The Order of Spinners outpost looked nothing like the world it claimed to defend. Above ground, its only marker was a squat, hexagonal shell of concrete and armored resin, choked with writhing bands of barbed silk. The silk was not decoration: Stewart’s overlay mapped it as a minefield, every filament a potential tripwire for alarms, chemicals, or worse. Muffet watched the strands pulse in the night, each one catching what little starlight existed, and felt the fear bar in her head rise a fraction.

  She crouched at the perimeter, hands buried in the pockets of her patched lab coat. The coat itself was ruined—too many burns and chemical stains to pass inspection—but it hung loose enough to hide the layer beneath: banded gauntlets up to the elbows, the mask rolled and stashed at her neck, every edge sealed in case she had to go full hostile.

  “Wind’s dead. Go on my mark,” Stewart said, voice stripped of all comfort. The HUD painted the approach in three lines: crawl, sprint, slide. At the gate, a light flickered, then darkened as the first watch cycle reset.

  She ran the route in her mind—twice, then a third time—before moving. The suit caught on the first strand, just as Stewart said it would, but she kept pressure low and slow, feeding slack to the thread until it vibrated at rest. Next: duck under, shoulder against cold concrete, and wait for the algorithm to loop. Stewart counted down in her ear. At zero, she moved.

  The entry corridor was a rift in the world: a wedge of shadow cut with bars of bioluminescent silk. Each bar vibrated with a rhythm so subtle Muffet couldn’t hear it, but the hair on her arms rose with every step. The air was cold and dry, edged with a chemical tang that reminded her of the inside of a hospital freezer.

  At the first junction, she slowed. The overlay mapped out two targets—security node left, admin node right—but the left was blocked by a mesh of fresh webbing. Stewart grunted, then pinged a soft target above her line of sight: “Vent. Sixty centimeters up. They never patch the vents.”

  She found the seam, pried with a fingertip, and watched the panel flex inward. The gap was just wide enough. She slithered through, coat scraping the sides, the gauntlets eating away at the soft insulation until her hands emerged into a nest of cables and sticky silk.

  The Vent ran only three meters before dumping her into a low-ceilinged crawlspace. The floor below was transparent; she could see the corridor and, below it, the glow of the security node’s central processor. The node was guarded—not by people, but by four rat-sized automata that skittered in slow circles, their legs bright with articulated steel.

  She focused on the node, feeling her hands steady as Stewart guided her through the breach. “Run the routine,” he said, and she did. The Phantom Filament she’d brought from the Marsh was the perfect bypass: its vibration matched the resonance of the Order’s own silk, but with a subtle phase shift Stewart had programmed into her memory. She tied the filament to the mesh, then sent a pulse down the line.

  The effect was instant. The lights in the corridor flickered, then dimmed. The automata shivered, froze, then powered down with a hiss that sounded almost like relief. Muffet let herself breathe, then dropped from the crawlspace, landing in a crouch behind the node.

  She patched the line, fed in a second pulse, and waited as Stewart’s overlay cracked the admin shell. The HUD filled with blue: “ACCESS: PARTIAL. MAINTAIN CAUTION.”

  She rolled her shoulder, then moved on. The next corridor was even narrower. The walls pulsed with a slow, peristaltic movement, and the silk here was thicker, colored in bands to denote security level. Stewart read it at a glance: “Orange means the old codes still work. Show your wrist if they catch you.”

  She swallowed, then pushed forward. At the corridor’s midpoint, the silk thickened to a curtain. Beyond, she heard voices—two, maybe three, all male, all flat and bored. She pressed her ear to the wall, listening.

  “…last shift logged an anomaly in the west array. Could be a critter, or one of the girls again.”

  “Protocol’s clear. Exile status—observe, report, do not intervene. They’re more dangerous in panic than on a mission.”

  A pause. Then a laugh, dry as powder. “Wouldn’t want to be the one on cleanup if they blow a gasket.”

  Muffet eased back, heart pounding. Stewart whispered, “You can get past them, but only if you keep to the shade. Minimum profile.”

  She nodded, then pressed through the curtain, shoulders hunched and eyes down. The acolytes barely looked up. One held a staff with a spiral of resin at the tip; the other wore a bandolier of glass vials, each one labeled in the Order’s code. The third stood farther back, near the control panel.

  She moved past, careful not to match their gaze. At the end of the corridor, a hatch opened onto a staircase—old iron, pocked and etched with the same sigil she wore on her wrist.

  She took the stairs two at a time, hands tight on the rail. Above, the lights faded from Orange to blue, then to a sickly white.

  The next lock was physical—a slab of titanium spun with a lattice of silk. The lock itself was a web of pattern-recognition sensors: the Order’s pride, but also its weakness. Stewart had spent hours in the Marsh teaching her to think in the code’s rhythm.

  She ran her finger along the lock, finding the correct pattern. The silk vibrated, then relaxed, and the door swung open.

  Inside, the world changed.

  The room beyond was enormous, lined with racks of scrolls and glass cabinets. Every surface was dusted with more silk, but here it was clean, almost sterile. At the center: a raised dais, and atop it, a massive tuffet upholstered in dark blue. On the tuffet: the Archweaver.

  Stolen story; please report.

  He sat with his back to the door, hands folded, body still. He wore the Order’s colors, but the robe was cut with a militaristic edge: high collar, silvered trim, every seam ironed to perfection. His hair was white and perfectly straight, falling to his shoulders in a precise sheet. Muffet recognized him instantly—Thaddeus Warp, the one who had signed her exile, the one who had rewritten the protocol to erase her work.

  She froze.

  Stewart whispered, “He’s not armed. Not physically. But don’t let him see your fear. He’ll use it.”

  The Archweaver turned, slow and measured. His eyes were pale gray, pupils so small they seemed to vanish in the glare.

  “Miss Muffet,” he said, voice calm and clinical. “Or do you prefer Stewart now?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He waved her forward. “You’ve done well to get this far. I admit, the perimeter was… less than optimal. I assume you bring news from the Marsh.”

  She stepped forward, hands still in her pockets. The coat was tight at the armpits, and she could feel the sweat pooling at her back. The mask at her neck itched, begging to be used.

  “Only that it’s changed,” she said, voice a rasp. “The Spider’s adapted. The old strategies aren’t enough.”

  He smiled, thin as wire. “We anticipated some adaptation. But to breach the Order’s own perimeter? I’d call that excessive, even for an exile.”

  She shrugged. “You know why I’m here.”

  He nodded, then gestured at the racks. “You’re here for the archives. The old records. You think they’ll tell you something I haven’t already said?”

  She let her hands come out—palms up, showing no threat. “I think the Order doesn’t want anyone to know the truth.”

  A slow exhale. “That’s your story, then. That we’re the villains, and you’re the last hope.”

  She said nothing.

  He leaned back, tapping one finger against the tuffet. “The truth, Miss Muffet, is that the world out there is chaos. The Spider is merely the visible symptom. If we lost control, the collapse would be total.”

  She let her eyes wander, scanning the room for exits, for anything that might be turned to her advantage. Stewart marked three: the hatch she’d entered by, a second door behind the dais, and a ventilation grate above the left wall.

  “Stewart,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.

  “Ready,” he replied.

  She flicked her wrist, and the gauntlet powered on. The overlay ran a pulse, pinging the room with blue light. The hatch behind the dais was the weak point—no silk, no sensors. Just old metal.

  She lunged, crossing the room in three strides. The Archweaver rose, robe flaring. She expected a counterattack, but instead, he smiled—genuine this time.

  “I hoped you’d try,” he said. “It’s in your pattern.”

  She hit the hatch with her shoulder, felt it give, then collapse. Beyond: a spiral staircase, tight and steep. She took it without looking back.

  Stewart kept count: “Twelve steps. At the bottom, a cross-hall. Right is clear, left has a guard.”

  She went right, boots slipping on the polished floor. The air here was wet and cold, the walls lined with mirrors. She saw herself in a hundred variations: as a child, as a scientist, as a ghost. She kept her eyes ahead.

  At the end of the hall: another lock, this one coded to a pattern only the highest ranks knew. Stewart flashed the memory—her memory—of the lab, the way the Webmistress had taught her to move her hands, to key the pattern.

  She did it, slow and precise. The lock blinked, then opened.

  Inside: the archives. Hundreds of meters of shelving, each packed with scrolls and glass slides. The air smelled of dust and old paper.

  She moved to the first rack and scanned the labels. Stewart highlighted the targets in blue. She ran, grabbing what she could, stuffing scrolls into the coat, into the pockets, into the waistband of her pants.

  A siren sounded, deep and slow. Muffet had thirty seconds, maybe less, before the Archweaver found her.

  She worked faster. The gauntlet’s fingertips were clumsy, but she managed.

  At the far end of the room, a wall pulsed, then slid open. The Archweaver entered, hands clasped behind his back.

  “You could have just asked,” he said, voice almost sad.

  She ignored him, grabbing one last bundle of scrolls before darting to the side. He followed, steps perfectly measured, as if he knew exactly where she’d go.

  “Stewart,” she hissed, “options.”

  “Vent in the ceiling. Three meters left. Throw a scroll as bait, then climb.”

  She did. The Archweaver moved to intercept, but she was already up, hands gripping the edge of the Vent. She hauled herself in, then kicked the panel closed behind her.

  She crawled, knees burning. Behind, she heard the Archweaver’s voice, cold as ice.

  “You can’t run forever, Miss Muffet. Eventually, the pattern ends.”

  She kept crawling, even as the silk inside the Vent caught at her sleeves, at her hair, at her skin.

  At the end, daylight.

  She burst out into the night, coat torn, hands bleeding, scrolls clutched to her chest.

  “Did we get enough?” she asked.

  Stewart’s voice, softer now: “Enough to start over. Enough to try again.”

  She smiled, teeth gritty with blood.

  Behind her, the outpost sealed itself, lights dimming as the Order reasserted control.

  Ahead: the Marsh, the Hollow, and whatever waited in the dark.

  She set off at a run, coat flapping behind her like the wings of a ruined bird.

  There would be no next time.

  There was only this time.

  And she was not going to waste it.