Page 22 of The Unweaver (Unwoven Fates #1)

T he brothel of amorously trained Sanguimancers and Animancers was unlike any flesh house Cora had ever seen. With smooth white stone and towering columns, the Gilded Lily rose like a Grecian temple to Venus herself.

Anita looked ill. She tossed the car key to a tuxedo-clad valet who gawked at the black smoke spewing from the overheated engine. Another valet held the massive doors open, and they were ushered into unbridled opulence.

Decked out in sinful splendor, the atrium was kissed by the afternoon sunlight streaming through gold draped windows. Chandeliers dripped crystals from the vaulted, fresco-adorned ceilings. Overstuffed chaises, brocaded in silks and velvets, laid like sumptuous islands in a sea of plush carpets. A melody of perfumes drifted in the air.

Even in her new rags, Cora felt as drab as a sparrow next to the courtesans strutting like peacocks through the atrium.

“If you would follow me, Azalea,” the valet said with a bow.

“ Anita . My name is Anita now.” Her silky voice was devoid of the Cockney drawl. In this place, her East End edges were smoothed as the courtesan’s elegant mask slipped on.

“As you say, Azalea.”

The valet escorted them past rooms dedicated to worldly pleasures, through arched hallways lined with doors from which moans, grunts, and cries of pleasure and pain emerged. The valet halted before a grand door in a quieter wing and knocked. A gruff voice bade them enter.

The door opened to a dark, spacious suite. It took a moment for Cora’s eyes to adjust to the gloom. Thick drapes were pulled across the windows and only a dim lamp brightened the suite that was more extravagant than the pleasure rooms she’d glimpsed.

An ember glowed from the shadows. The end of a cigar, dangling from the mouth of Rune Borges, sprawled in an armchair.

While the mercenary had been dashing in his prime, his brawn had since gone to fat, bulging against his militaristic tunic that was festooned with weapons so polished they likely hadn’t seen the outside of their bejeweled holsters. His olive skin was heavily lined, his coiffed hair more silver than black. Gray stubble sprouted from his jowls.

These days, the only thing Rune Borges was conquering was a tray of finger sandwiches. With beringed hands, he popped them in his mouth as he leered at them, dark eyes glittering.

“Azalea,” he greeted, the gruffness of his voice tempered by a rich Portuguese accent. Drinking deep from a flagon of wine, he swiped the back of his hand over his generous mouth and loosed an indulgent belch.

“ Anita .” She ripped the drapes open, and sunlight poured in a blinding flash. Hands on her ample hips, she stood over the Ferromancer shielding his bloodshot eyes from the sudden brightness. “We don’t have time for your shit, Rune. We need information. You only get paid if you give it to us.”

“Plucky as ever, Azalea,” he chortled, tossing a beefy arm over the back of his chair and pulling on his cigar. “I’ll have you and your boss know that I don’t have time for lackeys. I didn’t retire as the most celebrated metal mage in generations to deal with the Realmwalker’s migué . I am the head of security at the Gilded Lily, the most prestigious pleasure house in Britain. In all of Europe. Do you know what demands that makes on my time?” He stuffed another sandwich in his mouth. “This is no easy job, sweetheart.”

Anita knocked the sandwich tray onto the rug and Rune nearly tumbled out of his chair after them. His eyes took in the carnage, then narrowed on the Sanguimancer, ogling her up and down.

“I might overlook your pluckiness, girl, if you sit on Papi’s lap like old times, hm?” He patted his thighs in invitation.

“I don’t entertain clients anymore,” Anita ground out in a voice like silken steel.

Rune snatched her arm with surprisingly quick reflexes. Anita yanked away but the ex-mercenary’s grip was firm. Cora stepped forward, eyes darting between them.

A faint shimmer of energy was the only warning before Anita’s magic struck. Blood drained from his face, and he yelped, clasping his crotch protectively.

“Your excuse for a pecker isn’t the only thing I can drain the blood out of.” Anita hovered her hands over him, and he shrank back. “Say, how’s your wife, Rune? I do miss entertaining clients with Camille. I miss our threesomes. And foursomes. And—”

“Enough.” Muttering Portuguese curses, Rune readjusted his family jewels away from Anita. Cigar clamped in his teeth, his gaze fell on Cora in a lecherous onceover. “She’d be prettier if she had any tits.”

Scowling, Cora crossed her arms over the tits in question. “It’s easier for you to change your beauty standards than it is for me to change my body to meet them,” she said. “Arsehole.”

“You know who she is, don’t you?” Anita’s grin widened at his faltering confidence. “That’s Mal’s newest recruit, Cora Walcott. The Unweaver.”

Rune Borges paled beneath his tan. He eyed Cora fearfully, his jowls quivering as he struggled to swallow. Introductions were unnecessary, then. He knew she’d killed Verek and could kill him too. It was both liberating and alarming how few qualms Cora had at that prospect.

“Th–the Unweaver,” he whispered, palming the revolver strapped in an elaborate belt around his paunch. “The Unweaver… is… a woman?”

Nope, definitely no qualms.

“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” Anita plopped into the chair opposite him and slid the bullet shard across the table. “Tell us what this is. You get paid when I’m satisfied.”

Rune downed his wine, his frightened gaze lingering on the Necromancer in his private suite. “Just keep it on a tight leash, will you? Let’s see about this metal. Hm. Curious. Very curious. You’ve come to the right place, Azalea. Given my prodigious talent, I am the only Ferromancer with the right caliber in all of London. No, in all of Europe—”

“Just get to it, old man.”

Casting Anita a foul look, Rune Borges ordered a valet to bring him another trayful of sandwiches. He’d devoured them all by the time he finished running his intricate tests on the metal shard. Sweat beaded on the Ferromancer’s forehead as he squinted down at the results.

“Not magic-repelling, but magic-absorbing,” he mumbled, turning the shard over in his gloved hand. “The more a mage tries to use their magic, the faster they’re drained. Ingenious.”

“You aren’t earning your pay by telling us what we already know, old man.”

Rune blinked up, seeming to remember they were in the room. His gaze hovered on Cora before he found his voice. “What I just did was very challenging, Azalea,” he said as if explaining her own ignorance to her. “This metal is… This shouldn’t exist. It seems to be made of Sephrinium—a metal so rare I’ve only heard myths about it. The Tribunal’s Ruination Stone, lost for centuries, was forged from Sephrinium. But now…” He sat back and raked trembling hands through his hair, his troubled gaze far away. “ Meu deus .”

The Ruination Stone was said to have counteracted every magical affinity by nearness alone. A crafty punishment in the hands of the Tribunal Masters, who could drain a mage of their magic and force them to live as a human.

“If the bullet drains magic,” Cora said into the heavy silence, “does that mean it has to be human made?”

His gaze fastened on her for a horrified moment before turning to Anita, as if he could ignore the Unweaver out of existence. “The only one who could have made this bullet is a human. I’d bet your lives on it. It could’ve been a clueless human told to manufacture it. Regardless of the bullet’s origin, this…” Rune cupped the shard in his palm. “This is the end of mages.”

The truth shivered through Cora, though the grievous implications were just beginning to sink in. Humans and impossible bullets and ruination.

Anita handed him a handsome bribe, threatening creative applications of her Sanguimancy if he spoke a word of this to anyone. Rune waved them off, licking his fingers and recounting the money. A valet escorted them out of the suite and through a labyrinth of hallways.

“Think he’ll keep his mouth shut?” Cora asked Anita.

“Not a chance. Least we tried.”

Their exit, unfortunately, did not go undetected. They were halfway across the atrium when a woman with fiery hair cascading around her shoulders sauntered into their path. Anita cursed under her breath. They’d almost made it out unscathed.

“Azalea,” the redhead called, her eyes flashing amber. Her feline tail swished in tune with her undulating hips. One of the few Bestiamancers Mother hadn’t leashed. “Madam Kalandra’s office is this way. Or has it been so long you don’t remember?”

“Iris,” Anita said between her teeth. “We’re actually in a bit of a rush—”

“This way.” Iris turned on her heel and loped away, not sparing them a backward glance. The valets closing in behind them ensured they followed.

Madam Kalandra’s silk-swathed office was one Roman orgy fresco shy of gauche. Iris pushed them inside when they dawdled on the threshold of such grandeur. Tail swishing, Iris locked the door and draped herself in a chair beside it.

A buxom woman in a burgundy gown that showcased her assets to the fullest came around her desk to greet them. With her flawless, tawny complexion and henna-stained hair, she was some indeterminate age over forty. An encyclopedia of pillow talk smoldered behind her kohl-lined eyes as she sized them up. “Why, Azalea—”

“Anita,” she corrected. Realizing her error, she sketched a deferential bow. “Madam Kalandra. I prefer to be called Anita now.”

Madam scalded her with a reproachful look. Anita’s hopes of her former employer’s understanding had been in vain. To Kalandra, Anita had turned if not turncoat, then turn-corset, when she defected to Bane’s gang.

“I don’t often welcome deserters back into my home.” Turning with a swish of skirts that hugged her generous curves, Madam Kalandra assessed Cora, her gaze catching on her midsection. A private smile played across Madam’s fresh-picked rose petal lips.

Cora glanced down. The price tag was still attached to her new clothes. She flushed, feeling like a one shilling hooker as she ripped it off, earning a wider smile from Madam.

The Animancer’s gaze sharpened in recognition. “Or the Unweaver, for that matter.”

Bad news travels very fast. A lifetime of secrets was now aired out like dirty laundry for the world to inspect. Fighting the instinct to flee, Cora drew up to her full height, a head taller than Madam in her satin heels.

Kalandra appraised her like an object full of revolting potential. “In my business, I can neither condone nor condemn you, Unweaver. But I can pay much better for your… skills than Malachy Bane.”

Here was Cora’s out, offered by a brothel madam, no less. “That may be so. But I doubt I’d want to use my, er, skills that way.”

Kalandra’s eyebrows rose in delicate arches. “Perhaps you do not yet see the possibilities. Clients would pay anything to be intimate with their loved ones again.”

Cora swallowed her nausea down. “Necrophilia is not my thing.”

Anita smothered her laugh at Madam’s formidable stare. Waving her ring-bedecked hand, Kalandra guided them to a sunny sitting area with a sweeping view of the Lily’s pleasure gardens. Cora sat on the edge of a settee, glancing at Anita for direction. The Sanguimancer looked equally petrified at chatting with Madam.

“Pray, what was your business with Rune?” Kalandra insinuated herself upon a throne-like chair, tapping her blood-tipped talons on the arm. “Other than trying to steal him from me, that is. Hasn’t your new master poached enough from me?”

“Mal had some personal business with Rune,” Anita said in a tight voice. “We’re just the messengers.”

“Is that so?” Her smile was sharp and knowing. “Rune never could keep a secret. He’s just so chatty in bed. Isn’t he, Azalea?”

Anita’s eyes darted to the door and its tailed keeper. Iris bared her teeth back. “We really must be going, Madam. Lots to do. You know how Mal is. Always busy.”

“Is that so.” Madam rearranged her skirts in a tidy pleat. “As you have demonstrated before, you are more than capable of leaving my home. And I shall let you. After I read the Unweaver’s hand for one minute.”

“No!” Anita leapt out of her chair. “No. That won’t be necessary, Madam.” Worry was written on the lines of her face as she shot Cora a pained look. She understood how much a powerful Animancer could reveal in a minute of physical contact.

Teddy had coached Cora in defending against Animancy. It was all about the misdirection of desires, like focusing on a food craving and nothing else. She could school her reactions for a minute if it meant getting them out of here and never coming back. “It’s all right, Anita. One minute and you’ll let us out of here, unharmed?”

Kalandra gave Iris a significant look and the Bestiamancer rose and stepped closer. “So long as you do not harm me, Unweaver. Indeed.”

Cora nodded. Madam smiled. Anita fretted.

“Cora, Cora, Cor-a ,” Madam Kalandra cooed, peeling off her newly stolen glove one finger at a time.

Her skin was soft on Cora’s chilled hand but her magic was like a claw tracing the seam of her self-control. A tug on her heartstrings lured her desires to the surface with a come-hither hitch. Cora’s emotions stirred in response. A restless disquiet.

Think of a food. Any food. French toast! French toast is good. Especially with fresh strawberries — She cursed herself for conjuring an image of Bane making breakfast in a three-piece suit. Then Bane naked in a clawfoot tub—

No! She shoved the image away. Or tried to. Cannabis and concentration, she realized too late, were mutually exclusive.

“So, you enjoy working for Malachy.” There was a wicked glimmer in Kalandra’s dark eyes. She stroked the back of Cora’s hand in a gentle rhythm and purred, “Personally, I have always found it a pleasure doing business with Malachy. He is one of my most treasured clients.”

Animancy riled Cora’s emotions without mercy. Her pulse spiked. Her chest panged. Vaguely, she knew Kalandra had breached the sacred brothel–client confidentiality that gentlemen staked their reputations on. She was outing Bane to get a rise out of Cora.

Cora took the bait. Hook, line, and sinker.

Bane had left behind a trail of beautiful women. Yvonne and Kalandra and all the stunning creatures sashaying through the Gilded Lily. And now he was trying with Cora. Not because she was beautiful, but because she was simply there. The silver medal. The consolation prize.

Think of another food. Anything! Any —

“Your desires are conflicted.” Leaning closer, Madam dropped her voice to an intimate whisper. “I sense your fear. Your hunger. Your jealousy.”

Kalandra had given name to the medley of emotions churning in her gut and broiling in her veins. Names had power. That unpleasantness slithering in her belly had a name and a reason.

Cora was jealous. Viciously, nauseatingly jealous. She hadn’t been Bane’s first conquest, and she certainly wouldn’t be his last. A ripple of jealousy became a current in her veins. A drip of fear gushed into a flood. She tried to pull back, but Kalandra’s claws tightened.

“Ah, your jealousy is ripe , Unweaver. Jealousy is like drinking poison and hoping the other person drops dead, no? But your suspicions of Malachy are not unfounded. He has no love in his heart. A woman is a weakness to him. Love is a liability, leverage for enemies to exploit. Your craving for him will go unsated. He will only use you as you’ve been used before.” Madam shook her head gently and smiled. “So desperate to be loved, yet so convinced you are unlovable.”

The roaring current of magic stoked Cora’s emotions a hundredfold. Pressure mounted inside her, pushing against her skin and threatening to burst her at the seams. She couldn’t misdirect the Animancer clutching her hand if her life depended on it. Which it quite possibly did.

“In these walls, however,” Madam said, her voice a low seduction, “you will find nothing but the love you crave.”

“Charged for by the hour,” Cora gritted out.

Her claws stilled for a half-second, then dug in deeper. “Charges that your late twin still owes me. Ah, yes, Teddy. He was in way over his head. I wasn’t surprised when he turned up dead.” She tutted at Cora’s startled gasp. “Why, I had to ban Teddy from sampling the Lily’s pleasures after he burst in one evening, wilting my poor flowers with his crazed ranting. Rune accosted him and tossed him out for the last time.”

Animancy amplified Cora’s shocked horror until she throbbed with it. This was not the story Teddy had given her about the jilted lover at his favorite brothel that he’d rather avoid. Was Kalandra throwing her brother’s vices back at Cora to bait her?

It worked. Very, very well.

“The odd thing is your twin claimed he couldn’t remember coming here at all that night. He said he’d been having the strangest dream and simply found himself here.” Madam angled her head, rolling her plump lips together. “Have you had any strange dreams, Cora?”

The image came unbidden. Malachy, looking up between her thighs as she came apart on his tongue.

“Minute’s up.” Anita jerked Cora to her feet. “Let’s go.”

Cora rubbed her hands together, breathing fast. She wasn’t sure how much the Animancer had sensed, but judging by Madam’s cunning smile, it was more than enough. Iris blocked the door, awaiting Madam’s signal.

Kalandra stared hard at Cora for several moments before standing in a whisper of silk. “I can see her in you, you know. Her hunger. Her desperate bitterness. Iris was not the first Bestiamancer to work within these walls, you know. The Gilded Lily catered to a different clientele back then. Edwina’s husband sold her to the previous Madam for a handful of shillings when she couldn’t bear his children. In those days, women’s work was wedding or bedding. Edwina had been forced into both and was determined to carve a third path.” She eyed Cora. “Ask her if it was worth it.”

Edwina. Mother. From unwitting wife to whore to spy.

Mother had never shared about her life before they met, and Cora had certainly never asked. Thirteen years with Mother, and she was only a more familiar stranger.

“Edwina and I aren’t on speaking terms anymore. She’s let this pet go.”

Kalandra shook her head with that private smile. “Edwina will never let you go. That was always her problem. Letting go.”

Anita looked between them and took another step towards the door. “We ought to get going, Madam. Mal will be in a mood if we’re not back soon.”

With a slight nod to the tailed redhead, they were released. Cora didn’t take a full breath until they were back out in the bitter cold.