“Boyfriend,” he said again, this time not questioningly.
Just as Maria was about to protest what she had said and cover her slip-up, Joe spoke again.
“You don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to hear that from you, Maria.”
Her heart stuttered. Suddenly, everyone else in the back room vanished. It was just Joe and her. Him on the stacked bags of sugar, her standing right in front of him, both of them looking at the other with goo-goo eyes.
“Really?” Maria asked. Her voice sounded echo-y in her head.
Joe took her hands in his.
“Really.”
“Come, come,” Gramps said, his voice cutting in from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. “Let’s give them some privacy.” The sounds of chairs scraping across the linoleum distantly filled their ears. Somewhere in that lovely haze, Claire made kissing noises, and Sherlock made vomiting noises. But Maria didn’t care; nothing mattered at that moment. Not the impending war, the hidden dragon, the prospect of death…none of it.
“I think we’d better make it official, though,” Joe said as the rest of the wanderers exited the back room.
“What do you mean? Like Facebook official?” Maria asked.
Joe laughed. He still held Maria’s hands, and she hardly noticed the nervous sweat transferring between them.
“No,” Joe said. He got up from the bags. “Maria Apple, will you officially be my girlfriend? It would be a great honor to be your boyfriend.” He smiled, and Maria knew she had already fallen in love with that smile.
But the happiness quickly vanished as she remembered all of the responsibilities in her life—the magic, the fate of the Dominion villagers. It would always be in the back of her mind, no matter how happy she was.
It was good while it lasted, Maria thought regretfully.
As if reading her mind, Joe gave her hands a gentle squeeze. “Maria, I understand. Well…not really. I don’t think I’ll ever understand, but you know what I mean. I understand that you are somehow magical—wow, never thought I’d say that and literally mean it.”
“I never thought I’d be able to talk to my dog, or perform magic, or ride a dragon—”
“You rode a dragon? No fucking way. Oops, excuse my language,” Joe said, his face going slightly red.
“Oh, I don’t fucking care about cursing,” Maria assured him and laughed. “But yes, I rode a dragon. It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you another time. I think you can only handle so much shock to your system at once.”
There was a silence as Joe contemplated this, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
Maria finally broke it. “And to answer your question…yes!”
“You mean it?” Joe asked. He did his patented back of the neck scratch.
Maria smiled, leaned forward, and kissed Joe full on the lips. She felt his smile beneath her own. It was a magical moment if there ever was one, and Maria knew all about magical moments.
The door between the shop and the back room swung open, and three or four bodies spilled out onto the floor.
“Dammit, Sherlock!” Tabby said.
“Yeah, why did you have to do that?” Claire added.
Maria turned around to see Sherlock, Claire, Tabby, and Gelbus piled up, their arms and legs twisted at odd angles.
I couldn’t hear! Sherlock shouted.
Of course, none of them heard it. Maria laughed and turned back to Joe, kissing him again. She didn’t mind. They were all, bound so by magic and fate, one big family. There were no secrets.
“So, you really are magic,” Joe said, mostly to himself. “That is some crazy stuff.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Maria assured him.
Joe put his arm around her shoulders as they walked over to the pile of twisted limbs and reached in to help them up.
“Thanks,” Claire said. “And sorry about spying.”
Maria shrugged. “I expect no less.”
Claire, finally standing, hugged Maria tight. “Aw, you know me so well. You truly are my best friend.” She turned and stuck out her hand for Joe to shake.
Just as Joe reached for it, Claire withdrew her hand and threw her arms around him, drawing him close in a hug. “Welcome to the family, Joe!”
Tabby joined in, and even Sherlock got in on the action.
Muffled, Joe said, “This just keeps getting crazier and crazier.”
Agnes, Salem, and Gramps came back into the room.
“Welcome, young man,” Gramps said. “The craziness has just begun.”
“He ain’t lying,” Salem added.
Chapter Two
The Widow smelled fear. It was a sweet smell, one she relished…usually. Not tonight. The smell was ripe, overtaking the stench of the piled bodies below her. She brooded in her web, her green eyes bright in the rising smoke from the fire.
She heard footsteps a mile away.
The Arachnid soldier, Jinxton, arrived shortly after. The Widow bared her fangs in a venomous smile. She’d let him wait for a moment while she gauged his emotions; besides the fear, there was an odd mix of excitement.
He was excited to tell her news. That meant it would be good news. She picked up another emotion from the soldier as well—what is this? She shifted on her web, leaning her massive body forward to get a better look at Jinxton.
He jumped at the sound of her movement.
She was the biggest living Arachnid, but not the biggest who’d ever lived. Her king was lost in the world in between, feeding off the darkness, brooding there between the worlds, getting bigger and bigger until no purgatorial place could contain him or his only-slightly-smaller guards.
It had been said that the lair was built around the Widow. It had also been said that she had entered the lair the size of a normal Arachnid, but some odd magic had tainted her DNA, causing her to grow twenty times the size of what she should’ve been. Whatever the answer, it didn’t matter. She was huge and she was in charge.
“My Queen,” Jinxton said, bending at the knee and craning his head up to see the massive gossamer web that
