The arachnid sensed the vibration first.

  Heavy boots. Human stride. Heat signature: Warm.

  Prey.

  The instinct flared hot and violent in the back of Lillik’s mind, urging her to strike, to wrap, to silence. It took a full second for her human consciousness to catch up and override the command. Lillik turned her head slowly. Her human eyes focused, finally recognizing the white hair and the blue eyes.

  Rinerva.

  “Zeil.” Lillik didn’t reply. She turned her head back to the stone wall, dismissing the woman. It wasn’t an act of defiance; it was simply a lack of interest. The monster was full. The woman was empty. There was nothing left to say. “We will need potions for the confrontation with Carmilla.”

  Lillik stared at the grout between the stones. Potions, she thought vaguely. Chemistry. Binding agents. Irrelevant.

  When the silence stretched, Lillik’s peripheral vision caught a flicker in the noble’s expression. It looked like irritation… no. That wasn't right.

  Concern.

  “You are a teacher, are you not?”

  Still nothing.

  Rinerva let out a sharp sigh through her nose. She moved past the Spider, her boots clicking loudly on the floorboards as she approached Lillik’s travel alchemy kit. Lillik watched her idly. It felt like watching a child play with fire—mildly engaging, but ultimately distant. Rinerva began to pull jars and vials from the case. She set them on the table with a clatter that made the arachnid legs twitch in annoyance. The Noble uncorked a vial of Frost-Sap. Then, she reached for a jar of powdered Nightshade.

  Lillik’s human eyes narrowed slightly. Rinerva picked up a pestle. She hovered it over the Nightshade, preparing to grind it directly into the Sap.

  The Spider didn't care. But the Alchemist did.

  “...If you mix those ingredients, you’ll make a neurotoxin.”

  Her voice was rusty, scraping against her throat like gravel, but the words were precise. Rinerva paused. She held the pestle still, frozen mid-motion. She didn't look embarrassed. She shifted the Nightshade away and retrieved a jar of simple Binding Root instead, holding it up for Lillik to see.

  Her eyes locked onto the Spider’s, asking for verification.

  Lillik stared at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, she gave a stiff nod. Rinerva ground the root with improper, violent force.

  Crunch. Crunch.

  She was destroying the fibers. Anyone with a basic education in herbology knew that the root needed to be pressed to release the oils, not crushed into a dry powder. If she continued, the sap would never bind. Rinerva’s eyes flicked up to Lillik’zeil when the Spider twitched. She wasn’t looking for safety; she was looking for a correction.

  “Press the strands out of the root. Don’t crush them into the sap.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Rinerva nodded. She discarded the ruined paste, retrieved fresh ingredients, and resumed the work.

  She made mistakes. Obvious, painful mistakes.

  She added the catalyst too early. She stirred counter-clockwise. These were errors Rinerva should have known better than to commit—she had watched Lillik’zeil brew a thousand concoctions over the years. She was a tactician; she did not forget basic procedures, yet she was clumsy now. Deliberately so.

  “Stop.” Lillik’s voice cut through the scratching of the pestle. “Hand me the mortar.”

  Rinerva nodded. She slid the stone bowl across the table without a word of protest. She watched Lillik work. The Spider’s hands, still stained with the faint shadow of dried blood, moved with sudden, delicate grace. She pressed the root. She folded the sap. It was a rhythm she had practiced for decades. When Lillik finished, the base was perfect. A smooth, viscous pale orange.

  Rinerva spoke immediately.

  “Again. I’m not sure I followed the folding technique.”

  Lillik stared at her. She suspected, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she was being managed. But the work was there. The ingredients were waiting.

  “...Watch closely.”

  And so the teacher repeated the process.

  “What kind of potion is that?” Rinerva asked, leaning in.

  “Nothing yet. It’s a base.”

  “Show me how to turn it into something else.”

  An hour passed. Then another.

  Rinerva had an endless list of questions. She asked about binding agents. She asked about volatility ratios. And with every question, the Spider’s answers grew longer. The monosyllabic grunts of the monster faded, replaced by the precise, lecturing tone of the Professor. The horror of the cathedral was slowly buried, layer by layer, under the comforting logic of chemistry.

  Not fixed. But for a time, at least, out of sight.

  Hidden under a tarp for later reflection.

  Rinerva didn’t give Lillik any chances to remove that cover. Whenever the Spider’s hands slowed, or her eyes drifted toward the dark corners of the room, the Noble asked another question. She demanded another demonstration. She forced the gears of Lillik’s mind to keep turning so they wouldn't jam on the viscera and gore between the cogs.

  This continued until the gray light of dawn leaked through the boarded windows, and footsteps creaked on the stairs. Nomi and Talos entered the common room.

  They moved with a quiet, synchronized ease that hadn't been there in months. Nomi walked straight to the table. She didn't flinch at the sight of the Spider. She sat down on the bench next to Lillik, humming a soft, aimless tune, and leaned her weight comfortably against the Spider’s lower torso. She watched the alchemy process with sleepy, trusting eyes, treating the monster in the room like furniture.

  Talos moved to the supplies. He gathered rations, plating them with deliberate care, and brought them over. He set a plate before Lillik. Dried fruit. Hardtack. Nuts. He had selected strictly vegetarian options for her. It was a silent, stubborn rejection of the carnivore she had been for the last four days.

  Rinerva nodded her thanks as Talos slid a mug of tea toward her. The Noble looked ragged. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes. Rimefrost coated her fingertips where she had been freezing her own nerves to force her body to stay awake through the night.

  Lillik looked at them.

  Nomi looked healthy—the panic of the previous days replaced by a soft, grounded calm. Talos wore a tiny, almost imperceptible smile as he leaned against the table, sipping his drink.

  They weren’t afraid of her.

  They knew what she had done. They knew she had filled a cathedral with corpses and eaten the dead. Yet here they were, leaning against her, feeding her, guarding her.

  Though they should have been running, they weren’t abandoning her.

  Her fingers stilled, just for a moment. She sucked in a breath, the hairs on her legs standing to take in their scents.

  Then she kept working. She worked even when Rinerva drifted off, passing out on the table next to her mug of cold caf. She worked even when Nomi started to ask her questions about where they should go after Zylichor. She worked even when Talos brought her more food after she picked the plate clean. She hadn’t eaten since the cathedral, and he kept a constant supply of dried fruit and nuts coming.

  The tarp stayed, even bloodsoaked as it was.