Webalina wanted every warlock in Darkmoss bound to her dark pacts, but tonight she could not even pick the first one to break. She crouched in the rafters of the ruined mansion, eight legs folded under her human torso. Below her, four warlocks argued over a stolen grimoire. One of them was weak enough to bind. Strike the wrong one, and she would die before her web ever reached the rest. She had no way to measure them. Spells hid true strength. So Webalina did what spiders do. She listened. The warlocks did not know she clung above the cracked gables. She dropped a single silk thread, thin as hair, through a gap in the rotted ceiling. It touched the stone floor between them. Every voice carried through the strand, straight to her fingers. She waited. The tall warlock boasted about a demon he'd caged. The woman in gray spoke of wards she had raised across the manor's broken windows. The fat one bragged of a curse that killed a rival last winter. Three strong voices. Three threats she could not yet touch. The fourth warlock said almost nothing. He kept to the shadow near the doorway. When the others mocked him, he flinched. He clutched a borrowed wand, not his own. His hands shook when the demon was named. That was her answer. The silent one was the weak one. Webalina smiled. She climbed down the inside wall, silent, legs spread across the stone. The argument covered her sound. She waited until the frightened warlock stepped alone into the dark hall, away from the others. She dropped behind him and pinned his arms in silk before he could turn. "Scream and the others come," she whispered. "They hate you. They will not help." He went still. He knew it was true. "Swear a pact to me," she said. "Serve my web. In return, I keep you alive among wolves." His shaking hand found hers. He swore. The dark words bit into the air and sealed. A thread of power ran from his chest to her palm, and held. The first strand of her web was spun. But the pact made noise. Magic always does. In the next room, the arguing stopped. The woman in gray called the frightened warlock's name. Footsteps turned toward the hall. Webalina had her first servant. She had also marked herself to the three strongest warlocks in Darkmoss, with only a trembling coward at her side. She pulled her new thrall into the shadow and climbed the wall again, fast, as the wards along the windows began to glow.