Jaw clenched, David leaps to his feet and rushes through the gate before fear or reason can stop him.

ANCHOR

In a chain reaction, the moment David steps through the gate, it slams shut behind him. His uncle would be safe from any stray Wonderland creatures until the mechanism reset itself with the tulgey wood’s mouth opening and closing. Only then would the gate allow anyone in from the same entrance again. Even David would have to find a new pathway to it . . . through another tulgey’s throat.

A panicked flush burns David’s face. He feels alone and scared for all of an instant before remembering that he’s been trained as a knight. His plan could work. He just has to find a fae with healing powers to spare and then make a trade of some sort. They’re rumored to collect human trinkets.

David removes his gloves, revealing the ring he received after he was anointed: a shiny band of pure gold, inlaid with sparkly diamonds around its circumference and a large glittering ruby setting, with a white cross of jade embedded in the center. To him, it is invaluable, far beyond its monetary worth, but he is willing to give it away if it means saving Uncle William.

The horrible rotting stench stings his eyes even behind his goggles. He turns on the light around the leather frames to illuminate the mossy trail beneath him, and begins running. After what feels like a quarter of a mile, the air seems to thin. He fights for breath in the enclosed, dark space. His goggles fog and he slides them off his face so they hang at his neck, still lighting his steps.

He rounds a bend and an opening comes into view, offering a hazy light to see by and a fresh stream of air. Panting, David turns off his goggles so he won’t be conspicuous when stepping from the unhinged jaw onto the ground outside.

He draws his sword as he catapults over the teeth and lands inside a thicket. A loud creaking sound makes him spin to face the tree he just exited. The jaws snap at him. He jumps backward, barely escaping before the teeth retract into the trunk to form what appears to be a benign wooden grain in the bark—though David knows better.

Tall neon grasses feather around his boots as he circles the thicket, looking for a path out.

Some tangled bushes behind him quiver. Clenching his jaw, he centers himself in the middle of a small clearing out of reach of the foliage and trees surrounding him, although there’s still a canopy of branches overhead he keeps in his sights.

The bushes shake again, and he holds up his sword, mentally preparing for one of the netherlings who’ve been spit back out of the tulgey in strange and horrible forms. Possibly a fire ant with a body made of flames, or a rocking-horsefly, with wooden rockers affixed to its six legs.

Instead, a strained yelp erupts on the other side of the bushes, followed by an outburst of hysterical miniature voices, all the more unsettling for their childlike banter.

“Stupidesses! Stupid, stupid, stupid! She usn’t like runner-aways!”

“Atchcay the umanlinghay!”

“Yesses! Or be our necks deadses and stomped.”

“Missing stakes happen.”

“Mistakens or notses, Twid Two asks usses to tie it up.”

“Onay oremay eamsdray!”

“She will hang usses by our necks . . . deadses-deadses-dead are we!”

David picks through his language training. It’s like pig latin mixed with nonsensical jargon. Three of the phrases he can make out clearly enough: The miniature-voiced creatures are chasing a runaway humanling, they’re concerned about a lack of dreams, and they’re about to have nooses around their necks.

The voices grow louder and the bushes rattle again. David ducks behind a large rock to watch. He can’t let himself be captured or hurt . . . Uncle William needs him to find help and hurry back. The leaves on the bushes part, and something plunges through.

David gasps to see a naked human boy, maybe six years older than him, stumble into the soft light of the clearing. He’s the color of milk, all but the shock of black hair on his head. It’s as if the blood has drained from him . . . not just from his face, but his torso and arms and legs, too. Then David realizes the boy’s not completely naked after all. His body is coated with something—gossamer, sticky, thick. Silken fibers hang from him in places like threads, as if he’s fraying.

Web?

David gulps, louder than intended.

The boy turns toward him, but his glazed eyes look through him. Nothing seems to register on his face. There’s no expression other than a blank, somber stare.

A webby rope grows taut on the boy’s ankle, dropping him to the ground face-first. He garbles into the grass—a strange, animalistic sound devoid of any sense—as if he’s forgotten how to talk.

The chatty little creatures of earlier scurry in—five of them—still arguing among themselves. They look like silvery spider monkeys with hairless hides. Bulbous eyes the color of nickels, with no pupils or irises, glimmer like coins in a wishing well.

Glossy slime oozes from their bald skin. The silver, oily droplets trail their footsteps and long, thin tails. All of them are wearing tiny miner’s caps. The lights bob around the clearing, a disorienting display, like glowing bubbles.

As they pass David’s rock, a putrid, meaty stench follows in their wake. They surround the fallen boy, hissing. One of them unwinds the web from the victim’s ankle and uses it to tie his hands at his back. The boy snaps his teeth in a vicious and feral attempt to break loose, though his face retains that unchanging, empty stare.

The closest creature tumbles back and then laughs—jagged, spiky teeth spreading wide in its primate face. It emits a disturbing sound somewhere between a purr and a growl, then jumps atop the boy, proceeding to stuff his mouth with web. The other silvery monkeys cheer their partner on, driven to glee by the defenseless boy’s choking sounds.

Nauseated by the gruesome spectacle, David slings his goggles at the group to distract them, then jumps out from his hiding place.

“En garde!” he shouts, and swipes his sword at the silvery creatures in an attempt to frighten them away.

They screech in unison and squirm into some hedges nearby. Whimpers shake the leaves, followed by flashes of light from their caps.

David sheathes his sword and stoops beside the boy, releasing his binds.

“Yous-es aughtent shouldn’t do it, talker,” one of the creatures warns in an airy and threatening singsong voice. “The gardener omescay on the ayway.” The others snicker in response, causing the shrubs to rattle, but then they grow disturbingly silent, as if listening for something.

Gardener? David keeps an eye trained on them as he continues to untie the boy. Uncle William niggles in the back of his mind. David hopes his other family members have found the old man by now. One thing he knows: Uncle William and his father both would want him to do the right thing. He took an oath to protect all humanity from the magi-kind, and this boy obviously needs protecting.

So intent on his inner battle, he doesn’t see the giant hovering shadow until he hears the haunting song:

“The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout,” an eerie voice croons from above.

His shoulders grow chill in the same instant his eyes snap up—too late. The horrific sight mesmerizes him.

A human-size spider hangs upside down overhead. The top half is female—translucent face with scars and bloody scratches scattered all across her purplish lips, cheeks, chin, and temples. Her silvery hair hangs down in thick coils, nearly reaching David’s head. Her bottom half is a black widow’s, five times bigger than the size of the medicine balls the knights use to build muscles and stamina. She’s balanced on a strand of web affixed to the branches, and it glistens like her hungry blue eyes. Eight shiny spider legs bend around the anchor line, both terrifying and graceful.