Page 26 of The Unweaver (Unwoven Fates #1)

A fter Lazlo returned to Budapest and Bane returned to the business of war, Cora scoured the library for everything about the Specter’s Scourge and the Master Chronomancer Ghose. She found few details about the former beyond what the Sciomancer had already told her, and so little about the latter she suspected it was intentional.

Eventually, she stumbled across a mention of Ghose in the footnotes of a dense Chronomancy text that had at least been written in the last century. The Chronomancer’s life was condensed into a single line:

Alastair Ghose. Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1801. Master Chronomancer from 1840-1855. Death:?

The enigmatic Ghose must have given Bane that prophecy well into his decrepitude. Master Lyter was still kicking, though. Perhaps a long life wasn’t uncommon for the Tribunal Masters.

Cora felt defeated. It was a dead end to a dead man and the death he foretold.

She looked up Chronomancer prophecies to reassure herself they were self-fulfilling and not predestined, and soon became lost in the complexities of time magic. The subjectivity of observation, temporal paradoxes, alternate timelines only differing by an iota...

According to one particularly pedantic book, these prophecies were predictions of what might happen and were no more accurate than a coin flip, for the very act of perceiving the future changed it. Time was neither a line nor a circle, but an endless regression of possibilities spiraling into infinity.

Ghose’s prophecy was only potentially fatal, then. And Moriarty’s ominous final words— He will love you to death —were a stab in the dark. Not a prophecy, but a possibility. And an unlikely one given, well, everything.

The search for the Coal-Eye creature Bane mentioned Ghose becoming, however, bore fruit. As mages corrupted their spirits with the Profane Arts, their eyes blackened to glittering coals in the grotesque almost-inhumanness of their faces.

Demons .

There were fables as old as time warning of a mage’s irrevocable descent into dark magic, but she had never heard of Coal-Eyes before. Then again, until recently she’d thought demons were a myth.

The same book was referenced again and again. The Demonomicon. A forbidden book whose possession would result in a swift execution by the Tribunal, regardless of how many Masters were old friends. A book she had no doubt Bane owned. The only question was where.

He wouldn’t keep it lying around. The forbidden book had to be in the forbidden room. Untold dark treasures might also be locked inside with it. She might even find the missing half of his truths.

Resolved, she set out immediately. After triple-checking she was alone in the house and distracting Kevin with an entire roast chicken, she descended upon the locked door.

Her heart pounded in a cacophony with the rhythmic thumping on the other side of the door. The house trembled and her palm burned like ice up her arm and down her spine. Precious minutes dripped away while she tried lock picks and enchantments that didn’t work.

There was a strange magic behind this lock, similar to the one Bane had used to pen her into the Emerald Club. Dimitri had passed in and out without issue, but the door had locked for her moments later. How had that lock distinguished between them? The Hydromancer had been unloading booze crates, whereas she’d been trying to escape.

Realization struck her like an arrow to the temple. The lock’s magic distinguished intentions .

An Intentions Lock. Elaborate in its simplicity. Unlocked for the right intentions, locked for the wrong. She’d never seen one executed so well.

The house seemed to realize her realization. The floors heaved underfoot, and she crashed to her knees. Wobbling on all fours, she crawled to the door, willing her intentions. She only wanted to read the book she suspected of being inside. That was all. She’d borrow it, find the knowledge she sought in its cursed pages, and return it posthaste. All she wanted was information. Really.

The thumping inside pleaded with her to unleash it. And for some reason, she desperately wanted to.

The door swung open. She tumbled inside with a triumphant shout.

Cora wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. The windowless room was covered in horrid, florid wallpaper— is that why he keeps it locked? — and lined with overflowing shelves and smooth, humming cabinets in all shapes and sizes. A trove of forbidden treasures her fingers itched to take.

Thump, thump, thump , called out to her like a heartache.

Her gaze swung around the room. Dark magic clung to the air like smog. Leaning against a stack of mummified cats was the Fortune’s Shield, its silver forged in legend. On a high shelf sparkled a Gem of Enthrallment. A shard alone would fetch thousands on the black market. And there it sat, collecting dust. The gem belonged in more appreciative ownership. Her hand reached to repossess it, then burned when she tried to.

The floor quaked and she staggered back, gripping the closest thing to stay upright. Her palm erupted in blistering pain. Gasping, she jerked away. She’d grabbed an urn that was polished mirror-bright and crackled with phosphorescent energy. The Urn of Depravity, confiscated from none other than Marcel Durbec.

Thumping boomed against the walls and propelled her feet to an ebony box a handspan across without handles or hinges. Mesmerized, she reached out. The rug whipped up and wrapped around her ankles like a serpent. Cora fell, and with panting effort, kicked the strangulating rug off and dragged herself to her feet.

Right. The Demonomicon and only the Demonomicon . The magic still distinguished her intentions inside.

She tried to ignore the plaintive thumping as she searched the shelves, cautious not to touch anything. There were forbidden texts, ranging from old to very old, on the Profane Arts and all manners of magical perversions. Several ominous titles mentioned Necromancy.

She brushed the spine of a particularly seductive book titled The Necromancer’s Delight. Magic, dark and cold, poured into her, feeling for her edges. The rug tassels hissed, and pain shot up her arm. Swearing, she forced her hands behind her.

Thump, thump, thump .

There. The Demonomicon, bound in inhuman skin, glowed with menace. By far the naughtiest book in Bane’s collection. Drawing in a shaky breath, she grasped it. Stillness and wrongness greeted her.

She snatched the book and bolted from the room before it could trap her inside with the priceless contraband, shouting, “I’ll bring it right back, I swear!”

The door slammed at her heels, muting the desperate thumping that cried out for her. Kevin barely looked up from his half-devoured chicken carcass as she sprinted past with her loot.

Several agonizing hours later, Cora deemed deciphering the Demonomicon an exercise in futility. It appeared to be written in ancient Greek that, even equipped with dictionaries, defied translation. All that work, and the first sentence still came out as incoherent nonsense. She had risked the Realmwalker’s wrath for nothing.

The images within, however, required no translation.

On the goldleaf pages were intricate drawings of otherworldly horrors. In sickened fascination, she studied page after page of inhuman suffering depicted in a morbid level of detail. Men being ungloved, molting their skin like a cicada and demonic shadows of themselves emerging. Corrupted spirits, their eyes blackening to coal. Demons, ripping through the veil from another Realm.

Every hair on her nape stood on end by the time she shut the Demonomicon with more questions than answers.

Master Lyter had been right. This was much worse than expected.