Giant spiders pinned Arwin and Yaz in sitting positions up against the walls of separate dungeon cells. Then the arachnids webbed the prisoners’ wrists to the cold, dark stone of the dank walls while a small host of black gremlins gleefully danced around. The devilish little monsters cackled and poked and sniffed, eager to taste the prisoners.

Arwin vainly tried to escape their interest but it was no use. The gremlins crawled right up onto him where he sat, invading every nook and cranny with their taloned hands, licking his face with long black tongues and giving each other approving grunts in gremlin speech. Apparently, he was, if not delicious, then at least tasty? To his great relief, he obviously hadn't been named as dinner quite yet because the giant arachnid guards eventually ushered the gremlins out.

The heavy wooden door slammed shut with a resounding thud, leaving the tiny prison cell in total darkness.

Arwin couldn't see any details around himself. He couldn’t even make out his own legs stretched out in front of him. The sheer absence of visual input would have been overwhelming if he’d never been caving and been in similar situations a few times before. As it was, his plight was still very unsettling. What else lurked within the cell that he couldn’t see? Rats with big, sharp teeth that could chomp pieces out of his legs and body? Poisonous centipedes? Disgusting cockroaches? Spiders? Well, of course, there were spiders! He shuddered.

His skin crawled as his traitorous imagination pictured the creepy crawlies casually making their way over every inch of him and being powerless to do anything about it. Darn imagination. Why did it have to come up with the worst possible scenarios in a time like this? Why couldn’t he be picturing a cozy fire and freshly baked bread? Or being in the arms of a beautiful woman on the beach? One who didn’t have fangs or threatened to kill him? Why was he imagining more spiders? Stupid imagination was just making things worse!

Cold stone pressed up against his legs and back, and he knew it would eventually chill him. He tried calling out to his friend. "Yaz? Yaz!"

There was no answer.

Growing worried, he tried again. "Yaz! You there?"

"Yeah,” came a despondent reply.

"We've got to find a way out of here."

"Sure,” Yaz replied, bitterly sarcastic. “Just close your eyes and wish upon a star. If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme. We'll be magically transported to some faraway land, and all our problems will be gone." The skeleton sighed. “I’m sorry. I never should have let you get dragged into this.”

Yaz's despondency paused Arwin for a moment. Things didn’t look good, but Arwin refused to succumb to the same sense of despair that Yaz was apparently falling to. He knew it wasn’t just their perilous situation that bothered the skeleton, though. The Enchantress had hit Yaz where he already hurt. She’d called Yaz a failure. He suspected that Yaz had already felt that way for a very long time. Although Yaz had seemed cheerful enough so far, Arwin figured that, underneath a thin surface layer of congeniality, the man was depressed and struggling to hold onto the hope of ever finding his lost love.

Arwin put fire into his voice. "Yaz, forget what she said. She was just trying to get under your skin. You can't let it get to you. Heck, you don’t even have skin to get under."

"Why? It's all true, isn't it? I'm a joke. All this time, wandering all over the place, never finding her. Not even a hint. I failed Epheria."

"Don't say that!"

"It's been so long,” Yaz muttered distantly. "I can't even remember her face. Her face!" he cried with anguish. “She’s gone. Forever. And there’s nothing I can do about that now.”

“She’s not gone. You remember her name. And your lives together. Your feelings and what you meant to each other."

"Do I?" It sounded like Yaz was forlornly shaking his head on the other side of the stone wall. The skeleton’s voice croaked with the strength of his bitterness. "Within a couple of years buried in the ground, I had completely forgotten her face, her voice, and so many other details. Within a few more years, her birthday, and yet more details. It's been over a thousand years! What if everything I still remember is made up? What if what I remember is just a woman my mind constructed over the centuries, made up of what I want her to be, not who she really is? And what of me? What kind of man am I if I’ve had all the time in the world to rescue her and only failed?"

"So you're just giving up, is that it? Well, crazy old skeleton, I've got a bone to pick with you."

"Arwin. Don't..."

"I get it. After all this time, you're down to the bare bones of hope, and it's crumbling to dust right before your eyes. You think we're locked up, and this will be the end of us. Well, frankly, I think you're being a bonehead. I think under this temporary feeling sorry for yourself bit, there's a lot of backbone still in you; you've just got to remember that. So stop being a lazybones and help me figure a way out of this mess so that we can get back to finding your princess."

There was no response.

“You’re no failure, Yaz! You may not have found her yet, but you’ve spent twelve hundred years searching. No one else would have done the same. You should be proud of yourself for holding on to love and hope for so long. No other being has ever been more loyal, I’m sure of it!”

But still, the skeleton stayed silent.

Arwin sagged back against the wall. He wouldn't give up on his new friend. He'd try again in a while, but maybe right now, Yaz just needed some time to work through his depression. You can't demand strength from someone; they have to choose it within themselves. Alone within our hearts, we have to choose to be strong in our darkest moments and choose to reach for a helping hand if one is offered. Arwin just hoped that Yaz would pull himself out of his sad state quickly because who knew how much time they had. They needed to figure out an escape plan before they became gremlin lunch.

Hmm. Time. Could he still buy more of it? He reviewed his conversation with the Enchantress in his mind. Unfortunately, the entire experience had been such an overwhelmingly frightening, new, sexy, mind-blowing assault on his senses that most of it was a blur. But he dimly remembered reacting badly. She'd been interested in him, though. Could he still use that? Lull her into a sense of confidence? Buy Yaz's freedom? Maybe find a way to escape when she began to trust him? Or maybe bargain straight-up for his release? Or was she too angry and intent on his death now?

She was a dark goddess, in her own evil fashion. Had she been a regular girl, he'd be all over her offer. But the spiders. He shuddered again. He hated spiders. And those huge ones like Drath-whatever-his-name-was were beyond his most appalling dreams. Without spiders and murderous instinct, he might be attracted to her. But the Dark Enchantress wasn't just any woman; she evidently was a deadly, violent witch who enjoyed causing pain. Being with her would be like walking through a nest of irritable vipers and trusting them not to bite you.

After what Kelli had done to him, he sure didn’t feel like trusting any woman with his real heart any time soon. But could he play her? Could he overcome his emotional trauma, post-heartbreak, enough to make her think he liked her until he found a way to escape?

He could just sit here and hope things worked out on their own, but he knew that this would be giving up, absolving himself of responsibility for his own future by telling himself that he was helpless. We’re never completely helpless. He had to take the offensive somehow, take his future into his own hands, or he’d be lost.

Arwin reached out with his feet. His hands were locked up, but his feet could touch most of the worn flagstones in the small cell if he slid his hips forward. He lashed out, testing the walls. They were solid. His foot clipped the door.

Instantly, the window in the top of the door glowed, providing faint illumination in the cell. The menacing eyes and mouth of a giant spider burst into view in the door’s barred window. A long, spindly leg with a vicious point arched through the window and clawed at him.

Arwin gasped and withdrew his legs.

The arachnid chittered angrily, a gut-churning sound. After a few moments, it slid away, and the room grew silent again.

Looking up, Arwin saw a thin rope of spider silk was just visible through the door’s window. Then the window’s glow faded, and the cell was completely dark again.

"Alarm line,” Arwin noted aloud. The slightest vibration on that door and his eight-legged guards would know. Cautiously, he stamped on the stone floor instead. This time, there was no reaction. Searching around, he banged on every surface he could reach with his feet. All the stones returned the same dull impervious quality. Until the last one. On his right, up against the wall, the floor stone in the corner gave a slightly hollow tonk as it shifted. Arwin tried again, harder. The stone moved just a hair.

Excited, he pushed out with his foot. Yes, the stone could move. But not downward. It would have to be pulled up. But how? He had nothing to dig with, no tools. What he needed was some kind of cartoon toilet plunger that he could stick onto the stone and pull up with. At least, he could do it if his hands were free.

Examining his wrists, he couldn’t see where the spider silk gripped the wall. Strong as steel, it glued his arms into place. Wait — glued. Nothing dissolves glue better than human sweat. Could it do the same to spider silk's tackiness? Maybe if it was terror sweat…

A sound caught his attention.

Assuming the position he'd been left in, cross-legged on the floor, his ears strained, and he heard the regular click of high heels on stone coming towards him. Soon enough, the cell’s portal opened. Warm orange flames burst into being in an outstretched palm, illuminating his visitor. A dark, very feminine figure stood in the warm light.

The Enchantress coldly glared at him, her expression unexpectedly guarded. "How do you like your new home? Temporary as it will be?" she asked.

This caught Arwin by surprise. Why the change? In the throne room, she’d been villainously playful and very self-assured. What could have caused her feelings to change? She wouldn't have come down here without a reason. And it didn't appear that she wanted to kill him all the faster. Regardless, this might be the opportunity he needed to change their circumstances and perhaps even get a look at the castle interior in the hope of finding Epheria.

Time. He needed time and freedom. He needed mercy and trust. He'd have to be diplomatic. "It's fine,” Arwin said of the cell. “Although I'm sure there are much nicer rooms. This is a castle, after all.” He smiled.

She eyed him suspiciously. "Yes. There are." After a long moment's thought, she seemed to give in a bit. "It's a beautiful castle. So many — enchanting — things to see.” She raised her chin in challenge.

He took the not-so-subtle offer and gave her the humility he suspected she wanted. "I'm sorry. Our first meeting was sudden, and my abduction unpleasant. I was not myself. I apologize for being rude earlier."

She quietly studied him, clearly suspicious, perhaps trying to discern the truth of his words. "You’re sorry? Why should I believe you?"

"Please, forgive me. I’m still in a state of shock and disbelief. I'm not from this world. I only just arrived. Until recently, I'd thought that magic and dragons and…and other stuff were just from people's imaginations. It's all a lot to deal with."

She huffed. “You really must think I’m stupid to believe that I would fall for such nonsense. You’re no Drearian.”

“I am Drearian! Very dreary. Downright dull. No magical ability at all.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He mentally scrambled for some way to improve his situation. “Look, you’re an enchantress, right? A witch? You know magic. Can’t you use some kind of spell on me to figure out if I’m telling the truth?”

“Such spells might be countered by other magic. Or anti-magic.”

He sagged. How could he convince her?

She studied him for a long moment. “Well, there is one way I might check to see if you really are not from this world.”

He raised his head and looked up at her. “How?”

“I suppose we could see if there are any magicons in your biology, any mutations that would prove that you are not a product of local evolution.”

“Um, ok. How?”

She looked thoughtful for a minute. Then she placed the globe of fire from her hand onto the wall, where it stuck and continued to light up the dungeon cell. “I’m going to take some blood.”

He glanced at her hands. She didn’t seem to have a needle with her. Then she waved a finger, and he yelped in pain. He looked down at his forearm and watched as several millilitres of his blood neatly pooled around a cut on his skin. Then the globule of blood rose into the air and stopped in front of the Enchantress’s face.

She held her hands out and stared hard at the blood, her eyes roaming over and around it.

He watched but couldn’t see anything happening. What was she doing? Was it something beyond his eyesight?

She gave a little shake of her head and sighed. “Nothing.” She paused, then used a finger to wipe the blood from the air, scooping it into her mouth. She teased, “My, aren’t you delicious?”

Arwin felt the rest of his blood, which was thankfully still in his body, turn cold.

“Your blood does have a lot of trace pollutants that I’ve never seen before, chemicals I’m not personally aware of. No magicons, but I think we need to dig deeper.”

He warily looked at her. “How?”

Her evil smile returned. “This is going to hurt.”

“Why? What—argh!” Arwin cried out. From deep in his right thigh came the worst pain he’d ever felt. A cut appeared on his jeans and in his flesh. Then up from out of his leg rose what he assumed was a sample of his bone marrow.

As with the blood, she held the sample up before her eyes and studied it in a way that Arwin couldn’t see. After a couple of minutes, she swiped her hand to the side, and the sample dashed to the floor.

His leg throbbed, and he felt an involuntary tear slide down his cheek. This really hurt.

She bit her lower lip. The cruelty that had been on her face vanished, replaced by a look of regret. She knelt down and reached out to touch his leg.

Arwin’s pain shrunk, then vanished. When she removed her hand, he was amazed to see his wound gone.

She gave him a sideways glance. “Sorry about that,” she said in a quiet voice, then stood.

“It’s fine. I take it there’s no magic stuff in me?”

“No. But, again, there are compounds that I’m not familiar with. Nor do I think it’s entirely healthy to be carrying some of them. Heavy metal content is also quite high. Tell me: do the people where you come from have high rates of cancer?”

“Well…I guess, yeah.”

“Maybe stop living in a garbage dump? Because you’re probably going to die of cancer too.”

“So, you’re not planning to kill me?”

She gave a dramatic sigh. “I suppose not right this moment. Not for being an assassin or thief, anyway.”

“Then, you know I’m not Heartstonian?”

“It’s Heartfolk. And yes, I suppose I believe it now.”

He breathed deeply. “Thank goodness. Would you…let us go?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.”

Crud.

She continued mock thoughtfully, “Hmmm. You are a Drearian. I’ve never experienced the company of anyone from your realm before. I was looking forward to torturing you, tearing apart your body, and feeding it to my gremlins. But perhaps, just this once, I could be convinced to be — a little — forgiving."

He perked up again. “To forgive is divine."

She gazed at him in silence for a few appropriately silent moments, then seemed to come to a sound, yet soundless, decision. “Very well. If it's forgiveness you want, you can make your case for it at dinner and earn it.”

Arwin gulped.

The evil enchantress unpleasantly smiled. "Don't worry. We won't be eating you. Yet." She turned and sashayed her way out of the cell. A casual wave of her hand and his arms slipped free of the spider webbing on the wall.