Page 31 of The Unweaver (Unwoven Fates #1)

H er tea had long gone cold. Cora re-read the same paragraph in the dense Oneiromancy text, her thoughts as shaken as her confidence in coming out of this ordeal on top, let alone alive. But she couldn’t give up on Teddy. Regardless of the dream mage and their sleepwalking puppets, she needed to find the vessel entrapping the rest of his spirit. And she needed Bane to do it, though she’d rather combust from embarrassment than converse with him again.

After waking to a rather splendidly shirtless Bane and the revelation of a voyeuristic Oneiromancer entangling their dreams, she had abandoned sleep to put on the kettle. Her thoughts kept straying to Bane, her stomach clenching with humiliation and an unquiet ache.

Last night churned in her mind. She was jittery, waiting for a man that never came, waiting for a Wolf Moon ritual that wouldn’t work unless they found Teddy’s missing spirit. Worse, an inkling of death had risen along with the morning sun.

With a frustrated groan, she forced her attention back to the book.

A pair of black boots appeared from the ceiling, followed by trousers and a flapping coat. Cora shrieked. Bane dropped out of thin air and landed on the kitchen table with a menacing thump, spilling tea and scattering toast.

“Holy hell!” The chair toppled over as she scrambled to her feet. “Can’t you use a bloody door?”

He looked down at her with an unreadable expression, his suit rumpled and stained, hair falling into his eyes. Blood dripped from his hand. Jumping to the floor, he tossed the bloody object onto her plate.

A heart.

Mouth gaping, her eyes darted between Bane and the heart. He gazed steadily back. Realization struck her like an ax. “You killed him?”

“I need you to ask Monsieur Durbec some questions.” Bane poured himself a cup of tea. “Death’s the only way to get answers out of him. Go on. Commune with him.”

“You killed him ?”

He shrugged and sipped tea. Finding the tea cold seemed to disturb him more than the Sanguimancer’s heart oozing onto her breakfast. “You rotted his stones off. Figure I did him a favor.”

Fury and betrayal raged within her. Her gloves decayed and angry tears stung her eyes. Durbec was their only lead to finding the Oneiromancer and reuniting Teddy’s spirit. A now very dead Durbec. Bane had damned Teddy to a true death, to an eternity of incompleteness in Purgatory. He’d damned all her hopes.

“You liar!” She hurled a spoon. He ducked aside. “You’ve killed Teddy along with Durbec. Our Binding Agreement was that you find Teddy, not kill him more!”

“Technically—” He dodged her volley of cutlery projectiles with ease. “I’ve never lied to you.”

“Despite all evidence to the fucking contrary!” Holding his gaze, she planted her palms on the table between them. The wood warped and collapsed into fibrous sludge in the shape of her hands.

Bane made to stop her, then gave up. “Not my table, too,” he muttered.

Her anger at him was eclipsed by her anger at herself. Of course, her deal with the devil hadn’t been in her favor. You couldn’t grift a grifter. A timeless lesson. Almost kissing him hadn’t just been a momentary lapse in judgment, but a momentous one. A mistake she’d never make again.

“You may not have outright lied, you bastard, but you haven’t been honest either. I am sick of your half-truths.”

He leaned against the counter and crossed his ankles. “Durbec is worth more dead than alive. He was the Oneiromancer’s puppet, and only they can free your brother’s spirit. I’ll let you kill them after.”

“Chivalrous of you,” she fumed. She didn’t believe him. She wouldn’t make that mistake again, either.

“Getting pissed at me changes nothing.” He drained his cup and set it down with a clatter. “The Oneiromancer is the key. After another chat with Durbec, courtesy of Anita’s magic, it was clear he remembered fuck all. Commune with him and find the answers.”

“I will never forgive you.”

“We can discuss how that’s bullshit—at length, if you insist, and we both know you will—after we take this dream mage down.”

She glared at him. He raised his brows. Venting an exasperated breath, she reached for Marcel Durbec’s heart on a plate and hesitated. She’d only communed with the dead in front of Teddy, and even her twin had been disturbed by her hollow body laced with necrotic veins.

“You can’t watch.”

“I think we’re past that point.”

Shooting him a final glare, she grasped the heart, stiff and gooey between her fingers, and slipped through the black veil.

Durbec’s Deathscape rushed up to greet her. The late Sanguimancer was perched like a jubilant dragon atop a mountain of riches, gold and silver and glittering gemstones sheathed in a green phosphorescence.

When Durbec noticed her below, he startled and nearly tumbled down his pile of plunder. Once righted, he brushed lint off his burgundy suit with a sniff. “ You ,” he sneered.

“Me.” Cora craned her head back to meet his glowering eyes. “Right. Let’s get to it, shall we? The Oneiromancer puppeteering you. Show me everything.”

Durbec gave a long-suffering sigh. “As I informed Monsieur Bane, repeatedly, before he murdered me in cold blood, I do not remember any Oneiromancer. I am the victim.”

She sighed. With furious kicks, she chipped away at the mountain’s foundation. Shields, chalices, and crowns fell in an avalanche, taking Durbec along with them. He screamed the whole way down and it was music to her ears.

He crashed before her and she knelt down, grabbing his throat and squeezing . His eyes bulged.

“Show. Me. Everything. Who’d you sell the Oracle Ruby to?”

At first, she saw only Durbec’s death. Black eyes staring down at him with murderous intent. Clawing stabs of a knife as Bane excised Durbec’s heart from his chest. Cora inhaled sharply. His death had been gruesome. Not that she disapproved.

Durbec’s next memory was of a shop crammed with odds and ends. Dust motes drifted in the faint light streaming through mullioned windows. The bell above the door chimed and a young girl entered. A petite vision in her baby doll dress and polished Mary Janes, she was blonde and moon-pale, with silver eyes too old for her years.

Cora felt the stirring of a distant memory. The girl was strangely familiar.

The girl floated through the crowded shelves and cabinets to his counter. Licking his lips, Durbec came around the scuffed mahogany and greeted her with a moist kiss to her knuckles. The bones in her tiny hand were as delicate as a fledgling’s. Blood, thick and dark for one so young, ignored his Sanguimancy’s enticement. He tilted his head, his gaze sharpening. Curious .

“ Enchanté . How may I be of service to you, mademoiselle?”

While the girl’s manners were impeccable, her haggling was ruthless. On top of a steep discount for an enhanced Sleepwalker’s Draught, he parted ways with his cherished Oracle Ruby for a fraction of its worth. The ruby’s previous owner had paid for the priceless relic with his life. Durbec had relished that man’s torturous dismemberment. His eyes now swam in a tank beside Durbec’s desk along with many others. Little trophies for his private amusement.

Durbec himself felt dismembered by this cherub’s manipulation. Why had he agreed to sell her the Oracle Ruby for so little? Her girlish charms must have seduced an inconvenient softheartedness. Resentment grated his nerves. Her curious blood and silver eyes would make an excellent addition to his collection.

Donning his cloak and pulling the hood low, he turned his shop’s sign to CLOSED and pursued the calculating chit. He followed her white-blonde head through twisting streets and bustling crowds, but lost her when a car almost ran him over. Blasted machines. One moment she was there, the next she was gone in a cloud of smoke.

Defeated, he skulked back to his shop with thoughts of the bottle of port he kept behind the counter.

Cora lingered in the memory, looking around the neighborhood the girl had led Durbec to. Mother’s tottering boarding house was nearby. The house where Cora had bumped into a silver-eyed girl as she escaped Mother’s office, still shaking off the Occlusion Obelisk’s lobotomizing complicity. A girl with a bloodred ruby dangling from her neck.

Cora jolted back into her body in Bane’s kitchen. Doubling over, she heaved lungfuls of air and dropped Durbec’s heart to the floor with a squelch . She brushed hair from her face with a shaking hand. Something dripped into her eyebrow. Heart’s blood, warm and viscous. Frantically, she wiped it off with her sleeve.

Steadying hands grasped her shoulders, and a deep voice murmured in her ear. She fell back against the wall. “Sh-she’s just a little girl.”

Intrigue sparked in his eyes. “Or something wearing a little girl’s body.”

A chill raced down her spine.

“I-I’ve seen her before, at Mother’s house on the Solstice. She was wearing a ruby—the vessel that would trap Teddy’s spirits hours later—as fucking jewelry.” Her twin, imprisoned in a bauble around a child’s neck. “She touched me in the doorway. More than enough contact for an Oneiromancer to entangle dreams. And those... shared dreams started shortly after.”

“The Oneiromancer is one of Edwina’s brood, eh? Interesting. Looks like you weren’t the only pet she was keeping a secret.”

“When I saw her, I heard a voice say my name without the girl’s lips moving. I figured I was imagining it, but I’ve heard that voice in my dreams. And in the cemetery. When Verek attacked us, too.”

She shivered. All this time, the Oneiromancer had been chasing her across nightmares, sleeping and awake. Attacking them with her puppets. Walking through their dreams and entangling them in a breathless knot.

“What is this girl?” she said. “She didn’t act like a puppet, but is she one?”

“Has to be. No child could have that kind of power. With the sleepwalking potion and all the dream feeding, the Oneiromancer could better puppeteer a younger vessel. Still, this is puppeteering unlike anything I’ve seen. The Dream Realm veil is thin but not thin enough to exert this level of influence. They shouldn’t be able to pull all these strings outside of dreams.”

“That’s very comforting, thank you. Do any of your troublesome Oneiromancers match that description?”

He considered, his expression darkening. “The former Master Oneiromancer—she abused the Profane Arts, and her dream magic became empire-crumbling. She’s the cunt who introduced Master Ghose to dark magic. When the Tribunal ended the nightmare, she’d trapped a Russian city in, her spirit was so corrupted she was more demon than mage. But I watched Ikelas die.”

Cora frowned. “What if this is more than puppeteering? Could this girl be the… flesh vessel the Oneiromancer is occupying? A spirit in the wrong body would kill them both, but could a demonic spirit possess a living vessel?”

“A body-snatching dream demon? Impossible. Even in death, spirits are tethered to their own mortal carcasses.”

“We can ponder the impossibility later. What I do know is that death isn’t always permanent, and demons are bloody terrifying.” Grabbing his arm, she pulled him out of the kitchen. “No time to waste. Let’s go to Mother’s and nab the demon spawn.”

He stopped them short in the entryway. “If we’re ambushing enemy territory, we need to be prepared.”

She spun on her heel. “You’re being a coward.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Better a coward than a corpse.”

“I dunno, I’ve met several corpses more charming than you.”

“Cora, you can’t just barrel into someone’s territory and demand answers.”

“Why not? It worked with you.”

He stared hard, then nodded in begrudging concession. “That notwithstanding. To get what you want, we need a plan.” His arm locked around her shoulders, easing her from the door. “I have an idea.”

* * *

Six mages. Five Ferromancer-modified rifles. Four grenades. Three smoke bombs. Two grappling hooks. And one very shoddy plan.

After scrubbing off their respective gore, Bane and Cora had gone to the Emerald Club and gathered Dimitri, Anita, Ravi, and Sloane for their midnight ambush of Mother’s house. The club had not only a full bar, but a full arsenal.

Team assembled and weapons prepped, they turned to Bane for the full plan of attack.

“I can’t traverse into Edwina’s warded house. She’s been careful to never invite me inside, and I can’t accurately traverse myself, let alone five other people and the weapons, to a place I’ve never been. We’ll take the lorry, get in by some means, and hunt the Oneiromancer brat down where she sleeps.”

Strained silence met his words.

“So,” Anita ventured, “no plan.”

Dimitri thudded a heavy bag of weaponry onto the gold bar. “I have plan. Shoot way in. Kill everyone not dream mage.”

“Wait, wait.” Cora held up a hand to stymie the gang’s chorus of protests. “Let the man talk.”

An argument ensued. Ravi decried the plan as barbarous. Anita agreed it was short on tact, though that ain’t always a bad thing. Sloane denounced it as lacking in both stealth and logic. They had no reliable map of the house, other than Cora’s lackluster recollection of its labyrinthine interior.

“What’s the best way to get in?” Bane asked Cora. “You used to live there.”

“For a month. Thirteen years ago. You’re the captain of this misadventure, Bane. You tell us how to get in.”

Anita looked between them and threw up her hands. “You telling me we don’t even know how to get past the bloody door?”

“The Oneiromancer might be long gone by now,” Sloane cautioned. “We could be walking into a trap.”

“Tonight’s the night,” Bane said. “Let’s load up.”

Anita and Sloane followed him, carrying the supplies into the lorry idling outside. Ravi, with a fearful look at Cora, trailed after them with the rifles. She found herself alone with the giant Hydromancer. The uncomfortable silence practically begged her to fill it.

“Say, Dimitri.” She cleared her throat. “Have you ever heard of something called Coshoy’s Egg? Or Coshoy’s needle within the, er, egg?”

He stuffed more ammo into a rucksack, sparing her a narrow-eyed glance over his massive shoulder. “You mean Koschei’s Needle? Koschei the Deathless is Slavic myth. He hide spirit in objects, stacked like Matryoshka doll, and avoid death. Needle inside egg. So on.”

Cora blinked. She’d assumed occasional grunts were the extent of Dimitri’s conversational skills. The complete sentences caught her off guard. As did their meaning. Their terrible meaning.

She had misheard Moriarty’s thick Irish brogue. No wonder her search had been fruitless. It wasn’t Coshoy’s Egg, but Koschei’s Needle within the egg.

The spirit was the conduit for magic but also paid its cost. A mage’s body couldn’t perform magic without their spirit, unless some of the spirit remained in the body while the rest was stored… elsewhere. In a vessel that could absorb the cost of magic without damaging the spirit trapped within.

“Is it more than a myth?” Cora asked, urgent. “‘Koschei’s Needle? Is it real?”

“Real enough.” Dimitri hefted the rucksack over his shoulder. “Many men spend life searching.”

“What do you know about it?”

Outside, the lorry honked. His gaze slid from the door to her desperate features. “Only stories. Myth says it is needle inside egg. But others say it is egg made of needles. So, Koschei’s Egg.”

At her confused expression, he set the rucksack down and sketched a drawing on a bar napkin. A metal egg made of long, curving needles without sharp points, arranged like thin bars on the cage for a spirit. “See. Koschei’s Egg.”

The lorry honked again. She clutched the drawing as his giant form retreat. Realization shivered through her. Koschei’s Egg—Bane’s weakness, the Oneiromancer’s quarry—was a loophole to immortality.

Bane’s half-truths wove into a complete tapestry of deceit.

He’d been so stricken to hear about the Specter’s Scourge not because splitting the spirit was the profanest curse, but because he had an intimate familiarity with it. He’d split his own spirit and hid it away like a twisted nest of Russian dolls.

Whatever sliver of spirit remained inside him would be blacker than his eyes. Those obsidian eyes with irises bleeding into the whites. How much longer until they were the black-on-black of the Coal-Eyes in the Demonomicon?

Only in dreams, with his eyes as clear as a summer’s day, was his spirit uncorrupted.

I haven’t the heart to love you , he’d told her. Because he had no heart at all. Only a sliver of his spirit remained in the blackened dregs.

The thumping in the forbidden room, calling out to her for release, was Malachy Bane’s heart beating in the cage of Koschei’s Egg. Buffering him from dark magic’s lethal cost. His greatest strength. His greatest weakness.

If Koschei’s Egg could preserve his spirit, could it also preserve his body? Bloody hell, how old was Bane? Perhaps Master Lyter literally was his oldest friend.

Twenty years and you haven’t aged a day , Mother had remarked during parley . Had she known about Bane’s Faustian bargain?

The Realmwalker had bartered his spirit for power, all right. Magical power is intrinsically valuable, he’d said on the drive to the Crossbones cemetery. It’s the hardest power to get and therefore the most worth having . The truest thing he’d ever said to her.

Bane reentered the club, and she looked at him with new eyes. The heartless stranger approached her, saying something she didn’t hear, stunned beside the bar.

He looked askance at her. “You’re being weird.”

“I am not being weird,” she said, an octave higher than intended. She turned away, knocking a pile of ammo across the floor.

Arching a brow, he watched the bullets roll to the far reaches of the club. “Further proving my point. Come on. Let’s finish this.”