Page 121 of The Unweaver

Cora’s thoughts surfaced like dead bodies tangled in seaweed. Failed rituals and heartless corpses. Demons and Chronomancers. When she’d communed with Moriarty, he’d been shouting,I won’t stop time for you!Moriarty hadn't been a casualty of gang politics, but the dream demon, via her puppets.And Teddy. Had he been one of the Oneiromancer’s guinea pigs for immortality?

Malachy stared at Ikelas, shock etched onto his face. “You cannot summon him. Coal-Eyes belong in the Demon Realm. As do you.”

“As doyou.” Ikelas cradled the Egg and smiled her terrible smile. “The rift in the veil between the Dream and Demon Realms has already been torn. He comes.”

“He comes,” the dreamers echoed across the midnight waves. “Hecomes…”

His two-toned eyes widened in horror. “Tearing the veil will destabilize the boundary between Realms. Fusing Realms will create chaos. The end of life as we know it. The rift must be sealed!”

Fear spiked in Cora’s sludgy veins. They needed to flee this nightmare.

The only way to escape is to wake up, Bane had said. If the veil was thinnest between Dreams and Death, she could slip into the Death Realm and back into her body, likely buried in the wreckage of Mother’s ballroom, and wake him up. Together they might end this.

With her numb senses, Cora reached out to part the gossamer veil trapping them in the Dreamverse. Black nothingness dripped through and rushed towards her. She sank down until claws dug into her shoulder and pulled back. Death was reluctant to release her so soon, but the claws were stronger. Cora was hurtled back into the demon’s clutches.

Ikelas ground her bones in an unrelenting grip. Dreams cascaded over her changing form. A crying child. A laughing corpse. “There is no escape, Necromancer. We made a deal.”

“Cora.” Malachy spun to her. “What have you done?”

“I—”

“He comes,” droned a cacophony of overlapping voices.

Through a rift in the gossamer veil stepped half a man, ripped down the middle, followed by another half. The two mismatched pieces threaded together into an incomplete whole of slightly staggered limbs. His black-on-black eyes swept the sea of dreamers in a cold assessment as he glided nearer atop the waves.

Cora recognized him with a jolt. The man reflected in a dream’s mirror, and ripped apart in the Doomsday Watch vision.

“Ikelas,” said the demonic imprint of Master Alastair Ghose in a rough Scottish burr like broken glass underfoot. He swung to Malachy with an uneven smile, one half of his mouth lifted high, the other tensed in a sneer. “And the mighty Realmwalker. At long last, lad.”

Malachy froze. His terrified face drained of color.

“Alastair.” Ikelas spread her arms wide. “Welcome to my Dreamverse.”

Ghose laughed. A horrible sound, like a high-speed collision on repeat. He circled Malachy, stiffening under his coal-eyed scrutiny. “How very good it ‘tis to be back. Despite your best efforts, eh, lad? What’s this? All this time and you’ve nothing to say to your Master?”

“Go back to hell, Coal-Eye,” Malachy spat.

“Och, a century old and still a chip on your shoulder wide enough to drive a carriage through. Deathlessness doesn’t become ye. Ah, Mal. My most promising pupil. My greatest disappointment. Your betrayal in Siberia wounded me deep, lad.” A long nail traced the crooked, puckered seam down his middle. “I’m but half a man.”

“You’re not a man.” Malachy clenched his fists. “You’re a demon.”

“When I recover the other half of my spirit you ripped away, I shall be.” Ghose glided towards Ikelas and reached out toKoschei’s Egg, his face half-full of longing, half dread. “Where my heart should be beating. Shame it no longer suits me, half a spirit that I am.”

“I shall release you from the Dreamverse to find your other half once the ritual is complete.” Ikelas’s mirror eyes flicked to Cora. “We have gained an ally, Alastair, to assist in our immortal machinations. This Necromancer is stronger than the Queen of Rot and has made a Binding Agreement to join us.”

Angling his head, Ghose perused Cora with the glittering pits of his eyes. “How very fortunate for us. Mal’s waited a long time for you, lass. Across the veil, we’ve been following you, Necromancer, since you slunk out of your sewers and into the light. Just how much you’re capable of, we shall discover. Sorry to say that reviving Mal’s dead heart isn’t one of them.”

“Cora,” Malachy pleaded. “What deal did you make?”

Head hanging low, Cora gestured to the Oracle Ruby and whispered, “She said she’d release Teddy if I joined her.”

Ghose’s horrible laugh scraped her ears. “Och, lass. You’ve made a fool’s bargain.”

“Jesus,” Malachy nearly wept. “She can release his spirit from the ruby, but no one can bring Teddy back. The Specter’s Scourge… His spirit can only be reunited in death. I’m sorry, Cora.”

Cora’s head whipped between Malachy and the demons, although the distinction was blurring. Betrayal bloomed in her chest. “Is that true?”

Ikelas’s laugh joined Ghose’s. “Such is the high cost of the Profane Arts.”

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