Page 7 of The Unweaver (Unwoven Fates #1)

“T ell Mother everything, pet.”

Cora stared at the tea cooling between her hands. For days, she had nursed her anguish and several bottles of hooch. But for the throbbing pressure in her skull, she was empty. A ghost haunting her own body. A specter in her own life, taking up space but without substance.

“I already told you everything in my note,” she said in a hollow voice.

Impatience flashed on Mother’s face. She leaned across the table and patted Cora’s arm twice. “Poor dear. Summoned all the way to this godforsaken part of town after what happened to darling Teddy. And on Christmas Eve, too.”

Cora glanced up. She hadn’t realized what day it was. They had blurred together since that awful night when her own heart had been ripped out along with Teddy’s.

After reporting his disappearance to Mother, Cora had retreated into despondency. Grief was a tangible thing. Her shoulders bowed beneath it.

She existed out of sheer obligation to find Teddy again. Bane had given her an irrational hope that sputtered like a candle in a storm. She wrapped her body around it, willing it to survive.

Without access to forbidden books about forbidden magic, she had made no headway in discovering which Profane curse severed his spirit. Trudging through morgues and graveyards for his body had been as much of a wasted effort as interrogating Teddy’s friends. She couldn’t ask questions about dark magic or cursing enemies without revealing herself as a mage.

Her veiled questions gleaned nothing she hadn’t already known. For months, his friends said, Teddy had been carousing more and sliding back into opium dens. No one knew where he might have disappeared to, or who might’ve wanted him disappeared.

She grimaced through their empty condolences, hope slipping through her fingers like grains of sand.

Ravi Shah’s condolences weren’t empty, though. Genuine tears flowed out of the Aeromancer’s bittersweet chocolate eyes.

With heartbreaking softness, Teddy’s former lover told her that he hadn’t seen him in ages. Teddy’s erratic behavior had concerned him, but whenever Ravi mentioned it, Teddy shut him out. The last time they’d spoken, they’d argued. Ravi was plagued with guilt over how he’d stormed away instead of answering Teddy’s silent cry for help.

Since the war, Teddy had a temper like an unpinned grenade. How many times had Cora lost her own temper when he shoved her away? Angry words she’d never be able to take back.

Regret ravaged her. All the things she’d said. All the things she hadn’t said. She should have told him every day he was the light she clambered towards.

This is your fault , was a refrain she couldn’t purge from her mind. A torrent of guilt she couldn’t stave off.

“Cora.” Ravi’s gentle voice broke on a sob. “What really happened to Teddy?”

It took all of her shattered willpower not to cry along with him. “He’s… disappeared. Do you think your boss, Bane, had anything to do with it?”

“No. Mal never liked Teddy, but he wasn’t involved. He was planning some deal with Mother.”

Cora barely heard Ravi’s litany of reasons why Mal was innocent. Frustration dissipated into wretched hopelessness. With nowhere to go and no one to direct it at, it festered inside of her.

When she ran out of questions to ask and people to answer, she crawled into bed and cried herself raw. Despair hollowed her. She would never be complete without Teddy. Hope drained from her like water from a sieve, leaving her as empty as the grave she’d have to bury Teddy in if she never found him.

The Starlite Club fired her, of course. Mary broke the news of Cora’s unemployment while fretting at her bedside. Years, Cora had worked at the Starlite, and they’d cut her after two no-shows. They didn’t care if her brother had died. They wouldn’t care if the King of England had died. Business was business.

Cora shrugged off Mary’s consolation and pulled the covers higher. If only her suffering could be a private agony. But nothing was private in a shared flat with ten girls filtering in and out.

Getting fired, Mary’s concern, the mounting unpaid bills—Cora avoided them all and sought oblivion from bottles of cheap gin. When numbness mercifully came, she let it devour her.

She stared at the scars on her wrists. Considering.

Mother’s note had arrived then. Owens, that ornery crow, rapped his beak on the bedroom window until she opened it.

Another note. Another favor.

Mother blew the whistle and her pets came running. Cora was no different than the Doberman now sitting sentinel beside Mother. Just another pet on a leash, doing as she was told.

Mother scratched behind the Doberman’s ears, both of their eyes flashing amber. The eager young Bestiamancer had a vicious maw lined with gleaming canines. His eyes tracked Cora’s every move.

Cora shared the beast’s vigilance in these unfamiliar surroundings. The note’s address was a dodgy building in neutral territory, bowed by time and disuse. They sat in a room furnished with only a scarred table, mismatched chairs, and faded wallpaper peeling like flayed flesh. Light filtered through grimy slits of windows near the moldering ceiling.

“Go on, dear.” Mother counted out the twenty pounds Cora was owed and set them on the table. Just out of reach. “Tell Mother.”

The old bird looked harried today, her face and ugly jumper more wrinkled. Cora hadn’t seen Mother this distraught since the last mage war, when too many of the casualties had been her own. Teddy had been her favorite pet. His loss had to affect her deeply.

Cora set the tea down, untasted. The precipice of that endless emptiness loomed. The only person she loved was gone. But maybe not entirely gone. If the Realmwalker found Teddy, there was a chance. A fraying rope to climb out of the pit of sorrow before it buried her.

All her hopes, fed by desperation, hinged on trusting an untrustworthy man to look into it .

She had relived that night countless times and failed to divine Bane’s intentions. Her deepest secret, in the hands of her most dangerous enemy, filled her with cataclysmic dread. For days, the Realmwalker’s sudden reappearance hung over her head like a scythe.

He never showed.

The silence was open-ended. She kept waiting for Bane to appear and— She wasn’t sure what. Attack her. Ravish her. Devastate her. Maybe a combination of all three and not in that particular order.

For the thousandth time, she wondered who had cursed Teddy, and if she’d ever find her twin again. The uncertainty was maddening. There were schemes within schemes she couldn’t untangle.

These miseries she pushed into the growing pile at the back of her mind. In a lifeless voice, Cora recited the modified story to Mother. Finding Teddy. Confronting Bane. Returning to Teddy’s flat—unaccompanied, Mother assumed, and Cora didn’t correct—to find his body missing. She omitted Bane’s Unweaver discovery and gave scant details of the conversation she had turned over and over in her mind.

The words felt like ash on her tongue. Cora didn’t care that the Doberman Bestiamancer overheard them. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

Mother’s mouth tightened. “If anyone could put poor Teddy’s spirit elsewhere—in another Realm, as you claim—it would be the Realmwalker. He has a torrid history with the Profane Arts, after all.”

The suspicion had dwelled in her mind, even if her gut discounted it. Bane was guilty of many things, but perhaps not this. Why would he offer to help find someone he’d disappeared? “I think if Bane had done it, he’d own up to it and come after me and Verek next. He hasn’t.”

Mother’s lips were as thin as the line between pet and pelt. “Well, my dear. As you say. Someone cursed Teddy. Someone broke the Covenant and the truce. At this point, how could another war be avoided?” She nibbled on a gingerbread biscuit. “What a bother. There has been nothing but trouble since Mr. Bane showed up.”

Cora said nothing. Mage politics only interested her in as much as she could avoid them. Why tiptoe through a field of landmines when you could simply go around it?

“What else, pet?” Cocking her head, her eyes flashed amber. “What aren’t you telling Mother?”

“I’ve told you everything.” Cora reached for the money. Mother slid it back. Their gazes clashed in a silent contest that ended in stalemate when Owens bristled inside.

“They’re here, Mother,” Owens announced.

“And now you’ll tell them.” Mother stuffed the money away. “Send them in, Owens.”

Cora jumped to her feet like she’d been shot out of a cannon. “Who?”

“I’ve requested a parley with Mr. Verek and Mr. Bane to discuss these bothersome incidents,” Mother said. “Your testimony shall be most enlightening.”

“No! No, that is not our arrangement.” Cora flattened herself against the wall behind the door. Fear scurried across her nerves. “No one can kn—”

A bald, barrel-chested man with a curling handlebar mustache burst into the room. Two thugs flanked him, wearing the Pyromancer boss’s emblems of a burning triangle on their sleeves and a scimitar at their hips, curved with serrated edges like a smiling mouth full of fangs.

Verek and his Ferromancers.

The bottom of her stomach dropped out. Her thoughts ran in a tight, panicked circle. They’ll know. They’ll all know.

Verek stomped to the opposite head of the table. Flipping back the coattails of his fine wool suit, he hefted himself into the chair and readjusted his paunch, a laborer’s bulk since gone to fat. Gold flashed on his waistcoat, rings, pocket watch and chain. Even several of his teeth were gold.

His thugs, Ferromancers less bright than the metals they could manipulate, stationed themselves on either side of him. With slitted eyes, they sized up everyone in the room, narrowing on the Doberman for several tense moments. The beast growled and the left thug growled back, sliding his thumb along the hilt of the ferocious blade his magic could propel like a lethally accurate boomerang.

The thugs inspected Cora for less than a second before dismissing her.

Mother greeted the rival gang with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Verek gruffly rejected her offer of tea and biscuits.

“I’ll take a cuppa, ma’am, if it ain’t too much trouble,” said the Ferromancer on his right.

“We ain’t got time for tea and chit chat.” Verek’s gravel baritone was as blunt as the weapons he favored. He hacked a wet cough into a gold-embroidered handkerchief.

Cora sensed death on the Pyromancer. The anticipation clung to him like a shroud. Illness paled his ruddy complexion and dark circles ringed his eyes. When he shoved his handkerchief back into his pocket, it was flecked with blood.

Lung cancer , his death whispered to her. Toxic air inhaled over a lifetime, from the mines to the factories to the cigars he now reeked of, had blackened the spongy pink tissues of his lungs and spread. Verek’s name was already carved on his gravestone.

“That cough sounds dreadful, you poor dear.” Mother sipped her tea. “How has that tonic I gave you been working?”

“Only thing that helps, Mother. I’m grateful to you. Need to pick up another batch from that Frenchman.” Verek cleared the phlegm from his throat. “Where’s the damn Paddy?”

“Rudely late as usual. I heard about your little dockyard spat with Mr. Bane. What a bother that must be.”

“We ain’t been taking it lying down, I tell you, Mother. That Paddy’s refused to ship my steel for the last time. I’m taking back those docks and shipping the damn steel myself. We don’t need no middleman. Ain’t that right, boys?”

“Right,” the Ferromancers snickered.

“Burned down one of the Paddy’s warehouses, we did. That liquor he’s been smuggling across the pond into prohibition states went up like that .” The snap of Verek’s fingers sent up a spark of flame. His boastful laugh devolved into a coughing fit.

“Ah, yes, arson,” drawled a deep, lilting voice. The Realmwalker strode in, his long coat billowing over an elegant three-piece suit. “How clever.”

Bane’s gaze, so cold it was scalding, swept the room and snagged on Cora for a stuttering heartbeat. The room seemed to shrink around her. Fear pinched her breath. Would he keep her secret? If Verek learned what she was, leaving this parley alive wouldn’t be an option.

Other than a raised brow, Bane’s features were hewn from stone. His gaze continued past her. Outnumbered seven to one, he strolled inside and took the remaining chair.

“Mr. Bane has graced us with his presence at last,” Mother said.

“Realmwalker,” the Pyromancer boss ground out.

“Verek. Edwina.” Bane rocked his chair back and kicked his feet onto the table, rattling teacups and splattering mud from his boots. There was a coiled tension in his nonchalance, a calculation in his obsidian eyes. “Now we’ve dispensed with the pleasantries, let’s hear it.”

Owens locked the door with a silencing ward. An unnatural quiet descended over them. “Let the parley commence.”

Cora’s pulse quickened. The windows were too high and narrow for her to get through. Only Owens could unlock the door, and his pinched scowl did not look particularly supportive. There was no escape. She was trapped in a room with London’s most powerful mages.

“Gentlemen, how good of you to join me.” Mother gave them an indulgent smile. “How long has it been since the three of us were in a room together?”

“Who fuckin’ cares?” Bane said. “What do you want.”

Mother’s smile turned brittle. “Your manners are as charming as they were the first day we met. Do you remember that lovely day in Dublin, Mr. Bane? Twenty years ago, can you believe it?” She eyed him over the rim of her cup. “Twenty years and you haven’t aged a day.”

The comment gave Cora pause. Bane appeared to be in his mid-thirties. Whether from good Irish breeding or magic, she couldn’t tell.

“You’ve called parley to discuss the Paddy’s bloody looks?”

“No, Mr. Verek.” Mother’s smile dropped. “I’ve called parley to discuss three matters of business. The first, Mr. Bane, are your violations of our truce.”

Bane reached into his pocket. Everyone tensed. Both Ferromancers stepped forward, hands twitching on their blades. A low growl of warning rumbled from the Doberman. Owens stiffened like a statue behind Mother.

With a faint curve of his lips, Bane plucked a cigarette from the silver case and a lighter from the air. Taking a long drag, he motioned for Mother to continue.

“First.” Mother folded her hands primly on the table. “Our truce explicitly stated an equal division between our gangs. Yet, Mr. Bane, you have expanded your operations and territory beyond our agreed terms. Furthermore, you have most of the police and a fair number of judges on your payroll. An unfair advantage which you refuse to share.”

Verek jabbed a flame-tipped finger at Bane. “The reason for the last war—for that horseshit truce—was because of you . You were the one shoving us out of our own territories. Draining our profits. Killing our people. Using the Profane Arts. Now you’re at it again.”

A charged silence pulsed in the room.

Bane’s cool gaze slid between the heads of the table. “Five.”

Mother exchanged an uncertain look with Verek. “Five?”

“That’s how many times you both just fuckin’ lied.” Bane’s voice could freeze hell. “My counterpoint to your allegations is this: Bullshit. You’ve no proof.”

While Verek blustered and coughed, Mother’s eyes flashed amber. Her gaze fixed on the Realmwalker, she gestured to Owens who handed her papers from his over-starched coat.

“This is the ownership title for the Silvertown docks.” Mother tossed it onto the table like a gauntlet. “Purchased by Malachy Bane. This morning.”

Bane nearly smiled. “Your pets are quick, Edwina.”

“How—?” Verek ripped through the pages, a vein pulsing in his reddening forehead. “They’ve denied my offer twice! Did you forge these signatures?”

Bane exhaled a plume of smoke and said nothing.

“Bastard!” Pounding his fist on the table, Verek’s sparking fingertips singed the paper. “Those were my docks. For shipping my steel. I’ve fought and bled for London long before you Paddies colonized my city—”

“An Englishman against colonization?” Bane said. “Good thing I’m sitting down.”

“This ain’t your city! Yet for years I’ve had to fill out your sodding paperwork and pay your ridiculous fees. You can’t keep denying all my shipments out.”

“Still haven’t learned how to count, I see. I’ve denied one shipment, Verek. As we discussed in my office when I painstakingly explained how much you can go fuck yourself. Looks like you need a reminder.” Bane took a slow pull on his cigarette. “I’m not letting you ship guns into Ireland.”

Verek sputtered, hacking up a glob of blood into his handkerchief. “That was steel we were trying to ship into Belfast.”

“And under that steel were eighty-eight Ferromancer-modified Winchester rifles and six hundred rounds of specialized ammunition. Rifles with magically curving bullets, to be delivered into loyalist hands to fight against the IRA.”

Verek’s eyes shot daggers at Bane. “Snooping through my cargo ain’t part of the truce, either.”

“On the contrary. The truce states that I have inspection rights and discretionary approval for all your shipments in and out of London.”

“You’re IRA, ain’t you?” Steam curled off the Pyromancer’s bald pate. “No doubt you’re one of them Fenians. Biting the hand that feeds you.”

“Anti-Irish independence? That’s noble of you, Verek. Your king must be proud.”

“You dirty Fenian—”

“ Ahem ,” Mother interrupted. The Doberman inched closer to her but her attention was on Bane. “These ownership documents are proof of you violating our truce. We agreed to an equal division. Or don’t you remember?”

“Oh, I remember, Edwina. It’s the same truce you twats violated when you conspired to kill my second, Emmet Moriarty.” The Chronomancer’s name crackled like a summoning spell. “My intention was to cut you both in on the Silvertown expansion. A factory for your steel. A playground for your pets. A Christmas present for all three of us. But no longer.”

Mother’s eyes widened and darted to Verek. Purpling with rage, he flashed a look at his thugs. Their fists clenched and unclenched over their blades.

Mother cleared her throat. “My pets did not end your Chronomancer.”

“No, you’re the scavengers circling someone else’s kill.” Bane leveled Verek with an icy stare.

“Listen here, Paddy. We didn’t kill your Chronomancer, but he was asking for it. Moriarty was in our territory. We took appropriate action. Ain’t my fault the bastard shot himself.”

“Bullshit. My second was on business in Lewisham. You brought Moriarty to those docks to provoke me.”

“Prove it,” Verek sneered. “Can’t, can you, eh? Cause there’s no way you could know where every member of your gang is at every moment of the day. Especially outside your territory.”

“Ah, but those docks are my territory now.” Bane gestured at the singed papers. “I’m sure Edwina has another copy. Why don’t you hold onto that one. As a reminder.”

“You damn—”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen , please,” Mother said as if she were separating brawling schoolboys. “Can we not have an amiable discourse? Your accusations of Mr. Verek absconding with your second cannot stand without corroboration, Mr. Bane.” She cocked her head with a baiting smile. “Unless you have a witness?

Bane’s gaze flicked over Mother’s shoulder and pinned Cora to the wallpaper she’d been trying to disappear into. The last surviving witness. From her posthumous chat with Moriarty, Cora could corroborate how he’d died—if not by their hands, then in the hands of Verek’s gang.

Cora saw the gears of Bane’s mind turning as he considered her. Mother didn’t know about his Unweaver discovery, but she had thrown Cora to sharks, and he scented blood in the water. Silence grew louder by the second.

Finally, his gaze relinquished her. She sagged in relief.

“That’s what I thought,” Mother said with a little smile. “Well, then. As Mr. Bane has only hearsay, I do believe we have quite exhausted the topic of Mr. Moriarty. His death was an unfortunate coincidence. Shall we proceed?”

“I don’t believe in fuckin’ coincidence. My second was ambushed by Verek’s gang. Tom Horace, witness to Moriarty’s death, washed up in the Thames soon after. Teddy Walcott, the other witness, was killed days later.” Bane’s gaze passed between them, his expression darkening. “Someone’s been tying up loose ends.”

Verek snorted. “You accusing us of kidnapping Moriarty and cleaning it up?”

“Very astute of you, Pyromancer.”

Their gazes warred across the table. Verek, shifting his bulk, was the first to look away. “You ain’t got any witnesses.”

“I daresay, Mr. Verek is quite right. Now. Let us proceed to the second matter of business. Your violations of the Covenant, Mr. Bane. While the truce applies to us in London, all mages must abide by the Covenant. The conspicuous manner in which you operate your businesses threatens the very foundation of secrecy upon which mages rely.”

Mother paused with a glint of near victory in her eyes. “And by far your greatest violation of the Covenant was cursing Theodore Walcott with the Profane Arts.”

Cora’s heart, laden with sorrow, clenched at her twin’s name. She stared in horrified astonishment at Mother’s smug profile. This wasn’t parley. This was Mother’s play, a betrayal in three acts. A frame job Cora wanted nothing to do with.

Silence descended like a funeral pall. The Profane Arts was an indisputable breach of the Covenant. A death sentence.

“Of course, the Paddy killed your Animancer.”

Mother lashed Verek with a warning look before returning to Bane. “Well?”

“As you are well aware, Edwina, I was not involved in Teddy’s death, nor was my gang.”

Mother’s nostrils flared. “What proof do you have?”

The hint of a smile played on Bane’s lips. “My word.”

“Your word?” Verek barked a mirthless laugh. “We’re to trust your sodding word?”

Bane stared back in reply. Scoffing, Verek gestured to one of his thugs for a cigar. Flames rose from his finger as he set the cigar between his gold teeth. Wisps of smoke wavered in the slanting sunlight.

“There is more to my dear Teddy’s death than meets the eye. And I actually have a witness.” Mother beckoned Cora. “Tell them what you saw, dear.”

Every pair of eyes fastened on Cora. Her pounding heart flew into her throat. A quick look confirmed that the only door was still very sealed.

Verek puffed on his cigar, gaze narrowing. “Who the bloody hell is this girl?”

“This is Teddy’s sister. She found the body. Don’t worry, gentlemen, I’ll have a Memnomancer wipe her memories later. Go on, dear. Enlighten them.”

When Mother had had some of Cora’s memories siphoned before, it had felt like returning home to find the furniture rearranged. An unobserved invasion. She couldn’t remember what memory had been taken, of course. By observing a memory, a Memnomancer corrupted or erased it.

Would Mother have Cora’s memories ransacked now? The Covenant forbade mages from revealing themselves to humans, which Verek and his thugs assumed she was as Teddy’s sister.

She tried to find comfort in these assumptions as she peeled herself from the wall. Heart straining to escape her ribs, Cora relayed how she’d found Teddy murdered in some manner of devilish ritual.

“Poor dear. What did you do next? Where did you go?” Mother’s tone was mild, but her caustic look was like a tug on Cora’s leash. A command to perform.

Cora hesitated in a silence fraught enough to drown in. Backlash was certain, and from multiple parties. Publicly, Bane could out her as the Unweaver, if she didn’t incriminate herself first. Privately, Mother’s punishment for Cora going off script in her play could be much worse.

Straddling the line of honesty and survival, she floundered for words. “I-I went to the Emerald Club. And, er, confronted him. Bane.”

“Pray tell, why did Ms. Walcott confront you ?” Mother asked Bane in a saccharine voice.

Bane’s gaze cut Cora to the quick. Under the scorch of his scrutiny, she wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. “That would be a question for Ms. Walcott.”

The Realmwalker had tossed the ball in her court and it smacked Cora straight between the eyes. “I-I assumed he did it.”

“And why is that, dear?”

“Teddy—” His name caught in her throat. “Bane had attacked him. Before he di— But I don’t think Bane did it anymore. I think someone else did it.”

Mother’s lips were the thinnest Cora had ever seen them. Not the right lines for her play, then. “And after you confronted Mr. Bane, you returned to poor Teddy’s flat?”

Cora’s gaze slid to Bane and away. “And his body was missing. In the time I was gone, someone must’ve scrubbed the place clean, body and all.”

“Undeniably, it was the Profane Arts.” Mother trained her gaze on Bane. “Forbidden magic killed my sweet pet. Given your history with the Profane Arts, your combative relationship with the deceased, and your particular affinities… Well , Mr. Bane. With both the motive and the opportunity, you are the most likely culprit. Who else could have killed poor Teddy and cleaned up the scene with such haste?”

Cora drew in a sharp breath. The second act was ending on a climax.

But for a slight lift of his brow, Bane remained impassive. “That depends, Edwina. How long does it usually take for your pets to move a body?”

Mother’s lips welded into a line. The Doberman bared his teeth. Mother hushed him. Growling low, he settled back on his haunches. Both Bestiamancers glared at Bane.

“I do not appreciate your insinuation, Mr. Bane. I love my pets. And you killed my most precious pet with forbidden magic. You will be held accountable.”

“No body. No proof.”

Mother sat back stiffly, hands fussing over the flyaway strands in her bun. Bane was not following her script either.

“We don’t need a body when you got plenty of violations against the Covenant,” Verek said. “Everyone knows your smuggling operation runs on dark magic. No other way you could transport across every bloody continent and your cargo’s never lost or confiscated. Even with the law in your pocket, there’s only one way to move that much contraband without alerting the authorities. The Profane Arts.”

Bane sighed. “Everyone here has violated the fuckin’ truce and Covenant. You want to waste my time, I’ll leave. You want to renegotiate terms, I’ll listen.”

“The only thing we will be negotiating, Mr. Bane, are the terms of your surrender. Which brings us to our third matter of business. To prevent another bothersome war, you will surrender your territories and operations to us. A complete forfeiture, or we will have no choice but to notify the Tribunal of your many crimes.”

A terrible hush fell. The final act was beginning. For Bane’s alleged crimes, execution without trial was the best outcome.

“Mother running off to tell Father, is it? Your hypocrisy is tedious, Edwina. I still see no proof.”

Verek stabbed a sparking finger at the dock’s ownership documents. “The Covenant says mages don’t meddle with human business, and humans stay the hell outta mage business.”

“Some might consider you arming human militants in a human conflict with Ferromancer-modified rifles as a violation of that same Covenant,” Bane said. “The Tribunal, perhaps.”

Verek’s retort devolved into a coughing fit. The thugs stepped forward, eyes locked on Bane. After a strained moment, Verek shook his head and they retreated to their posts.

“ Your hypocrisy is tedious, Mr. Bane,” Mother snapped. “You’re likely delivering those confiscated rifles into IRA hands as we speak.”

“And what would you call your human political assassinations, Edwina? Social calls?”

Amber eyes flashed. The Doberman’s claws scraped the table, lips curling back and baring sharp fangs. Bane didn’t spare the hound a glance. “It’s an empty threat you’re making. Verek’s a fuckin’ idiot but you—”

“Bastard!” Flames crackled over the Pyromancer’s fists. His thugs closed in, hands poised on their scimitars. “Next time you insult me, Paddy, will be the last.”

Bane didn’t spare him a glance, either. “As I was saying, Verek suffers from a severe case of idiocy—” The Pyromancer launched to his feet and doubled over with hacking coughs. Bane continued over him, “But without evidence you won’t risk bringing the Tribunal down on your own head.”

“Have you forgotten who I am?” Mother forced a tittering laugh. “Believe me, Mr. Bane, whether buried or planted, I will find the evidence. Willingly forfeit your territories and businesses to us now, or be executed by the Tribunal. This is your ultimatum.”

That was not an empty threat. Mother ran the most comprehensive intelligence network in England.

Bane’s gaze passed between the heads of the table as if he’d lost a high-stakes poker game to a pair of twos. “Framing me.” He contemplated the burning tip of his cigarette. “How clever.”

The cigarette burst into a conflagration. Recoiling, Bane dropped his feet and the ball of fire to the floor. Flames shot across the threadbare rug and licked up the table legs.

“Verek, no!” Mother screamed.

“Get him!” Verek hurled a fireball from his fist.

Chaos erupted.

The Ferromancers unsheathed their scimitars and spun them in lethal arcs, slashing with a hiss of metal and glint of magic. Bane sprang back into the wall, then through it. Curved blades struck where he’d just vanished.

Bane reappeared behind the thugs. He dropped one with a kick to the back of the knees and wrenched the blade from the other. Before the thug could turn around, Bane slit his throat like a knife through warm butter.

Blood spurted across the room and into Cora’s screaming mouth. She dove under the table and clamped her arms over her head, suffocating on fear and smoke.

The slain Ferromancer slumped to the floor, blood gushing and eyes glazing. The other thug pushed to his feet and launched at Bane, his weapon swinging through empty air. He whirled on his heel, blade held high and expression murderous.

The Realmwalker dashed in and out of existence as blades sliced and fireballs scorched, a dizzying blur of eloquent violence.

Mother and Owens disappeared. From piles of clothing emerged a magpie and crow. Squawking madly, the corvids hurtled themselves against the high windows, black and white feathers flying, beaks pecking at the glass.

The Doberman barked, frantic, and clawed the magically sealed door. Fire leapt from the rug to the peeling wallpaper and rushed towards the ceiling in a scorching path. Acrid smoke from burning wood and fiber and fur choked the air. Flaming chunks of the room collapsed around them.

The Bestiamancer was on fire. Barking twisted into screams. The stench of singed fur became the sizzle of roasting flesh as the beast transformed back into a young man.

Dodging another fireball, Bane reappeared from above. He crashed down on Verek with a sickening crack of the stolen blade hilt against his skull. The Pyromancer dropped like a dead weight.

Bane flipped, vanishing as the thug’s blade swung. He reappeared at his back and skewered the thug from spine to abdomen. Blood and intestines spilled out. He twisted the blade deeper. Guts squelched. The Ferromancer thumped face down in a pool of his own pulsating bowels, the blade swaying between his shoulders like a conqueror’s flag. Bane stepped over the twitching body and straightened his blood-stained tie.

Glass shattered and rained down. From the broken window flew a crow and a magpie.

“That went well,” Bane muttered.

Heat seared Cora’s skin, smoke choked her airways, and a loud banging filled her ears. Not from her hammering heartbeat, but from people trying to break through the locked door.

“Verek!” came the muffled shouts. “Open the door, boss! Let us in!”

Cora was certain she was the Realmwalker’s next victim as a pair of black boots approached her. Frozen in horror under the table, she watched Bane bend down in the burning room. Firelight played across the crests and hollows of his gore-splattered face. His obsidian eyes promised retribution.

“I’ll make you a deal, Unweaver.” He extended his hand. “Work for me, and I’ll find your brother.”

She eyed his offer like a serpent. Yet his gaze and hand remained steady. An endless moment elapsed.

The devil waited at the crossroads. Two choices. Two lives. Await the fate breaking down the door, or accept whatever Malachy Bane was offering, a lifeline or a noose.

Wood groaned and splintered as the door burst open. Shouting men surged through the smoke, their weapons and magic blasting.

Her mind went incandescently blank. The chaos came to a standstill. Cora took his hand.

A sharp tug behind her navel, then a weightless plummet as the conflagration warped and disappeared, her organs cartwheeling in the nothingness.