Chapter One Hundred and Fifty: The Spider’s Nest

This girl was a redhead, and literally. Her hair was scarlet, almost the hue of blood, just enough on the unnatural side to be magical. She flaunted it, obviously quite proud of it. It set off her pale, almost milk-white complexion, and the scattering of faint freckles along her cheekbones only seemed to accentuate them more.

She might have been ten, but she knew she was beautiful, how to use it, and was obviously known by all those about. Her attire was clean and simple, but the flame symbol at her throat was an alert to anyone who knew anything that she was a sorceress of flame, and even if she wouldn't be very powerful at her age, those dark robes meant she had a backer, and testing them would be a bad idea.

She was very confident and at ease, clear in her beauty and power, but few could see that behind her golden eyes was a clear and cold mind at work, that knew the ugly parts of the world and what they meant. She was neither clean nor innocent, despite her appearance, and she knew how to survive and play the game of life.

And then she stopped in place, blinking in consternation.

There were three people in front of her, two girls and a grown woman. They were all definitely singular in appearance. The woman was tall and graceful, dark of hair and golden of skin, a beauty desirable by any man... and in the robes of a Sylunar Priestess, not to be touched by those who desired to see the next evening. The older girl's hair was pure green, a strange hue that did not seem to be related to water or plants or anything, really. The smaller girl was like a doll, white haired and pale-eyed, and staring at her in nearly as much consternation as she was at the two girls.

She had never felt a sensation like this. It was like... sisterhood?

Instantly her defenses came up. Strangers were always trying to take advantage, it had been a cruel lesson she had learned repeatedly.

Both of the girls looked up at the woman with complicated expressions. "You're right, she is one of us, Sister Hazé," the emerald-locked girl said, before turning her eyes back on the scarlet-haired girl.

"The Void Brothers are rarely wrong about such things, especially the Fire and the Sword."

The girl with scarlet hair froze on hearing that. She lived in a certain segment of society where dire stories proliferated, and those of the Void Brothers were definitely among those. The Fire and the Sword was a Mage Slayer incarnate, something no arcane Caster would take lightly.

The Priestess looked at her, assessing. "What is your name, little sister?"

This question was not light, coming from a Moon Priestess. It acknowledged her as a Fellow Caster. She puffed up despite herself.

"I am Amber, m'lady," she said, even managing a partial bow despite herself. This woman came from a very different class of people then did she, but she wasn't any more beautiful, only more powerful... for now...

"Would you be available to have a short chat?" The Priestess gestured at a park nearby, and an empty bench there. Amber looked over at, debating risk and reward. Her errand was not that urgent, and this did not sound like it was dangerous. The eyes of the two girls staring at her were filled with strange, knowing emotions... she suddenly felt like they were older and wiser then her, even the little one who didn't come up to her chest. "Verd and Veis would like to speak with you."

"I, I think I can spare a few minutes," she sniffed proudly.

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"What is it you wish to speak me about?" Amber asked, glancing after the Priestess who was walking away from them, her brow furrowing. She was on guard against the Priestess; who knew what magic the woman commanded, but these two felt like talking to two new best friends, a very odd sensation to her, who had mostly dealt with older women around her all her life.

"I see that you can feel the sisterhood bond between us," Verd spoke up, and Veis, with her huge pale blue eyes, nodded along, so incredibly cute Amber wanted to pick up and hug her despite her resentment. The sadness in those eyes was aching to see, overriding her estimation of the girls' high stations.

"I... sisterhood?" She felt uncomfortably aware that if she lied, it would be sensed immediately.

"Yes. We are all Hagchildren." Before Amber could process that, Verd pointed at herself, fingering her hair. "My Hagmother is a greenhag. Veis' Hagmother is a stormcrone. Yours is a shellycoat."

Amber felt her breath catching in her throat, her heart pounding at a revelation like this. She looked back and forth between them, a refutation, an accusation, denials and protests trying to leap off her tongue... and found she simply couldn't believe they were lying to her.

That... she was the daughter of a shellycoat? "I-I don't know much about Hags," she whispered, her eyes wide, and stomach doing flipflops. "I thought I had a bloodline of fire from my father..."

"You might, but it's irrelevant. Your Hag blood will take over, unless it's stopped. We came here to help you, and take you away from here before your Hagmother grabs you, and makes you one of them."

Amber found herself shivering so hard she almost convulsed. My Hagmother is coming for me... the words whispered in her mind, like a nightmare slowly uncoiling, waiting for this very moment to stir in her a dread she'd never known.

"I can't... my mother, my aunts-" she started to protest. Both girls, with their sad, sad, pained eyes, shook their heads together.

"Don't go back there." Veis' voice definitely had an aristocratic accent, despite her age. "It's a very bad place."

Amber felt her anger rising, and her face flushed with resentment at their judgement, but Verd spoke up before she could defend it. "It's a werespider nest."

Her passionate defense of the women she lived with and their lifestyle being judged by those born to higher station suffered a choking death in her throat. Amber felt like she had almost swallowed her tongue.

"We-werespiders?" she repeated, almost screeching, as things began to crawl in the back of her mind. Glimpses of strange things she attributed to the illusion magic so many of the women who worked there had, adding an air of mystery and danger to everything.

"You've never been down below, have you? Below the basement with all the costumes," Verd said.

Amber felt her pulse roaring in her ears. She knew that sometimes abusive, cheap, or notorious customers were sometimes brought below, and never heard from again. The women just laughed it off with knowing smiles, men getting their rightful comeuppance from women who knew how to take care of themselves...

"It's a spider's nest, a big one, where they go in their alternate forms." Verd's nose wrinkled. "They have a servant spider down there, guarding their treasures, meals strung up in great cocoons. Oh, and there's a phase spider that can go ethereal guarding the whole building. Its webs run inside the walls, and keep out stalkers. It lives up in the attic, and eats all the thieves that try to break in."

"Ugggh." Veis' shudder was more convincing then a thousand stories. She squirmed with a total revulsion that was impossible to emulate.

Amber swallowed again. She had been told there was a monster in the attic that ate thieves, and not to disturb it, ever. She had once seen a client who refused to pay get taken down by a poisoned stiletto, hauled up to the third floor, and bundled up the ladder to the attic. Something had reached down and hauled him into the darkness, and they'd shut the ladder up and left it, just like that.

She had definitely never gone up to investigate.

"I... what about my mother?" she asked, wide-eyed now. "I mean, I look so much like her..."

Both girls shook their heads. "No," corrected little Veis firmly. "She looks like YOU. She's a Red Widow. They can look however they need to. She's not-not your mother!" Veis started tearing up like she was going to cry, and Verd pulled her back for a hug. Amber was not at all sure she wanted to hear the story behind that statement, as she had the feeling it was far too much like what she was confronting.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm her raging emotions. She had always been around the workers at The Crimson Rose, women who were calm, calculating, and deadly if they needed to be.

All of them, so much alike in temperament. Very few arguments, very few differences, performing their duties in the sex trade with complete aplomb and occasionally dangerous proficiency. They never seemed to get sick, they all had wonderful complexions and dark charms, especially her mother...

Not like any other brothel in this city. The women there looked beaten so quickly, exhausted by the trade and its unrealistic demands for the soiling of perfection. And they all had bouncers...

There were no men working at The Crimson Rose. There was no venereal disease among the women...

Amber swallowed again, trying to bring all this together in her head. "They work for my Hagmother..." she found herself saying, and knew it was true.

Verd nodded with her. "Probably. Shellycoats are almost all involved in the sex trade. The werespiders have been spreading a nasty form of syphilis which can be activated with a magic Ritual. Sister Hazé has already let the White Mothers know, and is working on an antidote for when they activate it. It will probably hit thousands all at once, their clients and their other lovers."

Amber wanted to laugh coldly about such hypocrites getting a taste of their own medicine, but the women they were cheating on were not guilty of anything, and would die too. She had certainly seen enough of them, cheated on by husbands and lovers for mere coin, giving the lie to all their promises of love...

"I-I," she started, and then stopped. "I don't know what to do..." It was a very hard thing to admit. She prided herself on being able to take care of herself, but this, this...

"Come with us. We sisters need to take care of one another," Verd said, and Veis stepped forwards to take Amber's hands, staring at her.

Hagchildren. Sisters cursed by Hags, bound by more then blood. No one else could understand what it meant to be someone like them.

Amber swallowed as she looked into the too-old eyes of this little girl, and knew that her own eyes were starting to reflect the same thing.

"What... what about my mother, and my aunts?" she found herself asking. She knew she couldn't go back. The women were sharp, attentive, and would notice something was off about her immediately.

Both of the girls looked in a certain direction, and Amber followed suit, turning around.

Back in the direction of the Crimson Rose.

Fire exploded up in the sky, erupting out from below, a raging cone of fire of tremendous fire. A cyclone of flames spun out of it, roared back down in the distance. She heard the rumble of the explosion seconds later, and another blazing set of flames rose in the distance, sending smoke soaring high and far.

"Sister Hazé started at the bottom," Verd said calmly. "She's killing the rest of them now." She looked at Amber sympathetically, as the red-haired girl turned back. "She's already killed the Red Widow." There were two strokes of lightning coming down from above, in different locations. "Those are the safehouses they are trying to reach. She trapped them last night. They're burning too." More pillars of smoke joined the climb to the skies. "She'll be back in a few minutes to bring us away from here. Do you want her to save you from your Hagmother?"

Amber thought of Rose Crimson, the premier courtesan and owner of The Rose Crimson, who she had always called mother, and until this moment, thought actually was. A false love, a manipulation that had started with the day she was born, no doubt...

A stranger, taking advantage...

"I don't have anywhere else to go," she murmured, and knew it was true. There were places she could go, certainly, but the first thing they would want to do is take advantage of her beauty, and she knew what would follow thereafter. "She isn't a hagchild... is she?" She did not have any sense of sisterhood with the woman.

Both girls shook their heads. "Teacher!" they said together.

Amber didn't debate long, seeing the pained conviction in both of their eyes. "I will come with you..." she murmured, and both girls smiled sadly, yet happily.

"It's going to be horrible," Verd promised with a straight face. "She's a total slave-driver, insisting we be able to take care of ourselves."

Amber could totally agree with that philosophy. "She is obviously powerful..." Both girls nodded.

"And you will love Mama!" Veis spoke up happily.

"Mama is wonderful," agreed Verd calmly, and Amber found herself looking forward to meeting her, despite herself.

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It was only ten minutes before Sister Hazé returned, unmarked and unruffled, and not looking at all like she had carried out a massacre of werefolk and a demonic shapechanging arachnid. She just looked at Verd, who nodded; so did Veis; and her eyes turned to Amber, who also slowly nodded.

They walked a short distance away into an alley. Magic came up, and took all four of them away.