throat yearned for water, but I refused to show weakness. I wouldn’t slow us down.
So it surprised me when, a few hours before dusk, Edan declared that we would stop and make camp. He was usually adamant about traveling until nightfall.
There was nothing special about where we were. As far as I could see, there was only sand and more sand, but something had made Edan perk up.
He fished in his satchel for an empty jar.
“What’s the jar for?” I asked. My voice was unrecognizable. Dry and crackly.
“Spider hunting,” Edan replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Golden wheel spiders are extremely rare, but I have a feeling luck is on our side.”
“How will we find one?”
“By being observant.” He lay on his stomach, scooping up a handful of sand and letting it cascade through the seams of his fingers. “We’re getting close.”
“You might as well look for a needle in a pile of straw.”
“Leave it to me, then.”
I shielded my eyes with my hand. The sand was hot. “You’re going to get burned if you stay there for long.”
“I don’t burn,” he said. “But you do.” He reached into his satchel for a tiny lidded pot and tossed it my way. “It’s salve. There isn’t much, but the heat will get worse before it gets better and you’re not used to the desert life. Put some on and wrap your face from the sun. Trust me, it’ll help.”
The salve smelled like coconut, with honey and a hint of rose. Gingerly, I rubbed some on my nose and cheeks. My discomfort melted away. It did soothe my burns. I pursed my lips, touched. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said with a wry grin. “It’s more for me than you. I’d rather spare myself the sight of your face blistering and filling with pus.”
“Oh, you—” I thought of a thousand names to call Edan, but as I saw the corners of his lips lift mischievously and his eyes sparkle that deep blue I secretly relished, none made it past my lips. So I huffed and stalked off to set up my tent.
“Make sure you apply it every morning and night,” he called after me. “I don’t want to travel with a mummy.”
* * *
• • •
A little after sunrise, Edan prodded me awake. Something squirmed in the jar in his hand.
I waved him away with a shriek. “What are you—”
“It’s a nocturnal spider,” he interrupted. “While you were sleeping, I was working.”
I rubbed my eyes, now seeing the spider in the jar. Spindly legs, milky white fangs, and a bulbous body nearly as large as my palm.
Edan set the jar on the ground. The spider blended perfectly with the pale yellow sand.
“A golden wheel spider,” he said. “Aptly named for the way it spreads its legs and cartwheels across the sand. It’s fast.”
He casually slid the jar under his arm. “You’ll need to spin its silk,” he said. “I’ll show you where its burrow is. If you see any of its brothers and sisters, don’t touch them. The bite is lethal.”
I followed him, bringing my scissors. The burrow wasn’t far from our camp, surrounded by red-brown rocks that jutted like teeth out of the sand. A shiny silver web arched from one rock to another. Carefully, I knelt and wound the scissor blades, coiling the precious web without breaking a single strand.
Once there was no more silk to twirl onto the scissors, I stepped back for Edan to release the spider in the jar. But he was studying it.
“Are you going to let it go?”
“Just a minute,” he said, passing me a small glass vial. “Open it, please.”
Using a slender wooden spoon, he deftly swabbed the spider’s fangs, collecting a viscous sample from its mouth.
I crouched beside him as he deposited the sample in my vial. “Is collecting poisons part of your work for the emperor?”
“It’s not poison,” Edan said quite seriously, “and I’m collecting it for myself.” He crouched with the spider still in its jar. “Stand back.”
Gently, he lifted the jar’s lid, then tilted it onto the sand. The golden spider cartwheeled out of sight, kicking up sand with its eight legs.
In Edan’s hand were three neatly tied spools of the Niwa silk I’d just spun. I was so entranced by the silk I barely wondered how it’d gotten from my scissor blades into his hands. The silk was iridescent, nearly silver in the sunlight, and the thickest thread I’d ever seen.