Page 24 of The Unweaver (Unwoven Fates #1)

T he new year began with a gruesome ritual.

With Aeromancy, Ravi lifted Teddy’s body into the center of Bane’s magical workroom. Potions and ingredients lined the walls and a bloodred pentagram marked the scuffed floor.

Peeling back the sheet revealed the gorged body of the only person Cora had ever loved. The only person who had ever loved her. In the flickering black flame candles, Teddy looked even more lifeless.

“Teddy bear,” she whispered on a broken sob. Tears sheened her eyes. Both of their lives hung from a fragile thread of hope. If this didn’t work— No. She couldn’t permit the thought. Even though her stomach knotted with doubts, she needed to do this. Please , she begged the void. Please don’t make me lose him again .

Cora, Bane, Lazlo, Ravi, and Anita crowned each pentagram point with a crystal, amplifying their magic into a thrumming current.

“To determine the curse to break, we must first lift the magical block,” the Master Sciomancer intoned. “This block is extremely strong. We will need to absorb the dark magic to see underneath. I will not lie to you. It will feel like torture. But no matter how unbearable the pain becomes, all our lives depend on keeping your eyes closed and your hands joined. Do you understand?”

Lazlo scanned them in turn until they nodded, full of misgivings. “Let us begin.”

Their hands joined around the rotting corpse. Lazlo’s bony fingers on her left and Bane’s long fingers on her right. Bane’s thumb stroked her jumping pulse, and she shot him a dubious look.

“Close your eyes,” Lazlo said in a sonorous voice. “Whatever you hear, whatever pain you feel, whatever your mind screams for, do not look or let go. To do otherwise invites certain death.”

Cora forced her eyes shut, clutching their hands in a bone-crunching grip as the Sciomancer chanted in a long-dead tongue.

Something hummed in response, low and resonant. Something that seemed to surround Cora and percolate into her skin. She had a fierce urge to run. It took all her willpower not to move.

The hum grew into a roar that swelled into a gale blasting through the room. Her hair and clothes whipped around her. The walls rattled and jars crashed to the buckling floor.

Strobing pulses of blinding light pierced her eyelids, making her eyes water. She had never wanted to blink so desperately. To open her eyes and look upon the beasts unseen, stalking ever closer.

Lazlo’s voice was tinny in the tempest. His chant broke off with a pained gasp. “The— the block is too— too—”

The wind died. In its place, Cora felt a dark presence settle over them, teeming with wrongness . Like a snarling creature, snapping its fangs in her face, fanning her with its foul breath, putrid and sulfurous. Burning cold skittered across her nerves. Pain sank its teeth into her bones.

“Wrong!” Lazlo bellowed.

Screams . Someone was screaming. Bloodcurdling screams that rent the still air. My screams , she realized as another tore out of her throat. The room echoed with shouts and guttural cries. Around the pentagram, everyone was immersed in their own internal torture. Bane gripped her hand tighter, an anchor in the storm.

“ Wrong .” Groaning, Lazlo’s grip slackened and he slumped forward. Cora yanked him upright, her eyes still screwed shut, teeth clenched against another anguished cry.

The strobing and snarling ceased. For a second there was only the vacuum of silence. Then a thousand tiny spears slipped between Cora’s ribs and seeped their poison. A distillation of wrongness that funneled into her heart until it overflowed. She choked on a cry, unable to breathe as dark magic poured inside her.

The wrongness paced the bars of her ribcage, clicking its long nails.

Death , it growled through the sutures of her thoughts. Feed .

The spears retreated with the sound of a dead weight dropping. Lazlo . Her eyes flew open. The Sciomancer, face creased in agony, had collapsed and the room was in ruins. His bloodshot eyes spun around as he babbled incoherently. Whatever devilry had occurred, it had drained the ancient mage of his energy and sanity.

Bane rushed over and knelt beside him. Clamping an arm around Lazlo for support, Bane helped him sit up and whispered soothing words, wiping the sweat from his pale brow.

Cora’s gaze snapped to Teddy. He looked atrocious. No different from before. She didn’t know whether that meant the ritual was a success or failure, and Lazlo was in no place to answer. Giddy despair filled her.

A cry drew her attention. Ravi was weeping on the floor with his head in his hands and Anita at his side. The women’s gazes met over his bent head. The hell they had been through was etched on their faces. Anita offered Ravi a hand up, and he struggled to his feet. Cora roped an arm around his back to steady him.

Sniffling, Ravi turned to thank her when he realized who—what—held him. He flinched and fled to the opposite corner with a terrified, backward glance. Cora watched him go, feeling hollow.

Bane carried Lazlo like a wrinkly child swaddled in a patched cloak. “Anita, take Teddy’s body back to the club. See that it’s preserved. The club will be packed from New Year’s Eve. Make sure Sloane shadow cloaks you. Then have yourselves a bottle or five of the best champagne behind the bar and I’ll see you in a week.”

Anita released a relieved breath. “Right-o, Mal.”

Bile rose in Cora’s throat as she watched Ravi float her decaying brother out of sight, Anita following them out. Bane carried Lazlo to the library and Cora trailed after like a ghost. Gingerly, he set Lazlo in the wingback chair before the fireplace. The old man seemed to sink within himself. Bane poured everyone a tall glass of spirits. Cora drank hers without tasting it.

“Here you are, old friend.” Bane tipped the glass to Lazlo’s quivering lips. “Easy does it.”

Lazlo’s wits returned one sip at a time. When he finished the glass, his eyes were clearer, though he still slumped with weariness.

“Did it…” Her throat constricted. “Did it work?”

Lazlo gave a tired nod. “It did.”

Exultation surged in her chest. It worked! All that was left was to break the curse and reunite the fractured pieces of him.

Her cheer took a nosedive when she caught their expressions.

Lazlo’s gaze settled heavily on Bane. “It is much worse than expected, Mal.”

Bane glanced at Cora’s crumbling features and poured her another drink. “Go on, Lazlo.”

“The magical block was… vicious,” he said in a faraway voice. “For it concealed a perversion of nature. Teddy Walcott was cursed with the profanest of dark magic. The Specter’s Scourge.”

Cora didn’t recognize the curse but it was clear Bane did. He went very pale and very still. His facade of indifference collapsed, his features stricken as if he were disturbed down to his marrow.

“Sweet merciful Jesus.” He poured himself a whiskey, then another. Thudding the glass down, he braced his hands on the fireplace mantle, back turned, shoulders hunched, head bowed.

Her heart sank into the pit of her stomach. She’d never seen Bane this dismal, this raw. The curse must be very, very bad.

“The Specter’s Scourge is…?” she ventured into the tortuous silence.

Lazlo started out of his grim reverie. “The Profane curse scourges all but a sliver of the spirit from its mortal vessel, leaving the victim a specter of themselves. But something must have gone awry when they cursed your twin, as that sliver was not kept in his body but damned to Purgatory, thus killing him. As you did not find him in the Death Realm, the rest of his accursed spirit must be caged in a vessel somewhere outside his body. The perpetrator who scourged his spirit and took his heart likely holds them captive still. The only way to reunite the pieces of his spirit is to release them from that vessel.”

Horror doused her. She remembered the terrible Solstice ritual she’d stumbled upon. Had she interrupted them before the curse was complete? Was she to blame for Teddy’s fractured spirit?

Soon, she would make his spirit whole again and reanimate his poor body. The monster responsible would feel her wrath keenly.

“Who cursed him, Master Lyter? I will hunt the bastard down and end this tonight. I will wrench Teddy’s heart out of his dead hands, break this curse, and bring him back.”

“I am sorry, Cora.” The solemn Sciomancer shook his head. “The cost of such dark magic is very high—”

“Later.” Bane cut him off with a sharp glance and turned to face them. “We’ll get into that later. Let’s focus on the next step now. Finding the curse-caster and the spirit vessel.”

Lazlo held Bane’s gaze for a long moment. “You already know how this will end, my friend.”

Bane shot Cora a grave look. “Who cursed Teddy, Laz?”

“Fortunately, I recognized the magical signature. Unfortunately, it was Marcel Durbec.”

“Durbec? The French Sanguimancer? That fuckin’ wanker?”

“You are familiar with Monsieur Durbec, then. The Tribunal was involved in shutting down his… surgery in Paris.” Lazlo shuddered. “Grisly business. We were not aware he’d relocated to London after the war.”

“Fuckin’ hell.” Bane raked back his hair and paced the library in carpet-eating strides. “We just busted Durbec for smuggling dark magic relics. I’ll check the inventory for possible spirit vessels. Got an Urn of Depravity off him.”

“Those are exceedingly rare,” Lazlo said.

Obsidian eyes flashed. “Rare like Sephrinium.”

Armed with a name, Cora now had a target to direct her rage at. Teddy’s murderer was slated for annihilation. Death would be a mercy when she was finished with Marcel Durbec. “Let’s find Durbec and bring him to justice.”

“Whose justice?” Bane scoffed.

“Who cares? Let’s nab the vessel and pump him with lead. I’d like to see the bloody blood mage get that out of his system.”

“Your vengeance lacks subtlety, Cora.”

“That is the point.”

“No,” Bane said. “It’s about applying the right amount of pressure to the fault lines. Durbec’s too slimy for the direct approach. We need the spirit vessel and information from him. I guarantee he’s not working alone. Durbec’s a man of negotiable morals—he’ll respond better to a trade than a threat.”

“You’re going to do business with the bastard who cursed my brother? Why not kill him first and ask questions later?”

“Killing Durbec isn’t going to bring Teddy back.”

“No,” she said sullenly. “But it’ll make me feel better.”

“I can tell you from experience that the best revenge is living well.”

“And how do you propose I do that?”

“By killing Durbec—strategically.” Bane contemplated the flames in the hearth. “We’ll bring him to us. I’ll invite him to the club on some bullshit pretense of business and handle the rest. For this to work, Cora, you just need to play piano and keep a clear head. Absolutely no drinking, no drugs. Do not engage with Durbec under any circumstances. We can’t reveal our hand until we see his.”

“So, shut up and play piano. That’s the plan?”

“You got a better one?”

Her shoulders sagged. “No.”

“I mean it, Cora. Just follow my lead and—I cannot stress this enough—do not fuck anything up.”