“Oh, someone’s in the shop, all right. The light was on in the basement. My mirrors should be here any” — he cracked open the shop door, and a trio of shiny mirror spiders slinked out — “moment.”

The spiders crawled up Arturo’s leg, all the way to his shoulder. He squinted his eyes as if listening to a faraway sound.

“They say the boy is down there. Derek, it sounds like. But your mother and brother, too. The two of them are … asleep. My mirrors caught no sign of Luellen herself. I expect she is still out looking for you.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Derek won’t be a problem. He won’t. I know it.”

“Maria, I don’t think you understand how dangerous a person without a mind of his own can be.”

“Sure I do,” Maria said. “This girl in my school, Claire, has turned practically the whole seventh grade into followers.”

“If you don’t take this seriously, you’re going to get us both killed.”

“I’m sorry, but look: You might know more about spiders, but I know more about Derek. If you just let me talk to him, I —”

“No. I have a better plan.”

Every moment they spent talking in the street was a moment they weren’t rescuing Rafi and Mom.

“Fine. What’s your plan?”

“Well, part one is that we hide your ring.”

“What?”

“Your ring. If you take it right to her, you have nothing left to bargain with, and she’ll kill you immediately. If you hide it, you have the power to negotiate.”

Maria winced. She hadn’t thought about that. But there was one small problem.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t trust you all the way. The Black Widow kidnapped my family, but you tried to kidnap me, too, you know. Esme gave me the ring, so the ring stays with me.”

Arturo narrowed his eyes at her, visibly unhappy.

“Fine,” he seethed. “Then on to part two.”

And with that, he turned and swept back into the shop, not even bothering to make sure Maria was following him. Fine by her. She was getting the hang of this Order thing. You just had to accept that everyone was trying to trick you at all times, and the only safe bet was to trick them back.

“Are you ready?” Maria whispered to her spiders. She could almost feel their anxious twitching in response. “Me neither,” she said.

Arturo was waiting for her at the checkout counter inside. The light from the basement filtered up and speckled the main room with just enough slivers to see by. The same old trinkets that had looked so harmless and familiar earlier now looked like the possessions of ghosts.

“They say Derek is guarding your family on the far side of the room,” Arturo whispered, the trio of spiders still perched on his shoulder. “I’ll go down first and keep him occupied while you sneak around and free them. And whatever you see down in the basement, you mustn’t stop moving. Do you think you can do that?”

“How are you going to distract him?”

“Do you think you can do that?” Arturo repeated.

Maria nodded. She dreaded to think what the mirror spiders had seen that Arturo was so afraid to tell her now.

“Then do it, and don’t worry about how I’m going to distract him. Just count to ten, then follow me down the stairs.”

With that, Arturo disappeared through the door.

One, two, three, Maria counted, listening for movement from the basement but hearing nothing.

“Stay close to me,” she whispered to her spiders.

Four, five, six. Still nothing. Maria went to the door.

We will, her spiders whispered, and the ring grew warm.

Seven, eight, nine. She took a deep breath.

“Here goes nothing.”

Ten.

She raced down the stairs to the sound of shattering glass.

The scene in the basement took her totally by surprise.

It was all the same junk from before, but it had been reconfigured — organized, somehow, though into what Maria couldn’t say. Across the room, Derek appeared to be strapped into a makeshift suit of armor comprised of pots, pans, and deconstructed furniture. The clock he’d been “repairing” earlier was now on his chest plate, counting time. He was wielding a fireplace poker like a sword, and the reckless anger in his movement as he struck out at Arturo was the only thing that kept the whole image from being comical.

Maria breathed in sharply as the poker connected with Arturo’s chest, but the sound of her gasp was drowned out by more glass shattering. It hadn’t been Arturo at all, but his reflection in one of the many old mirrors. By the looks of the shattered glass on the ground behind Derek, this had happened before.

She was still standing there, agog, when Derek started to turn his eyes in her direction. She’d been given one instruction — don’t get distracted — and already she’d blown it. She was about to ruin the entire rescue.

Arturo appeared farther into the room, and he shouted, “Hey! Junk heap!” Derek whirred around in rage.

Maria ducked behind a nearby dresser, scrambling to take in the rest of her surroundings. She needed to find her mother and Rafi and get them out of here fast, before the Black Widow returned.

Then, in the corner, she saw something ghastly — something that robbed all the air from her lungs. It was the spiderweb to end all spiderwebs, strewn between the wooden beams that seemed to hold the whole foundation of the old building in place.

Mom and Rafi weren’t just strung up in the web — they were wrapped from neck to foot, so that their faces were visible and visibly distressed. As the spiders had warned, neither of them appeared to be awake, which was probably a good thing. If Rafi were awake, he’d be hysterical. He never liked small spaces or being forced to keep still.

Maria made her way from one hiding spot to the next in a low crouch, dodging left and right as Derek turned with his weapon. Arturo was clearly trying to lead him away from the web, but he was limited by the placement and number of mirrors — a number that was getting smaller as Derek demolished one after another.

Finally, Maria reached the web. Up close, she could see that Rafi’s lips were tinged with blue, and the color had drained from Mom’s face. They couldn’t be gone. They couldn’t. Whatever was keeping them unconscious must have sent them into a kind of shock.

“Aha!” Derek shouted, parrying once more with the poker. The glass of one more mirror crashed with the resounding cascade of a chime, and a cuckoo clock somewhere in the rubble echoed in the silence that followed. But that was the last mirror, and when Derek spun on his heel, he was standing face-to-face with the real Arturo. Over Arturo’s shoulder, Derek saw Maria, and he knew he’d been had.

“Maria, hurry!” Arturo called. She’d failed his orders again. She was just so tired, disoriented, and scared.

But she pushed on because she had to. She clawed at the web until it was thick in her fingernails. When her hands started to get stuck, she used her teeth.

“Help me,” she pleaded, and her spiders went to work immediately. But this was no ordinary spiderweb; it was thick like plastic and almost as strong. If only she’d thought to bring a knife.

Meanwhile, Arturo struggled to keep Derek away using what looked like the leg of an old table. It was stranger than any duel Maria had ever imagined, and clumsier, louder, and more dangerous, too. Maria didn’t want either of them to be hurt, but it was finally sinking in that this wasn’t her best friend — the Black Widow’s power had seen to that.

“Wake up, Rafi,” Maria said desperately. “Help me get Mom down. Please, wake up.”