Page 34 of The Unweaver

Her gaze veered to him. “Where?”

“Purgatory.”

A spark of hope flared. The Death Realm’s waiting room.Of course. The spark was doused as his words sank in. “Why have you never risked going there? Is Purgatory hard to find?”

“It’s not finding it that’s the challenge. It’s returning. There’s too much that can go wrong.”

“Such as?”

“Such as your spirit being trapped in between, wandering aimless and alone in the nothingness for all eternity.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

He sent her a flat look, then turned to the towering bookshelves. “A Choromancer and Necromancer might be able to safely traverse in and out of Purgatory.”

He began rummaging through the bookshelves, disconcertingly, without moving from where he stood. There was a faint wrinkle in space where his vanishing hand reappeared a story overhead, pulling down a book. He thumbed through the pages before his hand disappeared for another book.

Restless, she stood and ran her fingers along the book spines. If Teddy wasn’t quite dead, and not quite alive… If they could find his spirit in Purgatory and his missing body, and somehow reunite them…

If, if, if. Doubts swarmed her.

She turned her attention to the books. The library’s sheer size was overwhelming. Generations of knowledge were crammed onto the overflowing shelves and piled haphazardly on the furniture. The contradiction of this ruthless man in this cluttered house struck her.

To her surprise, the books were not only alphabetized but enchanted to be so. When she re-shelved a book in the wrong place, it floated back to its proper home within moments. His control issues exceeded even her sketch of him. Then again, Bane seemed nothing if not efficient.

From a high shelf he took down what appeared to be a grimoire bound in human flesh. After feeding it drops of blood from a pricked finger and murmuring an incantation, the grimoire opened with a low groan. He turned the pages reverently, scanning them for excruciating minutes.

“There could be a way,” he said at last.

Her head whipped to him. “How?”

He considered her over the grimoire. “How powerful of a Necromancer are you?”

“Shouldn’t you have asked that before we made a Binding Agreement?” she said. “I dunno. I’ve never met another Necromancer.”

Feelings of unworthiness crept in. There was no other death mage to compare herself to, yet she still found herself lacking. She’d never trained or studied to strengthen her abomination. She might not be able to find Teddy’s spirit in Purgatory or return safely, thrice damning him.

Bane laid the grimoire, likely more ancient than some civilizations, before her. Written on the goldleaf pages were Latin enchantments she was too out of practice to translate. She grew more aware of her deficiencies.

“We might make it to Purgatory and back alive if we traversed corporeally. It’ll be tricky. Here’s a ritual to combine our magic. Even then, we’ll have scant minutes to search. Locating his spirit is the key. Spirit and body are tethered across Realms. Find his spirit—”

“Find his body.” A crazed smile spread across her face. “Reunite them and bring Teddy back to life.”

Bane held up a cautionary hand. “If the curse can be broken, you could reunite them. But he will never come back the exact same. Your brother as you knew him is truly gone.”

Memories came unbidden of the spirits she had returned from death. A young man growing paler and more vacant each time she damned him to death and back, until he was only the husk of a monster.

Teddy’s body—wherever it might be—was irrefutably dead, but not his spirit. Reanimation could bring back more than a shade of him. The fractured pieces of her heart were strung together by that slender thread of hope.

“I know. I’ve reanimated before.”

His brows lifted, impressed. “Reanimation takes skill. But if I’m risking my life, I’ll make damn sure first. You’ve had training?”

“If by training you mean disastrous trial and error, then yes.”

His brows knitted. “You’re self-taught? Edwina didn’t train you?”

“She trained me in manners and that’s about it.”

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