Page 18 of The Unweaver (Unwoven Fates #1)

C oal-laced wind buffeted Cora when she stepped onto the porch. The blood stains from Verek’s ambush dripped away with the melting snow. The sky was too overcast on this dreary winter’s day for the sun to peek through. She glanced back at the Gothic house sitting impossibly snug between two brick warehouses and stepped onto the street, choked with smog and covered in sludgy mush.

Her palm tingled then burned with every step away. She cursed. The damn Binding Agreement would severely limit her getaway plans. She’d just grab her things and see how far she could get from Bane and the mountain of dirt he’d dug up on her.

Raising her collar against the chill, she set off for her flat, head down and pace determined. When she glanced back again, the house was gone.

By the time she was down the block, she was half-convinced this was a terrible idea. Her burning palm sent licks of pain up her arm and each step brought her closer to the edge of full-blown paranoia. Was that stray mutt following her? Was the crow on the barbed wire fence watching her?

The flash of a copper’s uniform sent her ducking into an alley. Pulse roaring in her ears, she waited until his footfalls receded before peeling herself from the shadows and continuing.

Pain needled her arm. Another block and it coursed through her shoulders. Another and it ensnared her ribs, making each step more difficult than the last. But she was almost there. Her flat came into view, looking more rundown in the light of day.

She stood on the street where she’d lived for years and felt out of place. It was familiar but she was not the same. A gap, narrow but deep, separated her from all those muted, broken dreams. She was an interloper in her own past.

How easy it had been to disappear from her own life.

Mary appeared, climbing the steps with Cora’s cloche hat on her ginger head. So much for flatmate loyalty.

Cora hid behind a parked lorry and deliberated. If she went inside she’d have to face Mary, and she could tell her anything except for the truth. Half-formed stories flitted through her mind when something brushed against her ankles. Yelping, she leapt back.

A scraggly cat wound around her legs. Was that a lambent eyeshine in its eyes?

Definitely a terrible idea. Abort.

Cora beat a hasty retreat. Better empty-handed than no-handed if Mother caught her. Whatever was inside her flat, she could steal again. She took a circuitous route back to Bane’s house, unable to shake the feeling someone was following her. The sun had risen over the squat buildings by the time she found the brick warehouses again. In a panicked rush, she realized the house wasn’t there.

Shit . Had the house already traversed away?

Her eyes swept the street. Losing her wits was the last thing she needed right now. The Realmwalker’s house could only be found if it was seen and only seen if it was found. She stared hard at the space where the house should be, squinting her eyes and willing it into existence.

There . The Gothic house appeared, squeezed between the warehouses.

The flutter of wings caught her attention. On a branch overhead perched a magpie with a bright red berry in its beak, its white and black plumage stark against the grimy snow. Tilting its head, the magpie watched Cora with a near human intelligence and an unmistakable eyeshine.

Cora froze. Fear spiked through her.

Mother .

No matter where Cora went, Mother would find her. And Cora had led her straight to Bane’s doorstep.

The magpie dropped the red berry at her feet. Eyes not leaving the bird, Cora bent to pick it up. Her fear turned to panic.

A Deathshade berry. Every part of the plant was poisonous, and mages used its fruit as a death marker. Mother was officially claiming the right to kill her.

The magpie continued to watch her, paralyzed on the sidewalk with a sodding berry in her hand. Cora dashed up the icy steps to Bane’s house, slipping and crashing onto her knees. She fumbled to get the key in the lock. Wings fluttered at her back.

“Shit shit shit.” Cora shoved the door open, dove inside, and kicked it shut.

Kevin sat in the entryway as if he’d been expecting her like an unwelcome guest. She stumbled past the cat, calling out Bane’s name, but heard only her own pounding heartbeat in reply. He wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t there.

How long before Mother made it past the door? While the house had been repaired, Bane’s wards hadn’t been much of a barricade for Verek. Why not Mother too?

If there was another ambush, Cora couldn’t defend herself let alone the house on her own. She needed the Realmwalker. Breathing hard, she turned the Portal Key right and rushed through the door.

She burst into the Emerald Club office. “Bane! Something’s happened. I—”

Two pairs of eyes swung to her. Bane’s irritated gaze and another man’s, keen as a hawk. She skidded to a halt. Blood drained from her face.

The other man turned in his seat to scrutinize Cora in her stained coat. With nondescript features and an average build, he was ambiguous looking except for his crisp navy uniform.

A copper.

And by the many polished insignia on his starched jacket, a high-ranking copper.

Something like recognition sparked in the copper’s eyes. Shrewd eyes that had seen it all and missed nothing. Did he know who she really was? Could he see all the deaths on her hands?

Cora stiffened. Coppers never showed up when you were doing something right. She fisted the Deathshade berry, the burning pain in her palm all but forgotten. Mother had finally made that one call, cashing in on her blackmail and death marker while Felix’s ghost gloated.

Was Mother breaking into Bane’s house at this very moment?

“To what do I owe this intrusion?” Bane ran a critical eye over her from behind his desk. “Are you hurt?”

The staccato rhythm of her heart made response difficult. “Er, emotionally, maybe.”

“We’ve all got our problems today.” Bane’s gaze slid over her shoulder to the open door, where his house incongruously was, not the club.

She kicked the door shut. The slam was not as subtle as she’d hoped.

The copper’s eyes narrowed, flicking between Bane and a fidgeting Cora.

“A new member of your gang, Mr. Bane?” His tone was measured in a way that managed to be both condescending and deferential. He’d probably had to climb the ladder to his position the hard way.

“We’ve been over this, Lieutenant Potts.” Bane’s voice was cool, but his gaze was blistering. “Numerous times. As much as I enjoy these unannounced visits, I don’t answer questions without my solicitor present. If you’d like to further infringe upon my legal right to operate a private business in the UK, schedule an appointment.”

The copper glanced back at Cora. “And she—”

“She doesn’t answer questions either.”

The copper’s gaze lingered on her for a too-long moment before returning to Bane. “The Metropolitan Police have made repeated efforts to contact you, Mr. Bane. You have made this all but impossible. Your solicitor Mr. O’Leary has evaded every subpoena issued. Your Judge Forley has blocked our every attempt at securing a warrant for this money laundering scheme you call a club. Now there is the pressing matter which brings me to your office today. The murder investigation of Mr. Erik Verek.”

Cora gasped. The copper noticed. Bane shot her a quelling look.

“You are required by law, Mr. Bane, to answer this summons regarding your dealings with the deceased. Mr. Verek, as you are undoubtedly aware, was found brutalized the morning after Christmas. Witnesses recounted a similar story of a disturbance and gunshots. Mrs. Verek and their three children deserve answers.”

Cora’s gut twisted with horrified guilt. She hadn’t considered the Pyromancer might have a family. A humanizing detail. She hadn’t just killed Verek; she’d widowed his wife and orphaned his children, too. The stubborn tar flecks under her fingernails seemed thicker, darker.

The corpses and their discovery were her fault. She’d insisted on bandaging Bane’s stab wound before attending to the business of hiding bodies.

“Mr. Verek was not the only mangled corpse discovered this week with connections to you, Mr. Bane. Your late employee, Joseph Gallagher, was found murdered near Sutton last night. I was at both scenes and found them most... unusual. Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Verek both appear to have been mauled by different manners of beast. There is also the unsolved murder of Thomas Horace, whose body washed up in the Thames on December 20, not far from your recently acquired property, the former Silvertown docks. Curiously, we received a tip from a cab driver, regarding a December 18 ride with a tall, foul-smelling woman to these same docks.”

Lt. Potts’s pointed look at Cora’s gore-spattered coat lanced through her.

Her mind reeled at the body count piling on top of them. Bane’s Ferromancer, Gallagher, was dead, along with Verek and his thug Horace.

Bane, however, seemed unfazed by the murder accusations.

“There is also a matter of great national security importance, which I hesitate to mention in—" Potts’s gaze swept to Cora. “Mixed company. I will say that certain higher-ups have been inquiring why Mr. Verek’s steel shipment, scheduled on your boats, was never delivered to Irish soil. We have reason to believe, Mr. Bane, that you illegally confiscated this shipment.”

“Matters which can all be discussed,” Bane said, “during a scheduled appointment.”

The copper bristled, flicking lint from his well-decorated shoulder. “Some in Parliament might be impressed by your war record, Mr. Bane, and are willing to overlook certain transgressions. As a proud soldier myself, I don’t consider espionage as serving your country. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were a double agent for the IRA the entire bloody war.”

Bane lifted a brow and remained silent.

Lt. Potts propped his elbow on the desk and leaned forward. “Most police officers in London might be in your pocket, Mr. Bane, but not me. You would do well to remember that. I’ve seen the bodies. I’ve seen things you could not pay me to unsee. Inexplicable things. I know these inexplicable things are tied to gang activity.”

“Duly noted.” Bane inclined his chin towards the door. “Fuck off.”

The copper stared hard for several moments before straightening to his full height, arms stiff at his sides. “I’ll be keeping my eye on you, Mr. Bane. A very close eye. The Metropolitan Police will be in touch.”

Cora plastered herself against the wall as the copper paused to assess her. She half-expected him to arrest her then and there. For killing Verek. For the other crimes she was overdue for punishment.

At last, Lt. Potts’s footsteps retreated. New fears sprang up in his wake. A suspicious copper was dangerous not only for Bane, but for her and every single mage. Hopefully a cutthroat gangster was all Potts suspected Bane of being.

“Persistent pain in my arse,” Bane muttered, lighting a cigarette.

She found her breath again. “The copper? Or me?”

Perusing her with a flicker of impatience, he deigned not to respond.

“What if the copper figures out—”

“I’ll handle it. What happened?”

On shaking legs, she stepped forward and set the death marker on his desk. His gaze passed from the berry to her. “Explain.”

Bad news was best spoken quickly. Breathless, she launched into her treacherous magpie encounter. When she finished, his cigarette had smoldered to ash between his fingers. He stared at her, a muscle working in his jaw and a storm building in his eyes. The reins of his temper hung by a fraying thread.

Cora took a step back. The thread snapped.

“For fuck’s sake!” His palm slammed down on the desk. “Why the fuck did you go out on your own? There’s a fuckin’ war going on!”

She took another step back. His seething anger wasn’t for the copper who’d all but accused him of triple homicide, or for Mother who was quite possibly destroying his house that moment. But for Cora, the horseflesh that insisted on defying its new owner.

Behind her, muted noises from the club filtered through the open door. Her only escape. “I-I didn’t think I was important enough for Mother to tail. I guess I underestimated the old bird’s capacity for spite. But the Deathshade berry—”

“You needed a fuckin’ piece of fruit to tell you the obvious? Of course she wants you dead! Allow me to spare you the suspense—everyone in Verek’s gang wants the Unweaver fuckin’ dead, too. You’ve replaced me at the top of everyone’s kill list. Congratulations.” He ground out the cigarette, shaking his head. “You strolled right into her damn trap, right into harm's way. You could’ve been— Jesus Christ, Cora, you’re not reckless; you’re suicidal.”

“But my things, my clothes—they’re all back at my flat.” The excuse sounded feeble to her own ears.

“You risked your life for some ugly dresses?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and took several deep breaths. “If you needed something, why didn’t you just ask?”

She blinked. “That hadn’t occurred to me.”

“For fuck’s— Here.” He pulled a small fortune from his wallet and held it out. “Buy some clothes that aren’t hideous.”

She eyed the money warily. It was more than Mother had paid for even the vilest favors, and he was handing it over for some shopping? What was the catch? Generosity always had a cost.

The prospect of spending another day in her grimy clothes won out. She reached for the money like a stray dog scarfing food from one hand while awaiting a beating from the other. “Well, since you offered so graciously.”

His grip on the money didn’t loosen. “If there’s anything you need”—his finger stroked hers so lightly she might have imagined it— “ask. Twice you’ve saved my life. You can have whatever you want. But don’t go out alone again.”

“Got it. Thanks.” She tucked the money in her coat, wondering how far it could get her away from Bane. “What about Mother? Aren’t you worried about her raiding your house right now?”

“I traversed it away while you were blathering on.”

“Ah.” Taking his stony expression as dismissal, she turned to leave. “I’ll just see myself out then.”

“Oh, you’re not going anywhere.” He slammed the door shut with a flick of his hand. “Gang’s meeting tonight. You’re staying.”

A pit of dread yawned inside her. She spun to face him. “No! No way in hell. That is not going to happen. We discussed this, Bane. No one can know about me.”

Leaning back in his chair, he leveled her with an intent look. “Why?”

“Because— Because I don't want anyone to know. And— We made a Binding . Agreement . Sharing my secret will hurt me and therefore hurt you. Is that what you want? To hurt yourself?”

He regarded her. Pouring a generous glass of whiskey, he slid it across the desk. She hesitated before picking it up. The first sip dulled the terror swarming inside her. The rest she gulped down.

“Your secrecy was not a condition of our Binding Agreement.”

Her heart stuttered. He had tricked her with a technicality. Why hadn’t she made anonymity an explicit condition? She should’ve negotiated more vigorously, should’ve looked for hidden clauses in their lifelong , blood-binding agreement. She clenched the glass in a white-knuckled grip. The devil truly was in the details.

“But— You didn’t out me during parley,” she said in a strangled voice. “Why would you now?”

“I had nothing to gain from it then. And I wasn’t sure yet why you kept yourself a secret. Now I know, and neither of us has anything to gain from your secrecy. You’re safer if everyone knows you’re the Unweaver and under my protection. As long as you don’t stroll into any more fuckin’ traps.”

She stared, open-mouthed, shaking her head. It was all going to hell and there was nothing she could do. She was less safe with the Realmwalker than she’d been with Mother. At least Mother had respected her wishes for secrecy. Cora had been able to assert some control over who knew what she was.

Now that small freedom was being taken from her. As Teddy had been taken from her.

Helplessness flared into rage. Bane was stripping away her last and most fiercely held possession: her privacy. The bastard was remorseless as he stared back at her. And why shouldn’t he be? She was just another pawn in his grand schemes.

She gripped the glass until cracks formed. “Do you want them to kill me?”

“Cora, the only thing hurting you is yourself. This secret, this shame—”

“It’s not your secret to tell!” She hurled the glass at him.

He vanished. The glass hit the wall and shattered. Reappearing in front of her, his hands bit into her upper arms as he hauled her against him, his furious face a hair’s breadth away.

“Could you fuckin’ not.” He stabbed a finger at the wall where a new dent joined the old bullet hole. “Well done. A real compelling argument.”

“This is the only thing I’ve asked of you and you can’t even give me that.” She grabbed the lapels of his suit and shoved. He didn’t budge. “You don’t care about me or anyone but yourself.”

Anger smoldered in the black pits of his eyes. “I might be the first person who really cares about you.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?”

“If you’d calm down and see reason—”

“ Calm down ?” She shoved again. Harder. “When has telling someone to calm down ever bloody helped?”

The internal battle to harness his temper played across his face. His grip remained firm while his gaze softened. There was an understanding in his eyes that took some of the wrathful wind from her sails. An understanding that was in some ways worse than the reproach she’d expected.

“It’s not your secret to tell,” she said, the plea in her eyes creeping into her voice.

“And I wouldn’t, if your reasons weren’t fuckin’ mental.” He continued over her rising protests, “I understand that secrecy is sacrosanct to you. But this secrecy isn’t about survival. It’s about shame. You’re shackled to it. This self-imposed exile doesn’t serve you. Don’t underestimate the protection of a bad reputation, Unweaver.”

Fury rekindled, she wrenched out of his grasp and stalked away. As far away as she could get from Malachy Bane. Which wasn’t far. She jostled the door that was locked by more than a key. Not even the Portal Key worked. The portal mage had trapped her.

She turned and glared at him. “Unlock. The bloody. Door.”

He watched her with a look dangerously akin to pity. “Let them fear you, Cora. Fuck them. If they slander you, rot out their tongues. If they strike you, rot off their hands. Send their arses to the Death Realm and be done with it.”

She looked away. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Why? Because you’re the only one who deserves to get hurt? If you gave half a damn as much about yourself as you do about Teddy, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“And fuck you too,” she bristled. Gusting a breath, she searched his unyielding features with a growing sense of hopelessness. His gaze held the steely determination of an unswayable man. “Just… don’t tell anyone, Bane. Please.”

“Or what?” He arched a brow. “You’ll put another hole in my wall?”

Her expression shuttered. Here was the cost of his generosity—bowing to his better judgment . There’d be no arguing or bartering with him. Her concerns did not signify to the Realmwalker.

Bane’s money sat heavy in her pocket. She wondered what she’d sold herself for and if it was worth it.

Joining his gang hadn’t been an upward move, but a lateral one, from the lowest rung on one ladder to the next. She’d swapped one master for another. A passive aggressive Mother for an obsidian-eyed tyrant. Worse, Bane hadn’t leashed her. She’d handed him the leash herself.

“I hate you.” She rusted the handle off, flung the door open, and stormed out.

“You only hate yourself,” he called after her. Then, “Jesus, not my fuckin’ door, too.”

Cora rounded the corner and collided with a wall. A wall that reached out and grabbed her shoulders with enormous hands. Her head craned back. The giant Hydromancer stared down, emotionless.

“Take your hands off me,” she spat.

When Dimitri didn’t, she pulsed death magic. He dropped his mitts with a hiss of surprise. She marched to the Emerald Club’s entrance.

Anita—mostly clothed, this time, in a scandalous crimson dress that bared her calves—was unloading bottles of booze behind the golden bar with a tinkle of glass bottles. The Sanguimancer flagged her down. Cora ignored her.

The club’s front doors wouldn’t open, either. Not by the Portal Key or her magic or shouted enchantments or her banging fist. Bane had her penned in like an animal.

“Oi!” Heels clacking, Anita made a beeline for her. “Where you running off to, love? Mal says you’re part of the gang now and we got ourselves a meeting. There’ll be some other humans so you should feel right cozy.”

Human . If only. The realization sank like a stone in her stomach. Soon, everyone would know just how little humanity Cora possessed.

Dimitri stomped to the doors and opened them without a key or an enchantment, returning a moment later with a stack of crates he hefted to the bar. The door closed too quickly for Cora to dash through. She tested the handle. Locked.

Curiosity piqued, she puzzled over the mechanics. The door had permitted Dimitri but not her. Was it enchanted to recognize individual people? She’d never seen anything like it.

She was poised to sprint through the door as Dimitri returned when Anita linked arms with her and dragged her to the bar.

“Come on, love.” Smiling her vulpine smile, Anita patted a barstool and waggled her eyebrows. “Plop your skinny arse down and tell me how you put Mal in such a tizzy. No denying it. I feel the rush in both your veins”

With a last desperate look at the door, Cora slid onto the barstool. “Mind if I—?” Not waiting for an answer, she poured a shot from the first bottle she grabbed and winced. Vodka. Stomach-shredding vodka.

“Oh, this is gonna be interesting.” Anita poured herself a shot and gestured towards Bane’s office. “What was that about, eh?”

“Nothing,” she muttered. “That infuriating arsehole.”

Anita chuckled. “Mal’s always cool as a cucumber. In all the years I’ve known him, I ain’t ever heard him raise his voice. Not even when Moriarty was killed, and they were good mates for years back in Ireland. Say, Dimi, you ever hear Mal holler like that?”

He grunted what might have been a negative, thudding down one crate and plodding off to grab another.

“Bane doesn’t appear to have that problem around me.” Cora grimaced through more vodka burning down her gullet. “What an honor. Is all this booze for the meeting tonight?”

“When the gang gets together, we drink .” Anita topped off their glasses. “So. Spill.”

The truth poured out as freely as the liquor. “Malachy Bane is a bastard who doesn’t listen to anyone but himself.”

“Cheers to that.” Anita clinked their glasses, her dark eyes gleaming with mirth. “Welcome to the gang, love.”

Vodka curdled in her gut. The last thing anyone would do is welcome her when Bane told them what she was. The Sanguimancer might stop her heart before the night was through and toast her death as a mercy. Mother would be disappointed not to have the pleasure of killing Cora herself.

She stood, swayed, and retreated into the club’s quiet, longing for her Memnomancer enchanted cloak hidden behind a brick wall, far away.

The grand piano, glossy and glorious, drew her like a beacon to the stage. She wove around empty tables and climbed the steps, skimming her fingers reverently along the keys.

The pianos at the orphanage and Felix’s squat had been out of tune and missing keys, and the Starlite’s piano was a dusty relic compared to this. She wanted to pour the dread and sorrow churning within her into music. What better way to spend her final moments? She played a few chords, luxuriating in the impeccable resonance. Rich. Layered. Evocative.

“You the new piano player?”

She yanked her hands away, whirling to the man she hadn’t noticed in the stage’s unlit recesses. “No. Sorry. Just admiring.”

He came forward into the lights, trailing a handful of wires. He was a couple inches shorter than her, not including the profusion of wiry brown curls standing on end atop his head. He patted the brown cloud of hair down to tame it. It didn’t work.

“You play well.” He scratched the goatee on his weak chin. The earnestness of his smile made Cora tense. “You ever play at a jazz club before?”

She retreated to the edge of the stage. “Sometimes.”

“I knew it.” His face split into a gap-toothed grin. “I could tell by your hands. Long and artistic and just made to play. I would’ve remembered hearing those hands play before. Whereabouts have you tickled the keys?”

“Here and there.”

Mistaking her evasion for coyness, his grin widened. “Any place I’ve heard of?”

Why is he paying me so much attention? Has Bane assigned him babysitting duty?

“The, er, Starlite Club.”

“You played at the Starlite ? That seedy East End joint?” He whistled. “I just heard their drummer Barry Newman overdosed on coke, on stage. Can you believe it?”

“I can.” Barry’s death rattle had grown louder as his cocaine habit worsened. Still, she was sorry he’d passed. He’d never get that ciggy back now.

“Working there’s gotta be a wild story. How about I grab us some drinks and you tell me all about it?”

“Erm…”

“Ach, look at me, getting ahead of myself.” He offered his hand and a bashful smile. “I’m Guy. Guy Haviland. The electrician here.”

She shook his hand and jerked away at the shock of his touch. Static electricity. That was why his hair looked like someone had vigorously rubbed a balloon over it. He wasn’t just an electrician, but an Electromancer.

“Apologies about that,” he said with a rueful chuckle. “Happens all the time, I’m afraid. What’s your name?”

“Oh. Right. Sorry. I’m—”

“Cora?”

She turned and blanched. Recognition was a punch in the gut. The man looking at her with the tragic poetry of his bittersweet chocolate eyes was a ghost from her past. Enviably long lashes, as inky black as his soft waves of hair, swept across his tawny cheek as he blinked at her in disbelief.

For several moments, they could only stare at each other. Separated by a few steps and an eternity of loss.

“Ravi,” she breathed.

Ravi Shah, the only person Teddy had been more enamored with than himself. The Aeromancer had been the reserved counterweight to Teddy’s effusiveness. They’d been lovers for a year, the longest anyone had tolerated her twin’s antics.

Ravi had been disowned by his affluent family not because of his air magic but his bed partners. He’d found a new family in the Walcotts for those few, precious months. Without Teddy, they were both adrift.

“You two know each other?” Guy looked between their stricken features. When they nodded weakly, he busied himself elsewhere.

“What are you doing here, Cora?” Ravi glanced around the empty club, twisting his trumpet in his hands.

“I had some business with Bane. Like everyone in London, it seems.”

“Ah.” Ravi seemed at a loss for words. His helpless gaze landed on the piano behind her. “Are you Edith’s replacement?”

“Er, no.” An awkward silence elapsed as their eyes darted at anything but each other. She glanced at the door. Too many paces away and still locked. “Well, I must be—”

“I haven’t seen you since—” Ravi said at the same time. His mouth shut, opened, shut again.

“I know,” she rushed to say. She couldn’t bear to hear the name. Not from Ravi. “I must be going. It was nice to see you, Rav.”

He grabbed her arm when she turned to leave. “I’m sorry. About Teddy, about— No one will give me a straight answer. Please, tell me, is Teddy really… gone?”

“He is—” She glanced at where Teddy’s body was stored in the walk-in icebox, wanting to offer Ravi this thin thread of hope for reanimation. The risk of exposing herself was a moot point. Ravi would know what she was soon enough. Yet, she still couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Coward . “Not alive.”

Devastation crumpled his features. He choked back a sob. “I’d hardly seen him towards the end. He’d gotten so distant and irritable before— I figured he was using again and shutting me out. I had no clue he was tangled up in… all that.”

Guilt washed over her. She wasn’t the only one left behind to mourn Teddy. She’d been so encompassed by her own grief that she hadn’t spared a thought for Ravi’s. Selfish coward .

He swiped his tears away, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s just... I keep looking up, you know. Expecting to see him there. Waiting to hear his voice again. I’m so sorry, Cora. I know how much Teddy meant to you. You were everything to him. He talked about you all the time.”

His words gutted her. Blinking away her own tears, she couldn’t meet his watery smile. Teddy would stay not-alive once Bane’s gang found out about her. Ravi might even do the honors of cutting her air off himself.

“I’m sorry, I— How about for old time’s sake?” He gestured at the piano and played the intro chords of her favorite song on his trumpet.

The piano beckoned her. Calm waters amidst the storm. She sat at the bench and followed Ravi’s lead, sinking into the blissful acoustics. Piano and brass fused in melodious melancholy.

The splendor of the last note fading, Guy handed her music sheets with an eager smile. “That was brilliant. Let’s hear another. You know this one? It’s a classic.”

“I can’t read music. The nuns never managed to beat that into me. If you play something, I can catch on.”

Ravi struck up another tune and she joined in, losing herself in the music. For a moment, her heart lightened. For a moment, Teddy was there with them again, like on the last night they’d all been together.

* * *

“Good news,” Teddy had announced as he strode into the Starlite Club after hours, swathed in a crustacean-colored suit few men in England could get away with. “I’m here.”

“You look handsome in that suit,” Ravi said with a shy smile.

“I know.” Teddy preened and winked. “I look even better out of it.”

“You’re late,” Cora said. “We started without you.”

On the nights she closed the club, they raided the liquor shelves. The Starlite’s owner marked the levels of every bottle every night, and they had to water down the already watered-down hooch before stumbling home.

That didn’t stop Teddy from grabbing a full bottle and upending it. “I am never late, Cora dear. I arrive precisely when I intend to.” He gulped half the booze before coming up for air. “Oh, how I long to be insensate.”

They played music and sang bawdy songs into the early morning, the twins’s voices blending into effortless harmony.

“You should sing more,” Ravi told her. “You’ve a lovely voice.”

Teddy’s grin was sly. “Sounds like sex.”

When they were too drunk to play, Teddy filled their ears with his lofty plans for the trio to open their own jazz club. Cora indulged his flights of fancy, but Ravi, ever the voice of reason, brought up the matter of start-up costs, property taxes, liquor licenses—

“Oh, don’t be a nuisance, Rav.” Teddy chucked a peanut at him. “I abhor honest work.”

Ravi dodged the projectile and laughed, light and airy. “Typical Teddy, cavorting around without concern for the consequences.”

“I am aware of the fucking consequences,” Teddy snapped. Humor chilled on his features. “I’m aware of the consequences because I am one. Some bloke fills a girl’s belly with his bastards and now it’s my problem? One sperm in one instant and an entire bloody lifetime of regret is born, and I’m stuck with it. Just another unwanted brat added to the pile.”

* * *

Wrenched back to the present, Cora’s playing cut off abruptly. That was the last time their family of three had been whole. Overcome, she remembered Teddy’s body lying desecrated and frozen, waiting for a reunion that might never come. At her sudden stop, Ravi’s trumpet faded away.

Guy whistled. “You should definitely play here, Cora. You’ve got experience and we’ve got an opening. Edith’s so big with child she can’t reach the keys anymore.”

“Edith is John O’Leary’s wife,” Ravi said. “Mal’s solicitor.”

O’Leary was rumored to be the best Memnomancer in the UK. With the top memory mage as Bane’s legal counsel, perhaps none of Lt. Potts’s accusations would stick, after all.

“In a couple weeks, the O’Learys will have six kids,” Guy said. “Edie won’t be playing the piano again anytime soon. You should fill in. I can talk to Mal for you. He can be a little…”

“Overbearing?” Cora supplied. “Insufferably arrogant?”

Guy’s brows shot up to near cloud-level. “Er, well, I wouldn’t quite—” His gaze latched on something over her shoulder. He licked his lips nervously.

“He’s behind me, isn’t he?” Sighing, Cora turned and saw Bane a few paces away on the stage. Of course . Her arctic gaze held his in challenge. “I meant it.”

Guy sucked in a breath. Ravi took a step back.

“I know.” Bane’s eyes roamed over her. “You’ll play at the club.”

“That’s kind of you to ask,” she said, although she felt a pulse of excitement. The piano was grander than anything she’d played before. If she survived to play it again.

“Do you sing?” Bane asked.

“Not well and never in public.”

“Oh, don’t listen to her, Mal,” Ravi said. “Cora has a lovely voice.” The compliment skewered her with memories.

“Another time. Meeting’s starting.”