Page 13 of The Unweaver

She bucked and writhed against the hands restraining her. Lungfuls of the chemical dragged her into the depths of a numb darkness. As her body slowed, so too did her mind, moving like molasses.

Hands released her and she thudded to the floor. In a state of drugged incomprehension, she watched them slip the noose around her neck.

“A mercy killing,” the pets told her as they strung her up.

“Can’t suffer a Necromancer to live,” they said as they rolled her body to the open window. Two stories below laid a littlegarden choked with weeds. One final push and she fell with a violent, suffocating jerk.

To everyone’s lasting disappointment, her neck didn’t break. A constellation of pain exploded. She thrashed and swung, hovering above the garden on the verge of unconsciousness. The biting rope strangled the breath and willpower out of her.

Through the spreading darkness, instinct howled at her to fight. She sent a wave of death’s awful energy into the noose, and the fibers rotted and gave way. She sucked in a panicked breath that turned into a scream as she crashed onto the weeds in a bone-shattering impact. A moment of blinding pain, then darkness.

Other than the horrendous bruises, injured vocal chords, and irreparable damage to her self-worth, Cora had survived. When she came to hours later, still twisted in the weeds long after night had fallen, surviving didn’t feel like much of an accomplishment. They’d hung her from the window and left her shattered body in the garden to rot.

Limping and gasping, she snuck through the quiet house and gathered her few belongings. She ducked into Teddy’s room to say goodbye, but the room was empty, the bed unslept in. She didn’t make it past the foyer before Mother’s hand snatched her back with a barrage of questions. Cora rasped half-answers from her ruined throat.

Mother tilted her head and considered the angry bruises circling her neck. “Did you die?” The question was serious, not mocking.

Cora blinked, uncertain how to respond even if she could.

“Well then. It was only a harmless game my pets were playing. Stop overreacting.”

In a hoarse whisper, she pleaded with Mother to let her go anywhere but here. Surely, Mother didn’t want to be under the same roof any more than she did. They struck a deal. Or rather,a conditional indentured servitude. Cora would reside elsewhere and continue doing her favors. In return, Mother would keep her terrible secret.

Years passed. Wars came and went. Cora tried but never could escape Mother. There was always another note, another favor, all with the same impliedor else.

I have only to makeonecall, my pet.

With a few words, her parting threat as Cora staggered out of her house had chained her secret Necromancer like a dog, ensuring she performed on command. And so her loyalty to Mother had stretched over thirteen years like a festering umbilical cord she couldn’t chew off. The unwitting child nourishing the parasitic mother. There was no other choice if she wanted to stay in London with Teddy. While not a docile pet, Cora was submissive, nonetheless.

* * *

Mother’s delicate cough broke her reverie. “Please explain, dear, how you managed to undermine everything I spent years building in the course of a single evening.”

Dutifully, Cora recounted her failure. How Moriarty had given up only one secret of something called Coshoy’s Egg before the Realmwalker appeared out of nothingness like a harbinger of death.

She touched her ribs gingerly. It had taken days for the broken bones to stitch themselves together and the bruise on her throat to fade. Accelerated healing was the only perk of being a mage. The more her magic unwove, the faster she healed.

Death feeding, a Sciomancer disguised as an oracle had once told her. The knowledge diviner’s sixth sense for magic had felt like a talon scraping against Cora’s skull and cracking her wide open.Child born of death on the day of longest night, you feast on the dying.

Cora had taken particular care to avoid Sciomancers since.

For reasons she didn’t care to ponder, Cora didn’t tell Mother about the key lying heavy in the pocket near her heart, or Moriarty’s ominous words that whispered in her mind.He will love you to death. These secrets she kept to herself, unsure who her silence was really protecting.

Mother’s mouth tightened as she listened. “Are youquitecertain that is everything?” She skewered Cora with a hard stare. “There are no pertinent details you may have left out?”

“Yes. Er, no. That is, yes, I’m quite certain. No, no further details.”

Hairline cracks formed where Mother gripped her teacup. “And how is it that Mr. Bane knew about Mr. Moriarty so swiftly, hm? It would seem he knew precisely where to locate him.”

“We didn’t exactly chat before he beat the shit out of us.”

“Do not be crude.” Her mouth puckered. “That ill-mannered tongue of yours drives men away.”

“Good. It’s working.”

Mother clanked her cup down, splashing tea. “You miserable child.” Eyeing Cora up and down, a furious blush seeped into her powdered cheeks. “That is all very well and good if you wish to die alone.”

Spinsterhood was a milestone—love’s gravestone—Cora had passed years ago. Romance required a hope she didn’t possess. Lust required a desire to be touched that she couldn’t bear. Felix had made sure of that. Cora was a rock wedged in a stream, watching life pass her by and happen to other people.

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