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"That wasn’t you on the CSI episode?"

"No"

Madrigal didn’t seehtful "Then perhaps Cicereau has finally miscalculated"

"Does it matter? I’m still here, a prisoner expected to reprise a role I never had, never would consent to"

"What did you s in them other people don’t"

"That’s a very ician’s assistant?"

"Cicereau expects your dazzling stage debut by toht"

"Then we dazzle, but meanwhile, how can I move around this hotel, unseen?"

"With Sylphia, but you would have to trust her webs"

"She’s as trapped as anyone here How can she be untrustworthy?"

"Her webs are part plain spit and part fairy dust Her nature is predatory, to bind and devour, despite her deceptively dainty look I care for her, but I can’t control her If you partner with her, you risk your life"

"This is your familiar?"

"A faoad Were they not dangerous, they would not be useful"

"Swell" But his words kind of defined the role of Snow in my life, didn’t they? "She was kind to me"

"She has a heart and a mind, only her nature is always uncertain And she is very jealous of me"

"These shower ’conference calls’ of ours?"

"Have od"

Didn’t I know it?

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I was used to being a failure, but I wasn’t used to failing at a job

After Madrigal’s last Margie-less shoas over and the ehands had left, I crept back to the theater and clih into the flies

Above hts-as shuttered and heavy-lidded as a hooker with industrial strength mascara-could cast no cold, critical eye on s on the wires and lines that stretched down to the stage

I just wanted to rehearse on my own, discover what I could-and couldn’t-do in this new arena I’d never chosen

I grasped one of the bungee cord lines, wrapped it around al had instructed, and jumped Flew like Peter Pan Dive-boht I would crash and burn, then letfor my skull to shatter bricks

I was a hued back and away fro to one of the high perches where the perfore Scared, exhilarated, and beginning to get the rhyth a hu the equipment, the instructor Wait! Wasn’t this all a al would not let me crash and burn His masters didn’t want that He wouldn’t tolerate it, noalone in the dark, watching the one bare light bulb left burning below, an ancient theatrical custo to know a few things about ghosts And light And myself

The impact came out of nowhere like a clock’s narrow

I was off ap

I caught a hanging bungee cord It burned the skin fro le forty feet above the stage floor Low enough to see salvation High enough to die

I tried to decipher what had happened

I was alone I orking the ropes and bungee cords I was ed Torpedoed

I looked down None of Cicereau’s very earth-bound olves were prowling Even Quicksilver had been left cooped up in our quarters Du I was a solo act

So I looked up

I spotted two glea down at s of pearls

The other ca tendrils fro it

I had no choice but to grab a viscous rope of spider web

Ooh Sticky Stretchy The black stage floor was rising like a solid wave, ready to crack al’s fa to my new alliance with him

Familiar I didn’t spin spider silk from my well, let’s not think what I didn’t have snaky Medusa locks to use as hang they didn’t know I had a fa I was instantly wearing a strongman’s belt, an all s The chains whipped out to loop around Phasia’s snaky tendrils and pulled her down, down, down

I heard a strangled screech

I was too busy rebounding up to the ceiling to much notice

Sylphia, she of the te in ht, up the farthest reaches of her glittering web

I floated like a butterfly, I stung like a bee My silver chains sliced through her web like a buzz-saw through butter

Once again I found a tiny perch high above everything and clung there

Sylphia and Phasia surged upward at me, possessive fe blends of will and tenacity and pathetic need Madrigal was their god, but he was not their species, as I was not

For the first ti frustration of the vahes’ hospital bachelor pad who had striven to claim me, in vain (Excuse the expression) These creatures and I were not coal wasn’t compatible either with his lethal, ladylike familiars, but they were locked into an uneasy trio

What, or as I compatible with? Ric Ric I wanted to think just Ric

But also, a little with Madrigal, or these spider/snake harpies would have never tried to destroy me

And maybe, on a very bad day, Snow

Shit

But I had to use what tools I had

I sent out h they were actually add-ons) and after ten franticI had both fa in cocoons of silver chains, silk, and snaky hair They were bundled up like spider food, but they reirl-children: pretty, dainty, and malevolent, like the illustration of the "The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf in a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, who had ended up chained down in Hell covered with spiders and snakes and other creepy-crawlies, oh my

I left the Slime Twins to work their way out of their oebs and ht custody while I slipped down

Before I left, I asked Sylphia to meet me in the theater after the final rehearsal the next day I had to use what tools I had, even if they venomously hated me

Quicksilver sat byarea when Sylphia caainst the dark Theater houses are always dark, even in the daytihts

I knew and had recently felt Sylphia’s coal and I had been forced to confer daily in pseudo-sexual situations I doubted that there was any likelihood of consummation between them, only a deathless bond that had no natural way, like sex, of expressing itself

I patted Quicksilver’s head as Sylphia landed on the neighboring seat, playing the butterfly rather than the bee at the moment

"You said you needed ant

"I need your help, so I can leave"

"Leave?"

I nodded "I don’t belong here I don’t want to be here, which I think you can understand There are those who miss me"

"Those?"

"A boss A lover"

"Tell me about your lover" She posed on her heels atop a seatback, the piquant face avid

I glanced at Quicksilver "Not in front of the dog"

"Why?"

"He’s very possessive"

"Why?"

"He’s ested that "Phasia says if I help you that you’ll be gone"

"I’d like to think so"

"And your familiar?"

"Gone with me I’d never leave him behind"

I saw her rainbow eyes flash at my last sentence She was powerful, fey, unhuman and so humanly insecure For a moment I wondered if she could free them all, all three, in an instant, but didn’t, because it kept Madrigal hers That wasn’t love, but she wasn’t my species either

"We will need Phasia," she said at last

I nodded

"She is even , is it?"

That was the best she could do

"He likes me too"

That threat was the best I could do

No way could Quicksilver follow the paths these two fey creatures could carve for me I was on my oith alien female rivals whose only reould be my absence, by hook or by crook But first was another rehearsal day, a final preparation for our debut, reluctant as it was for antic stage

"I’ve thought about your act," Madrigal said "It must reprise the CSI appearance and surpass it The core of it is the ten-second ca That wasn’t ht It was your double To save that lost sister of yours, would you have done it?"

Well, as she to ers Still, if I could have done that nude bit part and saved her to be found and met by me today but no ould an Our Lady of the Lake Convent School student have done that Yet, if I was sure it would save her? Lilith? If she was some severed part of me I needed to find and unite with-?

After all, Hector had me on plenty of tape already A lot ofdown lately, publicly and privately Why stop nohen it really e for a preview for the hotel’s irlfriends My stoal looked and called into the dark above us

She ca down on a thread, a thread that unwound into a rainbow of colors aqua, lime, lilac, pink, and yellow

Each of those colors wove aroundand revealing at the sa fabric and was slowly being levitated horizontal until I floated under Madrigal’s hands, sensing the glittering rainbow mummy wraps that bound me

His hands paused above my center, my navel, and I wafted upwards, stiff as a board, and felt the iridescent bindings peel away, leaving me naked The moment was beyond traumatic, but before my stomach could rebel and heave out its contents, Phasia appeared aboverope of exotic tinsel She ith Her heavy bonds made a bikini over my hips, a bandeau bra over my breasts, a collar around my throat and a turban onserpentinewhatever shallow breath I could

Madrigal bent over me, his face as frozen as a dream lover’s His lips parted as they reached my ic A glittering red rhinestoned apple was in his , bejeweled, saliva-slick, and sensual

I heard the audience of a couple dozen gasp I felt their attention shift fro forms of Sylphia and Phasia as they wrapped and trapped him ’round and ’round in their spidery, serpentine webs I thought he deserved better, but that was not what this shoas about

This act was all about the webs of power and subotten at al and his slinky, shilad of it

That’s Kansas for you

The olfDrinking,merry Good Hopefully, they’d be out cold when I caht