Page 134 of The Unweaver

“What?” he clipped out. The door cracked open, and a welcome apparition ducked her head inside.

A very welcome apparition, he thought as his eyes raked over her hesitating in the doorway, resplendent in a turquoise beaded gown that matched her eyes. The weightless feeling she gave him returned to his stomach.

I am in deep fucking trouble.

He attempted an impassive expression. Cora knowing what she did to him was one thing. Everyone else in the room knowing, too, was another.

“Is this a matter of life or death, Cora?”

Her wary gaze, flicking over the men, locked with his. She nodded. His hackles rose.

Conversation died as she crossed to him, every pair of eyes tracking her slender figure. She bent to whisper in his ear, offering him the best view in the club down her dress. Thus distracted, he scarcely heard the words she rasped against hisear. His gaze lifted to her parted lips. Soft and stubborn. He had only to angle his chin to—

“—here, Malachy. He’s in the bloody club.” Their gazes connected. “He’s not a mage. Or a human.”

The fear in her eyes registered before her words sank in. “Fuck. One moment.”

Her gaze flickered behind him, her breath hitching. She didn’t move. Or blink. Or breathe. She was frozen. Everyone in the room was frozen. Mouths opened midsentence; hands poised mid-gesture. Only Malachy could move. He scrambled to his feet, breathing hard.

In his waistcoat pocket, the Doomsday Watch ticked its last.

The countdown was complete. He knew what was coming before the door swung open.

“Can’t make time for your old Master?” came a distorted Scottish burr like broken glass underfoot. A man glided through the door. Or rather, two mismatched halves grafted together did. Dark pince-nez glasses glinted over his coal-black eyes as he stopped before Malachy. “If you can’t make time for me, I’ll make time stop for you.”

What remained of Alastair Ghose smiled a gruesome half-smile and plucked the silver watch from his hand. “I’ll take this back now, lad.”

Horror crept up Malachy’s throat. He remembered the last time they’d fought over the Doomsday Watch. With only half his corrupted spirit, Ghose wasn’t as powerful as he’d been back then. But with the watch returned, he’d be that much quicker at reuniting his halves to regain that power.

Malachy had known what Master Ghose was becoming before they set off on that secret campaign during the Crimean War, across the tundra and into darkness. As his unwitting apprentice—servant, more like—he’d watched his Master succumb to the Profane Art’s seduction, amassing immense powers at the costof his humanity. Over the years, Ghose’s eyes had hollowed and blackened.

Lazlo Lyter, the Sciomancer prodigy, had been half Malachy’s age and rightfully terrified of their Master. Ghose wouldn’t listen to their growing concerns. He wanted what was beyond the control of even the most powerful Chronomancers: to stop time. With the Doomsday Watch in hand, he finally could.

Naturally, Ghose didn’t use this power for good. When not in Rome, the Master Chronomancer was little more than a cutthroat mercenary, earning funds through suspect means and using his “apprentices” to enact his own personal crusade. A crusade that brought them to a shack in the Siberian wastelands, to steal a myth from a demon.

Malachy hadn’t believed in Koschei’s Egg until he pried it out of the slain demon’s bony fingers. Such power, in the palm of his hand.

“What price would you pay for power, lad?” Master Ghose had asked him on the day his imprisonment and apprenticeship began.

“Anything,” Malachy had answered without hesitation.

When Ghose stopped time for sixty seconds with a pocket watch, Malachy didn’t hesitate. He forced himself into the time bubble where the Specter’s Scourge cleaved both their spirits. He ripped his Master in half and sent the pieces into different Realms, Death and Demon. Then, with his heart’s blood dripping in time with the ticking watch, he caged his own spirit in the egg made of needles.

Lazlo had been sworn to secrecy. Their paths had diverged, Master and crime lord, but crossed again over the years. If Malachy had a heart, it would have broken to see his oldest friend age while he remained ageless.

Over the decades, checking the Demon Realm’s veil had become a ritual. First, indulged out of paranoia. Then, out of responsibility to the Tribunal for the demon he’d helped create.

The demon now standing before him.

“Why are you here, Ghose?”

“Why areyouhere, Realmwalker?” The demon tilted his mismatched head. “I watched you die, lad. With a fair amount of joy, no less.”

With a quick glance at Cora, Malachy betrayed them both.

“Sheresurrectedyou.” The demon grimaced a smile. “You’re not the only one your Necromancer will be bringing back to life. How things change, eh? Your bonny blue eyes are back but you're not the carefree lad you were then. Betraying your Master and selling your soul will do that. Least you're no longer the dour bore you’d become when all your dreams of cheating death came true.” He stroked Cora’s frozen cheek. “I wonder why?”

“Leave her out of this,” he growled, knocking the demon’s arm away and sending his pince-nez glasses to the floor.

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