Chapter One: The Spider at 5:17 A.M.

At 5:17 in the morning, Lu Chen's old camera developed a photograph by itself. The grind of gears woke him. His rented room was dark, and the secondhand instant camera sat on his desk with an empty battery compartment. Yet a damp square of film hung from its mouth. An orb-weaver with a silver abdomen crouched at the center of the image. Dew covered its web like the lights of an inverted city. Lu Chen suspected a prank by Tang Guo until he touched the photograph. Cold shot through his fingers. The four largest drops reflected numbers and words: 31, 14, Pier Seven, Warehouse B. Five drops made the outer ring and seventeen the inner. Five seventeen. Now.