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What was Cora being punished for? She hadn’t done anything. Lately.
“He will love you to death.”
“Fuck you in particular, Teddy,” the phantom snarled,
“That’s what I fuckin’ said. If I’d wanted him dead, I would’ve taken my time killing him in those tunnels. And you, for that matter. Corpses beaten so unrecognizable, only your teeth would identify you.” “That’s…” She tried to swallow but her throat was bone dry. “Oddly specific.”
“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.”
This was her first Binding Agreement, but it felt… unusual. What ramifications might come of this, she could only imagine. Bane was mired in his own tumultuous thoughts. Transfixed by his glowing hand, he moved his fingers as if they belonged to someone else. “I have made a grave mistake,” he muttered.
The Realmwalker’s capacity for scheming was much less disturbing when it benefitted her. Blackmailing the blackmailer. Delicious. “Happy to oblige.
“Such as your spirit being trapped in between, wandering aimless and alone in the nothingness for all eternity.” “Don’t threaten me with a good time.” He sent her a flat look,
While Bane had spent several hours out of the house attending to “none of your fuckin’ business,”
Somehow, his suit was even more charred and bloodied than after the parley disaster. “How’s the, er, war going?” “Grand,” he said. “I left some body parts in the icebox for you to commune with later.” “Oh, grand. I thought I’d have to ask for that.” His lips twitched.
“Did you make the house, too?” “Won it in a card game off another Choromancer. Originally, it was enchanted to move between set vertices. I expanded the traversing anchors into an irregular polygon around London to increase the interior angles for more spatial flexibility.” “Naturally.” She had no idea what he’d said.
And too old to fight in another senseless war. They’re all the same. Wealthy men using boys like cannon fodder, dangling the carrot of honor while they die face down in the fuckin’ mud.”
“What’s magic but a natural phenomenon we don’t yet have a scientific explanation for? To the ancient Greeks, lightning was the wrath of Zeus. To us, it’s an electrical discharge when warm and cold air mix. What we call our spirit, a distillation of magic, is just nerves in a meat casing. Give it another century and there’ll be no magic left.”
“Say, how’d you and Mal meet exactly?” Anita asked Cora. “I thought he killed Teddy. So I tried to kill him. Then he offered me a job.”
“That depends. Are you going to get mad at me some more?” “That depends.” He flipped the pan with an expert flick. “Are you going to do something to deserve it?” “Probably.”
“That story requires a three-drink minimum.” He almost smiled when she set the nicked bottle of brandy before him. “Do I want to know how you got that?” “No.”
“You don’t scare me.” “Even though I could rot your heart out?” The corners of his mouth lifted. “You’d have to find it first.” “Sold it on the black market, did you?” “Don’t like answering personal questions, do you?”
“You’re hurt.” She clambered to her knees and reached out to inspect the wound. “Should I bandage it?” “Any excuse to take my shirt off again, eh?” The bastard actually grinned. She sat back on her haunches with an unamused expression. “Fine. Bleed to death.”
“Well. There are plans to speed up. No time to waste.” He rose to his feet and swayed, grabbing the wall. Cora rushed up to steady him. “Maybe stop bleeding first, scheming second?” “But—” “Don’t be a fucking idiot,” she said, and he huffed a laugh. “I’ll fetch the bandages.” He sagged against the wall. “That’d be grand.”
“I understand that secrecy is sacrosanct to you. But this secrecy isn’t about survival. It’s about shame. You’re shackled to it. This self-imposed exile doesn’t serve you.
“I hate you.” She rusted the handle off, flung the door open, and stormed out. “You only hate yourself,” he called after her. Then, “Jesus, not my fuckin’ door, too.”
With a last desperate look at the door, Cora slid onto the barstool. “Mind if I—?” Not waiting for an answer, she poured a shot from the first bottle she grabbed and winced. Vodka. Stomach-shredding vodka. “Oh, this is gonna be interesting.” Anita poured herself a shot and gestured towards Bane’s office. “What was that about, eh?”
“Good news,” Teddy had announced as he strode into the Starlite Club after hours, swathed in a crustacean-colored suit few men in England could get away with. “I’m here.”
“Someone’s smuggling cargo in my smuggled cargo?” Bane said. “Bastard. Any idea who?”
“Ah.” He shifted. “I see. The mighty Realmwalker has not traversed you anywhere?” “He did take me to Purgatory. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.”
“Do you have feelings for me, Cora?” he asked in a low voice. “Yes. Several. Contempt. Outrage. Disgust.”
“I don’t believe in prophecies, but I do believe in precaution. I’ve looked into every mage with a twin. Including you. I’d written you off as human years ago. I applaud your efforts.” “Thanks. Creep. What does the prophecy mean? That I’ll kill you?”
She might as well have tossed the question into the void. Bane completed another circuit of the room, muttering to himself as if she hadn’t spoken. “Scheming, not listening. Got it.” The pendulum of his pacing made her eyes cross. After several minutes, he halted midstride like he’d run into an invisible wall, opened his mouth to speak, then left without a word. She fell back on the pillows and watched him disappear.
“I will never forgive you.” “We can discuss how that’s bullshit—at length, if you insist, and we both know you will—after we take this dream mage down.”
“We can ponder the impossibility later. What I do know is that death isn’t always permanent, and demons are bloody terrifying.”
“Cora, you can’t just barrel into someone’s territory and demand answers.” “Why not? It worked with you.” He stared hard, then nodded in begrudging concession.
“It might not be today nor tomorrow, but one day you’ll wake up and have a reason to get out of bed again. Anyone that says there’s a grander meaning to life is probably trying to sell you something, but I think the meaning is what we make of it. Whether that’s to achieve some purpose, or that we’re simply born to be alive, the way an animal or a flower is.”
