Page 11 of The Unweaver

“If I’ve got magic,” she began, “could my twin have it, too?”

“Twin mages are unheard of,” Mother said, puncturing her hope. “However.”

However.

The stronger the magic, the earlier it manifested. While most mage affinities appeared near puberty, her Necromancy had burst out like pus from a lanced boil at the tender age of nine. The odds her twin had experienced something similar were not impossible, only very improbable.

“Do stop slouching, dear.” Mother shoved her shoulders back. “Slouching makes you appear even more boyish.”

“Good.”

Irritation flashed across Mother’s features, then smoothed by degrees into a maternal smile. “Impertinence,” she said. “Do you know what impertinence means, girl? No? I don’t imagine the gutter I pulled you out of—from whence you could swiftly return, mind you—had suitable vocabulary lessons. Impertinence is a word reserved for particularly rude boys and girls who lack respect for their elders. I do not tolerate impertinence from my pets. Do we understand each other?”

Not even the nuns had been this concerned about her posture. The car was warm, though, and Cora couldn’t remember the last time she’d been warm. Grumbling, she sat up straighter.

“A lady must always comport herself with grace and humility, lest she appear brash or, heaven forbid, impertinent. Under my careful tutelage, a proper lady you shall become.” Her mouth pursed as she surveyed her newest pet’s unwashed dishevelment. “Eventually.”

Mother’s first lesson was ground into her over the years: decorum over morality, at all times.

The car pulled up in front of a sprawling boarding house. Mismatched additions had been tacked on over the years, lending it a hectic instability. The only thing that could keep the precarious structure intact, Cora realized with awe, was magic.

Mother’s house had been built, extended, and carved up without concern for geometry or practicality. There were triangular hallways and octagonal rooms, filled with adopted mages both like Cora and not like her.

The docile, well-groomed pets gathered on the stairs with their perfect postures to gawk at the mangy stray Mother had dragged home. They stared down at Cora like she was fresh meat.

Whether they had come from homes or the streets, whether they had been born into wealth or poverty, the others had shared the same orphaning when their magic manifested. The Covenant demanded secrecy, even from loved ones, and untrained magic was hard to hide.

Some of the pets were as young as Cora had been when she’d discovered what she was.Abomination, the nuns had screamed as they chased her out of the Sacred Heart orphanage. Cora couldn’t blame them. She had known the unknowable about how Father Hoyt really died. A touch of the priest’s body and she had glimpsed into Hell and seen the terrible truth for herself

Now, she knew it wasn’t Hell she’d been seeing all these years, but the Death Realm. She wasn’t sure whether to be comforted or disturbed by that revelation.

She often thought back to that moment in the orphanage—that single moment that would come to define her entire life—and wondered what would’ve happened if she’d kept her fucking mouth shut.

“Dora?”

She froze on the stairs. A boy she hadn’t seen in years but would recognize anywhere was on the top step. Only he was no longer a boy, but a teenager on the cusp of manhood. Shock was plain on his achingly familiar features. So much had passed since they were forced apart. A gulf of experience no words could cross.

Teddy.

Her twin was not only a mage, he’d also lived at Mother’s house since she adopted him after his Animancy manifested years before. Coaxing people’s innermost desires was a lucrative skill in Mother’s business, which she vaguely described as “just chatting.”

After the orphanage, Teddy had gone from one caring foster home to another. Cora, however, had been raised by the cruel necessities of life without adults. The London streets had given her a brutal education.

Clutching her dirty, bandaged hand, Teddy pulled her into an empty room and embraced her. She stiffened. When was the last time someone had touched her out of kindness?

A peculiar current of energy seeped into her. Something unthought but intuitively known stirred deep within her, drawn like a magnet to his touch. The energy spiked and laid her spirit bare in a stark invasion, like spotlights shining on all her darkest places. Gasping, she pulled away.

“Terribly sorry about that, D–Cora. Magic surge,” he said as if she understood what the hell that meant. In a gentle voice, he told her that he’d sensed what had happened to her. That he was sorry, that he’d never let anyone do that to her again. She stood wooden in his arms, fighting not to cry.

“Why didn’t you come looking for me, Teddy?” she whispered. “I’ve been here in London. I’ve never stopped looking for you.”

“I told Mother about you,” he rushed to say. “Of course I did. Mother’s been looking high and low for you. She told me so herself. It wasn’t until you wound up in the hospital that she finally found you.”

“Aren’t they… spies? How could they not have found me sooner?”

Teddy stroked her mangy hair and a soothing warmth spread downward from her scalp. By degrees, she softened. The tears she hadn’t let fall for years came. Wrapping her arms around her twin, she wept. Reunited with her missing half, Cora found equilibrium once more.

She lasted a month. Mother’s house was less of a refuge than a boiling pot of incompatible temperaments and affinities.

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