David considers drawing his sword, but he’s frozen with awe and fear.

She brings her left arm down, and it almost looks human, aside from the garden shears in place of a hand.

Gardener. The word taunts David, biting at him, nudging him back into the moment.

Snip, snip, snip. The whisk of the scissors wakes David completely from his trance. He crab-walks backward, pulse racing as the blades barely miss his face.

The spidery woman alights delicately onto the ground in front of him.

Terror skitters through his nervous system—a thousand icy sparks igniting chill bumps along his skin. Before he can right himself and run, a thick spray of web encases him from his feet to his thighs, catching up his sheath and rendering his sword hidden and useless. David totters off balance and flattens to the ground, right next to the boy he tried to save. The boy stares at him with those numbing, desolate eyes. He pushes the web from his mouth with his tongue and garbles again in that senseless mantra, as if trying to tell David something.

The left side of David’s body aches where it hit the ground, and strands of grass tickle inside his ear.

“Well, well,” their spidery captor says with a breathy voice that leaves a coppery taste in David’s mouth, like flakes of rust and despair. “Did ye two make friends? How precioussss.”

The silvery monkey creatures snicker and creep out from their hiding places. In a last-ditch attempt to escape, David claws his hands into the grass and pulls himself along toward the edge of the thicket.

Two of the creatures leap on him and another drags the ring from his finger.

“Sparkly!” it shouts, and holds up its prize.

“Give that back!” David demands, though he has no idea where his courage comes from.

Growling, the spider gardener sweeps the chatty monkeys aside with four spindly legs and then pins David in place, spinning him around and around until he’s wrapped in web up to his shoulders.

“This ones-es is a sparkly talker,” a silver captor taunts as it jabs at David with a stick.

“A talker he may be, my slave.” The spidery woman bends low, her breath rushing across David’s face. He coughs, gagging on the scent of decay and damp earth. “But is he a dreamer?” Her right hand, cloaked in a rubbery glove, catches his chin. She looks into his eyes—an intense study that pulls at his insides—like a child worrying at a loose scab. He feels the tug deep within, deeper than his heart, deeper than his bones and blood . . . until it rips free and exposes all of his fears and hopes, all the way to his soul. “Aye. He be a most unique dreamer. And he be mine.”

At the spidery witch’s proclamation, the monkey creatures dance, their oozing silvery slime slinging across David’s face.

“Let us go,” he pleads, casting a glance to the other boy.

“Oh, nay.” Her rubber glove pets his head, tugging his hair at the scalp. “Ye came to Sister Two of yer own free will. Yer a gift for me, ye are. Ye shall be magnificent in me garden. Ye’ve seen things other humanlings haven’t. Ahhh, ye will have the most vivid dreams. And nightmares, oh, the nightmares we will spin together.” Drool dribbles from her lower lip and combines with the blood already on her chin. She swipes it away with her scissored hand, slicing her skin once more.

David tenses inside his webby casing, trying to work his hands closer to his sword. But his limbs are plastered in place—immovable.

The fallen boy whimpers across the way, and the spider scrabbles over to him. “It would seem we have a replacement for ye. Wasn’t that easy? No more suffering.” She inches off her glove, using her teeth to help in the absence of another working hand. The rubber sheath peels away to free five scorpion tails curling and uncurling in place of fingers.

David groans at the sight, repulsed.

Sister Two bows over her captive and rips the web from his chest, exposing pale skin. “Time to join the others.” Her venomous hand presses against the boy’s sternum and poison wells from the tip of her forefinger; then she punctures through the bone into his heart.

The boy howls and convulses. David cries out and struggles to get to him, but can’t move. Within moments, the boy’s body has shrunk and transformed to a silvery monkey slave, like the others. At last he stops struggling and closes his pupil-less eyes, his primate face relaxed and a black tongue hanging out of his mouth. Bubbles of slime ooze off what was once human flesh, and a long, thin tail thrashes at his backside.

David clenches his eyes shut, trying not to scream like a little boy. Be brave, he tells himself. You’re a knight. But he’s losing courage . . . he’s forgetting everything he’s been taught. All he remembers is blood and death and snapping teeth and stingers. There’s a flash of his mother’s soft and gentle hand stroking his head. It’s sliced away by a pair of garden shears.

“Be not afraid, little dream boy.” Sister Two has returned to lean over him as the slaves pick up their newest member and drag him away. “Ye’re home now. Ye have an immortal brotherhood and sisterhood here. One day, when yer dreams dry up, ye’ll join them. But first, ye’ll feed my wretched, hungry souls.”

“Nooo!” I shout. It’s a scream both for David and for the lost boy we’ll never know. The lost boy who will never be reunited with his loved ones. Who’s now lost forever, even to himself.

I scream louder as the web covers David’s face and he’s no longer able to cry for himself or anyone else. “Noooo!”

“Alison.” Thomas shakes my shoulder, and the scene scrambles and blurs around me, dragging me from his memory and dropping me back onto the chaise lounge, cradled by the dimness surrounding us.

I bury my face in Thomas’s arm, seeking his scent and warmth. Reminding myself he’s here and will never suffer like that again. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, baby. You saved me. You have nothing to be sorry for.” He wraps his arm around me and pulls me close, waiting until my heartbeat stops pounding in my ears, until I can breathe without heaving.

“Sister One lied to me,” I say, struggling to make sense of things. “She said the pixies used children’s bodies to feed the flowers. But that wasn’t it at all.”

“No. The pixies were once children themselves.” Thomas sighs heavily, his rib cage lifting my head with the effort. “And they can never return to that form again.”

My face burns with rage. “I can’t watch anymore. Please tell me that’s where it ends.”

He squeezes me. “It’s okay. That’s the blessing. Something in the web worked like a sedative. I was in a trance. I have no memories of my time in her lair, because I made no memories. All I did was dream. But I do remember stirring when you freed me from her trap and I fell to the ground. I remember you wrapping me in a blanket.”

“Yes,” I whisper in the darkness. “Sister One let me borrow it. That was all she could offer. She was terrified of her twin’s wrath. I used the blanket as a stretcher—to help me drag you out.”

“I remember that, too. I saw glimpses of you, glancing behind to make sure I didn’t fall off. Your eyes were the color of freedom. Of my future. They were full of so much sorrow, so much determination. And strength.” Thomas hugs me tighter. “Then as I roused on Morpheus’s shoulder when he carried me through the portal, you and your wings flickered in and out of my view. You were transcendent . . . ethereal. Waking up in your bed was like waking from a ten-year coma and seeing an angel. Your face was familiar, I guess from those glimpses of consciousness. For some reason, when Ivory erased my other memories, those moments remained. Maybe because they weren’t quite memories yet. They were more . . . awakenings. And with all my other memories gone, you were the only thing I recognized. Later, I convinced myself I’d dreamed of you and those wings, but it didn’t matter. Because just looking at you, with or without wings, I was reborn.”