For a moment, the world tilted crazily, and I couldn't breathe. I just couldn't breathe-

"You're not the only one who has dreams," Bria said in a low voice, cutting into my troubled thoughts. "Last night in the train yard, I was doing just what you wanted me to-getting out of there. But I couldn't stop thinking about that night and how I had acted back then. And I decided that I didn't want to run away again."

Somehow I pushed my speculations about Fletcher aside and concentrated on her once more.

"Is-is that why you came back for me last night? Because you felt guilty about running away all those years ago?"

Bria bit her lip and nodded. "I was a coward once before when my big sister needed me. I didn't want to be one again. Especially over an arrogant assassin like Elektra LaFleur. So I ran back to the giant you had killed, the one with the gun, picked it up, and circled around behind her. The two of you were struggling, so I couldn't get a clear shot. But then she started using her magic, and you collapsed at her feet. I thought she was going to kill you, and I just-lost it. That's why I started shooting. But I didn't think to check to see how many shots were left, which is why I ran out of bullets before I could kill her."

"Believe me," I said in a wry tone. "I was grateful for the shots you took. It distracted her long enough to let me do what needed to be done."

Bria nodded and lifted her eyes to meet mine. "And that's what you specialize in, isn't it? Because you're the Spider."

I stared at her. "Does it bother you? The fact that I used to be an assassin? The fact that I've decided to go after Mab and make her pay for all the evil things she's done? For what she did to our family, to us?"

Bria didn't say anything, but I could see the struggle in her face. She hated Mab as much as I did, but my sister was still a cop. She still believed in things like law, order, justice. She'd spent her whole life believing in them and fighting against people like me. She couldn't just put all that aside because she'd found out that her long-lost sister was a notorious assassin. No matter how much I might want her to.

"So you really are the Spider?" she finally asked.

I nodded.

"And how many people have you killed over the years?"

I didn't want to push her farther away, but I wasn't going to lie to her either. Not anymore. So I shrugged. "I quit keeping count a long time ago. You wouldn't want to know anyway, not really."

"No," she said in a thoughtful tone. "I wouldn't want to know. Not really."

We didn't speak for several moments.

"So what now?" I asked. "We've both been searching for each other for weeks, and we both want Mab to pay for what she did to our family. So where does that leave us?"

Bria hesitated. "You have to understand that I've spent my whole adult life being a cop, Gin. That I was raised by a cop, a good one. Rules, procedure, the law, all of those things mean something to me. I don't think that they do to you."

I shrugged again. No, they didn't, because I had my own rules, my own procedure, my own law. But I didn't think that Bria wanted to hear about the Spider's cynical, bloody, violent worldview right now.

"I should be turning you in for everything you've done, including killing Elektra LaFleur and Mab Monroe's men, even if they deserved it," Bria said. "But I just can't seem to bring myself to do it. I don't know why."

Her reluctance to rat me out wasn't much, but it was a place to start.

"Well, I know what I want," I said. "You're my sister, Bria. I want what I've always wanted-a relationship with you. You back in my life in some way. I want to get to know you and see how much you're like the little girl I remember, the one I used to play all those games with, and have such fun with. Don't you want that too? After everything we've been through? After all these long years we've been apart?"

Bria let out a tense breath. "I thought I did before I found out that you were the Spider. Now, I just don't know."

Her words didn't surprise me. I'd expected this conversation to more or less go the way it had. But her lack of commitment hurt me, wounded me deep down in a way I couldn't even begin to describe. Probably the same way that my doubt and hesitation did to Owen. He'd never said anything to me about it, but I could tell that Owen wanted something from me that I just wasn't ready or able to give him. Just as Bria wasn't ready to give me her love and trust. Not now, maybe not ever. Irony. Out to get me once again.

"I need some time to think about things, Gin," Bria said, running a hand through her blond hair. "I mean, it's not just you. After I left the train yard last night, I called Xavier and told him what had happened. Xavier's my partner, for crying out loud, and he knew more about you, about who you are and what you do, than I did. Or do. Or whatever. I feel ... betrayed. By him, by you, by the whole situation. I can't just snap my fingers and forget everything that I am just because I know who you are now."

"I understand," I said in a quiet voice.

And I did.

Once upon a time, I'd been a happy little girl with a mother and two sisters who had loved her. But fate or destiny or even simply circumstance had turned me into a killer. It was a choice that I'd embraced and something that I'd had to do in order to survive. I knew this. Rationally, I knew it, but it had still taken me a long time to adjust to the fact that I'd never be that carefree little girl again.

And neither would Bria. In many ways, my sister was just like me. She might believe in the law and in justice, while I put my faith in my knives and my will to use them, but deep down, we were more alike than she realized. We both did what needed to be done to protect the people we cared about. I just got more blood on me along the way. I wondered if Bria would ever realize that. I hoped she would. I hoped-for a lot of things. Too many things, really.

"Well, my invitation still stands," I said.

Bria frowned. "What invitation?"

"The one to the Christmas party tomorrow at Owen Grayson's house. I'd like you to come, if you would."

Bria immediately shook her head. "I don't think that would be a good idea, Gin. I just need some time to think about things. How much time, I don't know."

I nodded, accepting her request. After all, I was the Spider, the assassin whose rune was the symbol for patience. I'd wait for Bria-for however long it took.

"All right. I'll be here, whenever you're ready," I said. "In whatever way that you want me to be."

And then there was nothing left for us to talk about, not today, so Bria slid out of the booth and got to her feet. I did the same and unlocked the front door for her.

She put her hand on the knob and twisted it as if she was about to leave. But for some reason, she turned and faced me once more.

"Whatever issues there are between us, whatever bad things we've both done over the years, I want you to know that I'm glad you're alive, Gin," Bria said. "I'm glad you're alive."

It sounded like she was saying good-bye-forever. But before I could call out to her, before I could try to get her to stay, Bria opened the door, stepped out into the cold evening, and walked away.

Taking the last piece of my childhood, and maybe even my heart, with her.

Chapter 31

That night, I couldn't sleep. Part of it was Bria, of course, and everything that had been said between us. But mostly, I couldn't stop thinking about what my sister had told me-about the man with the green eyes who'd found her wandering around in the forest after Mab had murdered our mother and older sister.

So I got out of bed, headed downstairs, and went into Fletcher Lane's office.

I clicked on the light and stood in the doorway, staring into the room in front of me. The old man's office had always been something of a mess, with papers and folders and pens scattered everywhere, from his battered desk to the bookcases that hugged the walls to the filing cabinets on either side of the door. Supposedly there was some kind of method to the madness, although I'd never quite gotten the grasp of it. Fletcher had always claimed that there was no need to lock his office, because if someone ever broke in, she'd give up trying to find what she was looking for out of sheer frustration. The only reason I'd been able to find LaFleur's file was because it had actually been in one of the filing cabinets in its proper place.

Even though he'd been dead for a couple of months now, I just hadn't had the heart to clean out Fletcher's office yet. I supposed that part of me wanted to keep everything the way that it had been the day he'd died, as if that would somehow bring him back. The air even still smelled faintly of him-like sugar, spice, and vinegar swirled all together.

But the old man wasn't coming back, and I wanted answers. So I drew in a breath, stepped into the room, and started going through the stacks of papers.

An hour later, I was ready to give up, just as Fletcher had intended. Because I'd found nothing. No files, no papers, nothing that gave me any clue as to why the old man had rescued Bria or how he'd even known she was in trouble in the first place. Once again, Fletcher had kept secrets from me, and now, since the old man was gone, I doubted I'd ever get the answers to my questions.

Tired and disgusted, I headed toward the door. I reached over to flip the light off to go back to bed when something winked at me from one of the bookcases. I looked over and noticed a crystal paperweight sitting on the shelf-one that I'd never seen before. Of course, I hadn't been in Fletcher's office for quite some time before he'd died. Curious, though, I walked over to the bookcase. It took me only half a second to realize that the paperweight was shaped like a small circle surrounded by eight thin rays.

A spider rune. My rune.

But the real kicker was the slim folder underneath the glinting crystal.

Unlike the other manila folders that littered the rest of the room, this one was the same dark brown as the bookcase, which made it practically invisible, along with the fact that most of it had been shoved back and under the books on that particular shelf. It looked like something Fletcher had just put on the bookcase and forgotten about, but I knew it was more than that. The spider rune-shaped paperweight told me as much. Fletcher had left it here for me to find. It was just my own fault that I hadn't bothered to look for it-until now.

My hands shaking just a bit, I slipped the folder off the bookshelf. For Gin, the old man's handwriting scrawled across the front in silver ink. I stared at the words a moment, then went over, sat down behind the desk, opened the folder, and started to read.

It was all there, written down in black-and-white.

Everything Fletcher Lane had observed about my family, every open door and unlocked window at our mansion, every single plan he'd made to get the job done when Mab had hired him, had hired the Tin Man, to assassinate my family.

I read the words, and it was almost like I could hear Fletcher's voice in my mind, patiently explaining things to me.

It started out like any other hit, the old man wrote. I was to kill your mother, Eira Snow, and leave you and your sisters unharmed. I would have done it too. But Mab changed her mind and wanted the three of you dead as well. You know that I don't do that sort of thing.

"No kids," I whispered in the utter silence of the office. "Ever."

Part of the assassin code that the old man had taught me-the same one he'd lived by for so many years. And apparently, the reason Bria and I were still alive today.

I kept reading. There was more-so much more. Fletcher chronicled it all. How he'd used his various contacts to tell Mab that he didn't murder children. How he told her to hire someone else to do the job. How she'd threatened to find and kill him for turning her down. And finally, how Mab had sent some of her goons after him, while she went to our house to murder my family.

Even as an assassin, I couldn't stand by and do nothing, not while innocent children were being targeted. So I tried to stop it; the old man's handwriting spelled out the words.

But I was detained by some of Mab's men. By the time I got there, it was too late. The mansion was fully engulfed in flames, and Mab was gone. But I found some tracks leading away from the house, and I knew that someone had survived. I found Bria early the next morning, wandering around in the forest, babbling about how she'd run away and how her mother and sisters were dead. So I took her and hid her until I could find a good home for her.

I thought that you were dead, Gin, until you showed up in the alley behind the Pork Pit all those weeks later. You know what happened after that.

I did the best I could for Bria-and for you, Gin. Keeping the two of you apart was the best way I knew to keep you hidden, to keep you safe from Mab, to give you time to grow up, to give me time to train you to be the Spider, the assassin you needed to be to finally defeat her. I hope you know that. I hope you can understand everything I did. I hope you can forgive me someday.

"I know you did your best, Fletcher," I whispered. "I know you did."

There was more-so much more. But the tears in my eyes blurred the words too much for me to read them. At least for tonight. So I closed the folder, laid my head down on the desk, and stared at the spider rune-shaped crystal paperweight until the sun rose over the eastern mountains.

The next day-Christmas-we all gathered at Owen's mansion.

Me, Finn, and the Deveraux sisters, who brought Vinnie and Natasha Volga along with them. All crowding into Owen's downstairs living room, along with Eva and the two people that she'd invited over for the holiday celebration-her best friend, Violet Fox, and her grandfather, Warren T. Fox. Xavier was there too, with Roslyn Phillips, who'd also brought her sister, Lisa, and young niece, Catherine.