Page 133 of The Unweaver

Without a whole spirit, he grew colder. His blue eyes blackened as he watched the Industrial Revolution spread like cancer. Concrete where there once was earth. Steel where there once was woodland. Railways and highways extended like paved arteries, metastasizing gas-powered monstrosities that coughed black soot across the choked warrens of people multiplying like contagion.

Now, Malachy had come back to life, yet he wasn’t entirely what he once remembered being. In spite of everything, he hoped that one day he might deserve Cora. But by the Doomsday Watch, it was already too late.

That didn’t stop him from seeking her out wherever he was. Poised to see her willowy figure, to hear her throaty laugh. The woman who still held his heart in her claws.

Her hazel and turquoise eyes, heating as they raked over him when she thought he wasn’t looking. Her sly smile, rife with secrets he wanted to drink deep from. The way she played piano with her whole body, sinking into bliss. The soft caress of her lips and suppleness of her body. How many times he had wanted to peel away her defenses to that dark part of herself she let no one see.

Cora had returned his heart, only to break it. Awaking to find her in a bathtub full of her blood, fading away in his arms… The afterimage was burned onto his retinas. For days, he had sat at her bedside, eaten alive by fear, before her beautiful eyes openedagain. How close he’d come to losing her. A lifelong regret in the making.

After hiding every sharp object in the house and installing more portraits to observe her through, he’d dug the enchanted rings out of Durbec’s impressive, repurposed collection. While away, he set Sloane upon Cora as her literal shadow. A necessity Cora wouldn’t appreciate if she found out. Luckily, his Umbramancer was careful.

His feelings for Cora were more primal than practical. A fact that didn’t dislodge her hold on him. Even before his full spirit had been returned, that single sliver had yearned for her.

At night, Cora shredded what remained of his once formidable self-control. He was attuned to her every breath and movement as she slept. Arching into him as he gathered her into his arms. Nestling her arse against his aching cock as he held her close.

Malachy shifted. They were discussing the certain doom of mages everywhere, and he was getting a hard on.

I am in trouble.

Marshaling his thoughts, he tried to follow the threads of conversation. Rune Borges was waxing poetic about mage supremacy to the young Lumomancer—preaching to the converted, it seemed. The Memnomancers were in a heated debate about which specific sub-clause of some bylaw Malachy had violated in solving the Tribunal’s problem for them. Cora was no longer singing.

“—quite right, Master Bittenbinder. The language in this clauseisopen to interpretation.” O’Leary’s small smile was full of glee. “A hearing in Rome would bring a swift conclusion to this fascinating discussion.”

“I see we are comrades in logic, Mr. O’Leary. Given the nature and severity of the alleged violations, the Tribunal has requested I return posthaste with Mr. Bane. Consider this an officialsummons to a hearing before the Tribunal. We shall depart for Rome immediately.”

Malachy pictured agate gemstone eyes, not shining with an inner radiance, but weeping as he left her again. Even without Cora, abandoning his operations amidst the London turmoil would be bad for business. Not to mention the untraceable demons running loose.

He lit a cigarette and deliberated informing them of the horrors unleashed upon this Realm. Telling them was less likely to get him killed now, as the Realmwalker was the obvious solution to the demonic problem, but less guaranteed for long-term survival. And if he was getting dragged before the Tribunal on some gobshite technicality, he’d hold onto any advantage.

The full catastrophe would inevitably be revealed, but not until it benefitted him more.

“I can’t go to fuckin’ Rome now.”

“Master Bittenbinder is correct, Mal. According to the Tribunal’s proceedings, detailed in sub-clause—”

“Curse your infernal devotion to logic, O’Leary. No.”

O’Leary readjusted his spectacles with an affronted sniff. “As you wish.”

“Requesting is not asking, Mr. Bane,” the Lethe said in a firm voice.

Malachy could read between the lines. The Tribunal wouldn’t execute him while he was useful, but that courtesy ended when his usefulness did.

“For how long?”

“However long it takes, Mr. Bane. The law is thorough.”

“Clearly,” he muttered. “Very well. O’Leary, you’re in charge while I’m away. Start on the paperwork we discussed, would you?”

“I’ll be filing paperwork for weeks,” the solicitor said with a contented sigh.

Malachy’s sigh was full of discontent. How was he going to explain this sudden, prolonged absence to Cora? He’d only just convinced her to play at the club again. What would he be returning home to when the Tribunal released him?Ifthe Tribunal released him.

Traversing back and forth to Rome would drain him. Since his heart had been uncaged, he had less power for traversing himself, let alone others, across large distances. One of the many adjustments he struggled with. The loss of those powers ached like a phantom limb. Despite his returned spirit, he felt stunted, a fragment of himself.

Bittenbinder rose to his full Napoleonic height. “Let us not waste more time—”

There was a knock on the door. Every head whipped around. Malachy’s gang knew better than to disturb him in a meeting. Guy’s finger never had quite grown back.

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