But Rafi would not wake up. And even as Maria tugged and bit, and even as her own spiders struggled alongside her, she heard a scuttling sound, and she knew she was already too late. The enemy spiders were here, and they were out for blood.

In droves, they rushed over her hands and arms; they swarmed her face, knocking her glasses askew. Forced to let go of the web, Maria flailed about, trying to rid her body of the onslaught. But for every spider she shook off, two more appeared. Bulbous spiders, brown-and-red spiders — there were even bright yellow and glassy green spiders — all of them crawling on her skin with legs like little needles. And then there were black widow spiders, with their poison-red hourglasses.

In the moments when she could see her surroundings through the maelstrom of fear and color, she realized that the spiders were turning on Arturo as well. Arturo was stomping on the spiders left and right; he didn’t seem to have any of Maria’s qualms about hurting them. With each spider Arturo killed, the rest of the swarm became angrier and angrier.

When Maria finally felt the spiders moving in the same direction, and the direction was down and away from her body, she entertained the hope that they had changed their minds once more and decided to help her. But if that were the case, her own brown recluse spiders wouldn’t sound so panicked. And what’s more, she couldn’t move her arms or legs. The enemy spiders had wrapped her in a web so tight, she could hardly breathe. Arturo looked to have suffered the same fate, and he was beyond miserable. After decades of successfully evading capture, he’d finally been caught, thanks to Maria’s stupidity.

Derek was winded. He clutched his sides and gulped down air, and for a fraction of a second, he looked like the boy Maria knew. But then he stood upright and glowered at her, as if she had done something to him and not the other way around.

“Derek, help us out,” Maria pleaded. “You don’t have to do this, you know. This isn’t who you are. We can get away from her.”

“No. We can’t.” His voice was monotonous, impossible to interpret. “There’s no escaping her. The Black Widow is everywhere, in us and around us.”

And, as if fulfilling a prophecy or obeying a command, the spiders began to pool at Derek’s feet, pouring out of the walls and the ceiling and the heaps of antiques. They scrambled to climb on top of one another, a mountain of spiders that grew higher and higher.

The teeming pile became tighter and denser, until it looked almost solid, and Maria couldn’t distinguish one spider from the next. Then the pile began to take shape, squeezing in at the bottom and expanding out at the top, the very peak separating into long, thin bands like hair.

Finally, it wasn’t a pile at all. It was a woman. It was Luellen.

Only it wasn’t Luellen — there were a few key differences.

This woman had eight eyes and two terrible mandibles. The mandibles clacked together in a grotesque imitation of speech, and whether it was because words actually came out or because Maria was wearing her ring, she knew this was the Black Widow, and the Black Widow was hungry.

The Black Widow surveyed the room with those eight horrible eyes. She took her time, too, gloating in her victory.

“I have waited many years for this moment,” she said. “But I knew the rings would come to me in the end.” She turned to Arturo. “I think I will take the Brown Recluse first, so that I can savor killing you afterward. I have spent too much of my life hunting you down, oh amazing one, but it will hardly matter when I have all eight rings.”

“You don’t need to kill the girl,” Arturo said. “Look at her — she’s hardly a threat to you.”

“She’s as cunning and ruthless as I am, as we both well know. Besides, I don’t do anything without doing it thoroughly.”

The Luellen-like creature sauntered right up to Maria, its legs quivering with each step so that Maria could almost see the hundreds of spiders in its veins. Maria’s terrified face was reflected back at her eight times.

“Don’t worry, little one. This will only hurt for a second.”

She raised her arm across her chest as if she was going to backhand Maria. Maria saw the lights glittering off all six rings, one on each finger except her middle finger, which had two. Luellen’s fingers were long and sharp, like tiny daggers. There was no telling which of the rings produced that effect.

In the split second before the blow landed, Arturo disappeared with a pop and reappeared right before Maria. Luellen’s hand came down with a sickly slice. Just like that, Arturo was dead.

“No!” Maria shouted, her voice breaking like a wave. Her anguish seemed finally to pierce Derek’s armor. His eyes opened wide and he noticed the iron poker in his hand as if for the first time.

Luellen prodded Arturo’s body with her foot, then leaned over to remove the Mirror Ring as if she were picking out a diamond from a pile of trash. She slid the ring onto her middle finger so that it now bore three. As soon as it did, Luellen’s eyes glazed over with veils of red. Her transformation was nearly complete.

Luellen stared at her hand, then blinked all eight of her horrible red eyes at once. She turned her attention back to Maria.

“Symmetry, my dear, is everything in life. Balance, order, what-goes-around and all that jazz. There’s nothing quite like a perfect circle, except perhaps a perfect story, which exists always in a loop, the infinite present. When you are gone, I will be the story. When you are gone, the Order of Anansi will begin and end with me. I am sure you can see the beauty in that.”

Maria’s spiders screamed their protest in her mind. They didn’t think the Black Widow’s vision for the future was beautiful. They were as frightened and appalled as Maria was.

“The Order won’t end with you,” Maria said. “You don’t really control the spiders. They make the circle. You’re just a cog.”

For a moment, the Black Widow looked furious, her red eyes flashing dangerously. Then she threw back her head and laughed.

She removed the mirror ring, and her eyes became black once more. She removed another ring, and another, and her mandibles became cheeks and her eight eyes melded into two. At last, it was Luellen standing before her, not the Black Widow. She held the seven rings in her hand. In place of her right ear was a nub of flesh. And at her feet, an army of spiders stood ready to strike.

“Who is that pathetic little act for, Maria? Me? The spiders? My drudge of a nephew?”

Behind her and unnoticed, Derek blanched. Whatever spell the Black Widow had held over him was gone. A plan was quickly forming in Maria’s mind. She just needed to keep Luellen talking.

“It isn’t an act,” Maria said. “It’s the truth. My grandmother taught me never to harm a spider. How many have you killed to get those rings? How many more lives will you take when you have mine, too?”

“No more than you would have taken if I’d given you the chance. Oh, yes, Maria. My spies told me all about what happened at that little girl’s birthday party. You wanted to make her suffer, and you did. You wanted to have an expensive dress like hers, so you commanded your spiders to make you one. You expect me to believe you’re an innocent victim, but you’re not, Maria. You’re a wicked girl.”

“I didn’t mean to do that!” Maria shouted. “Or at least, I was sorry after I did it. That’s the important thing.” She hoped that was true. She had to believe it was.

“Oh, I’m sure the Brown Recluses before you were all very sorry when they eliminated their enemies, too. Did your grandmother happen to mention that of all the eight rings, the Brown Recluse has had the most violent history by far? No? Of course not. But so it goes. The venom of the brown recluse spider is far deadlier than the black widow’s. It is no coincidence that the ring you wear is the only poison ring in the collection. So you’ll forgive me for not believing your warmhearted display. I’ve already seen every trick in the book.”