Page 69 of The Unweaver

“Apologies about that,” he said with a rueful chuckle. “Happens all the time, I’m afraid. What’s your name?”

“Oh. Right. Sorry. I’m—”

“Cora?”

She turned and blanched. Recognition was a punch in the gut. The man looking at her with the tragic poetry of his bittersweet chocolate eyes was a ghost from her past. Enviably long lashes, as inky black as his soft waves of hair, swept across his tawny cheek as he blinked at her in disbelief.

For several moments, they could only stare at each other. Separated by a few steps and an eternity of loss.

“Ravi,” she breathed.

Ravi Shah, the only person Teddy had been more enamored with than himself. The Aeromancer had been the reserved counterweight to Teddy’s effusiveness. They’d been lovers for a year, the longest anyone had tolerated her twin’s antics.

Ravi had been disowned by his affluent family not because of his air magic but his bed partners. He’d found a new family in the Walcotts for those few, precious months. Without Teddy, they were both adrift.

“You two know each other?” Guy looked between their stricken features. When they nodded weakly, he busied himself elsewhere.

“What are you doing here, Cora?” Ravi glanced around the empty club, twisting his trumpet in his hands.

“I had some business with Bane. Like everyone in London, it seems.”

“Ah.” Ravi seemed at a loss for words. His helpless gaze landed on the piano behind her. “Are you Edith’s replacement?”

“Er, no.” An awkward silence elapsed as their eyes darted at anything but each other. She glanced at the door. Too many paces away and still locked. “Well, I must be—”

“I haven’t seen you since—” Ravi said at the same time. His mouth shut, opened, shut again.

“I know,” she rushed to say. She couldn’t bear to hear the name. Not from Ravi. “I must be going. It was nice to see you, Rav.”

He grabbed her arm when she turned to leave. “I’m sorry. About Teddy, about— No one will give me a straight answer. Please, tell me, is Teddy really… gone?”

“He is—” She glanced at where Teddy’s body was stored in the walk-in icebox, wanting to offer Ravi this thin thread of hope for reanimation. The risk of exposing herself was a moot point. Ravi would know what she was soon enough. Yet, she still couldn’t bring herself to say the words.Coward. “Not alive.”

Devastation crumpled his features. He choked back a sob. “I’d hardly seen him towards the end. He’d gotten so distant and irritable before— I figured he was using again and shutting me out. I had no clue he was tangled up in… all that.”

Guilt washed over her. She wasn’t the only one left behind to mourn Teddy. She’d been so encompassed by her own grief that she hadn’t spared a thought for Ravi’s.Selfish coward.

He swiped his tears away, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s just... I keep looking up, you know. Expecting to see him there. Waiting to hear his voice again. I’m so sorry, Cora. I know how much Teddy meant to you. You were everything to him. He talked about you all the time.”

His words gutted her. Blinking away her own tears, she couldn’t meet his watery smile. Teddy would stay not-alive once Bane’s gang found out about her. Ravi might even do the honors of cutting her air off himself.

“I’m sorry, I— How about for old time’s sake?” He gestured at the piano and played the intro chords of her favorite song on his trumpet.

The piano beckoned her. Calm waters amidst the storm. She sat at the bench and followed Ravi’s lead, sinking into the blissful acoustics. Piano and brass fused in melodious melancholy.

The splendor of the last note fading, Guy handed her music sheets with an eager smile. “That was brilliant. Let’s hear another. You know this one? It’s a classic.”

“I can’t read music. The nuns never managed to beat that into me. If you play something, I can catch on.”

Ravi struck up another tune and she joined in, losing herself in the music. For a moment, her heart lightened. For a moment, Teddy was there with them again, like on the last night they’d all been together.

* * *

“Good news,” Teddy had announced as he strode into the Starlite Club after hours, swathed in a crustacean-colored suit few men in England could get away with. “I’m here.”

“You look handsome in that suit,” Ravi said with a shy smile.

“I know.” Teddy preened and winked. “I look even better out of it.”

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