Chapter 403: The Wise Hermes
Saturday morning, Regulus woke to a spider's face.
Baruk had lowered itself from the curtain rail on a single strand of silk, legs folded against its sides, hanging one leg-length from the tip of his nose.
It dangled there in perfect silence, all eight amber eyes trained on him, chelicerae opening and closing without a sound.
The moment his eyes opened, chelicerae went off in a rapid clatter, sharp and urgent.
Regulus had promised yesterday. Today it would get stronger.
It had woken before dawn, crawled from the pillow up to the curtain rail, spun a line, and lowered itself to exactly the height where it could watch his eyelids. How long it had waited was anyone's guess.
No noise, no fuss, no climbing onto his face. Just hanging there, staring, waiting.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
Hard to refuse a thing like that first thing in the morning, all fuzz and dark red bristles catching the murky light off the Black Lake, eight eyes fixed on you with naked hope.