Page 31 of The Unweaver

“—if it’s a war they want, O’Leary, it’s a war they’ll fuckin’ get,” Bane was saying into the phone receiver, his voice like ice-tempered steel. “Do as we planned. Call Dimitri and Gallagher. They’re in place with the rest of the gang. They know what to do. Meet at the rendezvous in an hour.” He slammed the receiver down.

The ground shook like an earthquake, startling her eyes wide. They were in the Victorian library the Portal Key had shown her. A spiral staircase ascended the two-story tower, the soaring shelves crammed with an overwhelming collection of leather-bound tomes and relics humming with ominous energy. With the many potted plants, fronded palms, and drooping curls ofivy, the room looked more like an eclectic scholar’s cluttered greenhouse than a library.

The room shook again. Books dropped from ceiling-high shelves and gas lamps flickered. Overhead, a door slammed.

Unconcerned by the quaking, Bane prowled to a bar cart, his charred, bloodstained coat flapping. He poured a full glass of whiskey, tossed it back, and poured another. Even covered in the sooty gore of the men she’d seen him eviscerate, he still managed to look elegant. A gentleman reposing in his charming library, enjoying a glass of spirits after liberating other men of theirs.

“Er, why is the room shaking?” Cora asked with a death grip on the armchair.

“The house is temperamental.”

“Wh-whose sentient house?”

“Mine. And it’s only approaching sentience.”

She sat up and immediately regretted it as the library somersaulted. “You have to take me back.”

“Back to what?” He faced her, black eyes flashing. “Back to your shite flat? Your shite job? Your shite life?”

Anger, then alarm, shivered through her. The Realmwalker had done his research on her. How many skeletons deep had he dug in her closet?

She fisted her trembling hands in her lap and held his cold stare. In this, and likely only this, she had the upper hand. Bane couldn’t bend what was already broken. “Don’t forget my shite wages.”

He arched a brow. “Why do you want to go back? They’ve nothing but contempt for you. Especially your so-called Mother who left you to die.”

No answer was forthcoming. Without Teddy, she was unmoored. Unilluminated. What was there to go back to? “She’s... the only family I’ve got left.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” he said. “You’re not like her other fawning pets. Why has the Unweaver chosen to work for Edwina all this time instead of rotting her feathers off?”

She evaded his shrewd gaze and looked at her boots. A disconcerting piece of flesh clung to the patched leather. She wondered whose as she tried to shake it off.

“She’s blackmailing you,” the perceptive bastard said. “Over what?”

Cora huffed a laugh. “Like I’ll let you weaponize that against me, too.”

Even now, Mother’s blade, forged from that single threat, was poised over her jugular.I have only to makeonecall, my pet.

Like most things, it was only a matter of time. Bane could only offer so much protection from the consequences of her own actions. Unless she scrambled back before Mother noticed she’d left the nest.

“Perhaps I should go back to my shite life,” she mused.

“There is no going back.”

Her head snapped up. The gravity of her predicament hit her like an avalanche. In an unthinking moment, she had altered the entire course of her life. Malachy Bane had vaulted into her world and become its center. For better or worse, she was trapped in his orbit. There’d be no crawling back to Mother, no sliding back into that comfortably uncomfortable existence.

What happens when Teddy’s gone?Cora had a creeping suspicion Mother was more involved in Teddy’s death than she claimed. She’d never trusted Mother, yet a part of her still couldn’t believe the old bird capable of that level of treachery. Blackmailing and backstabbing, sure. Murder by proxy, of course. But the Profane Arts? Against her favorite pet?

Mother had made an artform of deception, though. If Teddy’s demise had been her doing, she hadn’t done it herself. Cora hadenough blood on her hands to know Mother never sullied her own.

The web of conspiracy glinted anew. Mother and Verek’s underhandedness had tipped the precarious balance of power in London. Together, they might break Bane’s monopoly on transportation. They’d sink their own ship just to pick through the spoils. And Bane didn’t seem the least bit surprised about it. He was scheming, not panicking.

“There’ll be another war,” she said. “Won’t there?”

“It’s already begun.”

A great spasm shook the house. Books and potted plants crashed to the floor. She barely ducked in time to dodge a plummeting glass orb. Bane braced his hands on the fireplace mantle and watched the flames. He was close enough she could reach out and touch the taut muscles of his back.

She clenched her hands in her lap. “Mother and Verek are teaming up against you.”

---