Page 113 of The Unweaver

“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 hemurderedme in cold blood, I do not remember any Oneiromancer.Iam 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 andsqueezing. 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 anenhancedSleepwalker’s Draught, he parted ways with his cherished Oracle Rubyfor 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. Hercurious 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 toCLOSEDand 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 totteringboarding 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 asquelch. 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.

“Whatisthis 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?”

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