Page 116 of The Unweaver

“Blow up door,” Dimitri suggested, tossing a grenade like an apple.

“You oughta be a genius, Dimitri,” Cora said with growing appreciation for the Hydromancer.

“Are any of those upper windows unlatched?” Sloane peered through binoculars. “With the grappling hooks and Ravi’s Aeromancy, we could sneak in through one and hope we don’t set off any wards.”

Cora pointed to a small window in the attic. “My old bedroom window never fully latched.”

“Sloane’s the only one small enough to fit through that,” Anita said. “How are the rest of us supposed to get in?”

The gang was so engrossed in squabbling they didn’t notice Bane had vanished until Sloane caught movement on the house. She pulled out her binoculars, and every head turned when she said, “Mal’s in.”

Across the street, Bane’s shadowy form hauled himself through Cora’s old bedroom window.

Several tense, breathless minutes later, the front door cracked open. Bane waved them inside. The Realmwalker had slipped past Mother’s wards. The gang scrambled for gear and, under the cover of Sloane’s shadows and Ravi’s sound-dampening bubble, slinked through the door. Thick silence and thicker darkness greeted them.

Apprehension constricted Cora’s lungs. Memories assailed her as she led them silently through the winding halls. Unpleasantness was imbued in each crooked floorboard and misaligned doorway. Every sound was an alarm call in her ears.

With timid steps, they made it to the stairs when a gasp drew their attention upward. A teenage boy stared down at them from the landing, his wide eyes flashing amber.

Everyone froze.

“Well?” Bane motioned at the boy. “Take us to your master.”

He wrenched out of his shocked stupor and cried, “Help!”

The boy’s body contorted. Limbs snapping into a four-legged stance. Face elongating into a fanged snout. Nails bursting into claws and skin into fur. A ferocious Rottweiler bounded down the stairs with a snarl.

Dimitri shot ropes of water vapor around the beast, binding its legs and maw. The Rottweiler stumbled at their feet with a thud. Anita grabbed its haunches, and it snapped and thrashed until Ravi stole the air from its lungs.

The beast’s eyes bugged, then drooped shut as the Sanguimancer drained blood from its head. It spasmed until a teenager, nude and colorless, laid in its place.

While one beast fell, more surrounded them. Bodies twisting, bones popping, fur sprouting, the Bestiamancers attacked with fangs and claws.

“Oi” Anita cocked her rifle. “Twelve-o-clock!”

Sloane pulled a low blanket of shadows around them. In the pitch blackness erupted a cacophony of shouts and shots. Growls and heavy footfalls and magically curving bullets came from all directions. The coppery tang of blood and iron filled the air.

Blasts of wind and water rushed past Cora. She stumbled through darkness, feeling for the stair railing and crawling up, step by shaking step. The heady scent of violence chased her as she pulled herself out of the shadows and onto the second floor.

Panting, her eyes darted at the dark corners and shifting shadows. The gang, their clothes ripped and bloodstained, barreled up the stairs after her.

“Stealth plan is fucked,” Bane said, impossibly calm. “Split up. Find the girl. Bring her out alive.”

Three directions. Three teams. Dimitri and Anita took the right hallway. Ravi and Sloane took the left. Bane and Cora dashed upstairs.

They peeked through doors and poked through rooms, each more eerily empty than the last, as if the occupants had disappeared from their beds mid-slumber. Her sweat-slickened palm trembled on the hilt of her sharpest knife.

The silence between them was fraught for more than one reason. Her gaze kept latching on Bane as they searched, angry and hurt at his secrets. Amidst the more pressing concerns of imminent death, her temper flared.

“You heartless bastard,” she hissed when she could handle the silence no longer. “Koschei’s. Egg. Your little loophole to immortality.”

Bane stilled and slowly faced her. He held her accusatory stare for an endless moment, the truth lurking in his black eyes. His demon black eyes. Expelling a breath, he brushed back his hair and glanced away. “I wondered how long it would take you.”

“That’s all you have to say?” She batted away Bane’s motion for her to quiet. “How old are you?”

With an exasperated sound, he searched the dark hallway before responding. “Thirty-five.”

“How long have you been thirty-five?”

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