Page 14 of The Unweaver

Just because she was resigned to her fate didn’t mean she wanted to be reminded of it, however. She lifted her chin. “I won’t die alone. I’ve got Teddy.”

“And what happens when Teddy’s gone?”Mother’s words cracked like a whip.

Cora started. Wariness crept up her spine as she searched Mother’s livid features. “What do you mean,whenTeddy’s gone?”

Mother tore her eyes away. Hands fluttering, she straightened pillows and tea-stained doilies until she regained her composure.

More than Cora had ruffled the old bird’s feathers. Her thin patience and thinner lips had to be from the escalating gang war. Verek had all but pulled the trigger on Bane’s Chronomancer. Mother had sicced her Animancer and Necromancer on the corpse. And Bane had attacked Mother’s pets.

London was still under the heavy shadow of the last gang war, and now they were hurtling over the brink into another. How many more lives would be tossed in the bonfire of greed before the bosses had enough?

When Teddy’s gone. The words spun in her mind like a train on a circular track, the wheels greased by that unshakeable premonition of death. Was it her own death she’d been sensing?

She hadn’t seen Teddy since they limped out of the tunnels, broken and defeated, three days ago. His jaw had been too bruised to do more than grunt. She had wanted to see him safely inside his flat before going to her own, but he’d shut the door in her face. Her hand rose to knock, then fell. While his bruised body would recover in days, the damage to his ego would take longer to heal. He’d go on a bender and reemerge next week with a crisp new outfit like nothing had happened. She had left him to his wallowing to tend to her own.

“Have you seen my brother recently?”

“You know how dear, unreliable Teddy sulks. Now.” Mother leaned forward, eyes flashing amber. “You’re certain that is everything?”

“Yes.” She reached for the twenty pounds. Mother slid it into her beaded reticule.

“This payment was for the successful completion of a favor. The only thing you’ve succeeded in doing is putting us in the Realmwalker’s crosshairs.”

Withholding the money meant forgoing Teddy’s Christmas gift to make rent. He’d pout until New Year’s. Cora bit back a retort, or tried to. “Conspiring with Verek to kill Moriarty may have already accomplished that, don’t you think?”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Mother said in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Right. What will we do when the next war starts?”

Mother pierced her with a sharp look, then settled back with another biscuit. Her lips lifted in a little smile. “Wait and see, my pet.”

Cora remembered the last gang war too well to do anything of the sort. “I won’t be involved. Not this time.”

Her little smile twisted into a scowl. Mother surged to her feet and Cora braced herself for the slap. The old bird had a lightning-fast backhand—always the right hand, the one with the most rings.

Instead, Mother walked to her desk and pulled a strange object from the top drawer. She handed it to Cora, watching her closely. “What do you think of this?”

Cora turned it over. The four-sided pillar was made of polished sandstone that came to a diamond-tipped point. An obelisk. A strange current of energy, not unpleasant, tingled up her arm. “What is it?”

“A gift from a dear Frenchman. One of a pair and extraordinarily rare.” She perched herself on the arm of Cora’s chair. “Tell me, dear, why do you believe I’m conspiring with Mr. Verek?”

When she looked up at Mother, it was not with suspicion, but gratitude. This was the woman who had taken her in when everyone else had cast her out. The closest thing she’d ever hadto a real mother. “That was awfully foolish of me, wasn’t it? I could never suspect you. You’re my mother, Mother.”

“Then speak no more of such foolishness.”

“Of course, Mother.”

“You look so very tired, pet.” She traced a sharp nail along Cora’s cheek. The obelisk vibrated in Cora’s hand, dimming the kneejerk revulsion she felt whenever someone touched her face. “How have you been sleeping?”

Her nurturing tone and soft touch warmed Cora from within. Sighing, she leaned into her hand. “Not well, Mother.”

“Poor dear.” Her hand dropped. “Do you still dream of death?”

Cora shivered, remembering dreams of her own eyes staring back at her from rotting faces. The death throes of countless spirits she’d communed with coiled inside her dreams like shadows. “Yes, Mother.”

She scrutinized Cora for a long moment. “Whose death?”

“Mine.”

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