace gave Gwendolyn a gentle shake, then routed her toward a woman in a white gown, who was moaning in distress.

Another current of magic swelled through the library. Above, in the hollow center of the room that swept four stories tall, the enormous chandelier swung on its chain, and a decorative collection of vases crashed to the floor, autumn-gold roses spilling everywhere.

“Faster,” Grace said, cutting the threads that held a couple’s hands together while Montrose and Andromeda carefully sheared the veils from two petrified guests.

Fia took a step away. Her friends were okay, at least for now, and every person they released from the webbing would be able to help someone else. She glanced back at Grace. “I need—”

“To go after your magician, I know.”

Fia ripped off her mask. “He’s not—”

“He is.”

For however short a time might remain.

Lifting her papery skirt, Fia ran toward the source of the magic. Toward the danger. Toward Penbrook Madbury—the boy she’d never be able to save.

CHAPTER 35

What’s there to fear when death is already coming for me?

That was Fia’s only thought as she rushed through the library—this awful inevitability, this unfair fate. She couldn’t let these words be the last Penbrook ever spoke to her. And what had she said to him? Not all that she should have. Only the mere whisper of his name.

Spilling out from between a group of partygoers caught up in golden threads, she found Penbrook and Sebastian circling each other in the atrium, chests heaving, the scent of their magic clashing—one like rain, the other like paper and ink and ash.

Sebastian saw her first, cocking his head.

“Fia.” On the second syllable of her name, something moved across Smith’s tongue.

She wanted to look away, but she stood transfixed as a spider crawled from his mouth.

His expression remained unchanged as the creature crept down his jaw, its eight golden legs quick with magic. But even knowing it was a spell, expelled from his mouth like he’d let loose the ash in the spellshop, Fia recoiled.

She also gripped the blade of glass.

Penbrook shook his head, a thin swath of webbing across his lips preventing him from speaking. She knew what he wanted, though. For her to save herself.

Instead, she swept to his side and went up on her toes, one hand pressed to his chest as the other drew the glass across the fragile web, tearing the remains away from his mouth.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.