Page 87 of The Unweaver

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re thanked,” she clipped out and turned to a smirking Lazlo. “Would I need to go to Rome to meet Master Lakwa?”

The Tribunal was, allegedly, headquartered in a compound more secretive and well-defended than its neighbor, the Vatican.

“Not necessarily. We Masters use a Portal Key to go to Rome and execute our Tribunal duties. Most of us reside elsewhere. Myself in Budapest. Master Bittenbinder in Berlin. Master Sakura in Tokyo. Master Lakwa in New Orleans. It is but a short trip with Mal to traverse you, no?”

Cora considered it. Not only for what the Master Necromancer could teach her but for the great jazz in New Orleans.

“What abilities come most naturally to you? If you do not mind me asking,szívem.”

She crossed her legs, brushing Bane’s under the table. She jerked away. “I’m not sure. I’ve never known what to call them.”Or had to describe them out loud for a Tribunal Master. “Without trying, I can… sense death.”

Lazlo propped a spindly elbow on the table and leaned forward. “Through touch?”

“Or proximity. Verek—the Pyromancer, er, latePyromancer—was so close to death I sensed his cancer from across the room.”

Lazlo’s brows climbed the deep grooves of his forehead. “Can you reanimate?”

“Not well. It takes more effort to weave than unweave.”

“She’s being modest,” Bane said. “She reanimated centuries-old corpses in a frozen graveyard and killed half a dozen people with them.”

Lazlo’s brows climbed higher. “With Master Lakwa’s training, I suspect you could aspire to near full reanimation. I sense great potential in you, Cora.”

She was certain she’d misheard that the Sciomancer saw anything but rot inside her. “I sense death in you,” she whispered. “Do you want to know?”

He covered her hand in his wizened one. “That is knowledge I can live without.” His rheumy eyes held hers for a momentbefore he groaned to his feet. “I trust your cellar is still unfailingly well-stocked, Mal?”

Waving off Bane’s offer to fetch another bottle himself, he plodded away, slow as Sunday. The kitchen felt smaller with just the two of them.

“How?” Bane said when Lazlo was out of earshot. “When?”

Cora regarded him. His concern seemed genuine, and she wondered once more at their friendship. “He’ll pass in his sleep. Soon.”

He released a pained breath and was silent for a long moment. “Can you sense my death?”

“You really want to know?”

At his nod, she removed her glove and clasped his hand. Long, graceful fingers, calloused palm. Even with all her focus, sensing his death was like grasping water. The harder she tried, the more slipped through her fingers.

“I’m afraid you’ll live. I can’t sense anything.”

When he didn’t release her hand, she yanked it away. He frowned at her stiff retreat. “I’m not forgiven for doing nothing wrong, is it?”

She stabbed an asparagus spear with her fork and bit off the tip. “Making dinner absolves you of nothing. Even if it is delicious. I told you not to out me to everyone, and you did anyway. Furthermore—furthermore—you haven’t even apologized.”

“Because I’m not sorry. Experiencing your worst fear has fulfilled your greatest wish. Everyone knows who you are and now no one will fuck with you. That’s what you really wanted. Despite your backarseward approach.”

His words were like lemon juice in an open wound. Although, she reluctantly admitted, it had been a few days since anyone had tried to kill her.

“And you’re the expert on knowing what I want?” she snapped. Their gazes sparred. She decapitated another asparagus spear with her teeth.

He expelled a long breath. “We’ve been talking in circles. You can’t help someone who won’t help themselves, but I am trying to help you, Cora. What will it take for you to trust me?”

“Trust is earned.”

“Over time, aye. And it never will be if you keep moving the goalpost. It won’t matter what I say or do unless you believe it for yourself.” His eyes, dark as a midnight sky, sought hers. “I’m sorry that everyone you’ve known has hurt you. But I’m not them.”

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