Epilogue The Bane of My Existence
Two letters Malachy had dreaded opening mocked him from his desk.
He had gone through all of his correspondence with the single-minded determination of distracting himself after Cora had departed for New Orleans, and now only these two harbingers remained.
Despite the furious bout of productivity, he still worried about all the harm Master Samuel Lakwa could cause in a week.
Although he hated Cora leaving, he had loved their goodbye. His desk was still disheveled, ledgers askew and ink-stained, since she had left his office ruby-lipped and dripping.
Earlier, Cora had knocked on his office door. “It’s me,” she had called. “I’m leaving soon.”
The lock had clicked open, and Malachy had unfolded from his reclined position to meet her on the other side of his desk.
His tie was loose and the whiskey bottle beside his ledgers was nearly empty.
He opened his arms, and she sank into his embrace.
His arms tightened around her, pouring all of his longing and heartache into her.
Breathing deep, he tried to memorize her scent, to carry as a reminder.
“When will you be back?”
“A week,” she had murmured into his neck. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, Cora.” He said her name like a caress, achingly slow down her spine. Sweeping back her hair, he planted a kiss where her shoulder met her neck.
“Do you think I should go to New Orleans?” she asked, not for the first time, but for the last time before she really left.
“It’s your decision to make.” The same response he had given every time. Although, privately, he anguished that she was leaving when he had only just gotten her back. There was an ache in his fingertips that only lightened by touching her. “My feelings shouldn’t sway yours.”
“That’s not an answer.” Frustrated, she pulled back. “Would you rather I stay?”
Yes.
Only three things overpowered his fierce protectiveness that screamed to stop her from leaving.
First, he doubted that Lakwa would harm the prize he so coveted; having the Unweaver at his beck and call was a boon Lakwa would not risk losing.
Second, Cora had never met another Necromancer, and Malachy could not rob her of this chance at true empathy.
She was powerful yet untrained, and he hoped that honing her skills would empower her and maybe lighten the burden of her lifelong self-loathing.
He would do anything to ease her sorrows, including letting her go.
Third was the malachite ring. She had only to twist her ring, paired with his, and he would traverse across an ocean and half a continent to be at her side.
“I would rather you stay safe, Cora. Be careful. Lakwa and the other Masters are far from innocent.”
Malachy couldn’t prove Lakwa was involved in the demon conspiracy other than an unshakeable gut feeling.
He had dug into Lakwa’s history, and either there were no skeletons in the Master Necromancer’s closet, or he was unusually adept at hiding them.
The only wrinkle in Lakwa’s background was that while he claimed to hail from a Barbados sugarcane fortune, his title of Baron was in name only.
That itself only incriminated Lakwa as an egoist, which went along with the ceremonial robes of a Tribunal Master.
“Another non-answer,” she said. “I suppose I should know you better by now, Mal. You’ve made up your mind. In the unlikely case you do change it, it’ll be thousands of miles too late. Soon an ocean will separate us.”
“A portal away.” He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her, slow and deep, until they forgot all about oceans and answers. His lips trailed along her jaw, down her throat. She clung to his lapels, breathless.
“I’ll be late.”
“Then be late.” A hand skimmed down her stomach to cup between her thighs. “Are you sore?”
“Yes.” She snatched his tie when he moved away, tugging him back. “That wasn’t a complaint.”
His laugh was spiced with dark, sinful promises.
“I’m not sorry.” Lifting her, he sat her on the edge of his desk and coaxed her knees apart.
His fingertips raised the hemline of her black dress over her thighs, flirting with her garters.
Sliding aside her knickers, he found her slick. “Jesus,” he said, a low groan.
He gently pushed her to lie back on his desk. Grabbing the back of her thighs, he spread her open. His gaze swept over her like a fever. She watched under her lashes as he bent his head and licked a tortuous path along her core.
Her head fell back on a moan. A long finger slid inside her, and another, stroking and filling her as he closed his warm, wet mouth over her clit. Just as her muscles began to tighten, he pulled back.
“I want you to come on my cock.” He unfastened his trousers, and his length sprang free, thick and veined. He looked feral, with his hard cock jutting from his impeccable three-piece suit. Gaze not leaving hers, he fisted himself in a slow, firm stroke and positioned himself at her entrance.
In a long thrust he buried himself to the hilt.
Her moan echoed off the office walls as her inner walls tightened around him.
Slowly, he pulled out, inch by inch, and thrust in again.
She grasped the edge of the desk as their hips canted in a furious rhythm, filling the office with the sound of panting breaths and wet, slapping flesh.
Ledgers and pens clattered to the floor.
An ink pot was overturned. His concentration was narrowed on her.
His thumb rubbed her until she was gasping, convulsing around him. He groaned as he came deep inside her.
He pulled out, dripping. His fingers gathered his release and pumped it back in. “I want you to spend the rest of the day with my come leaking out of you,” he said rough in her ear, stroking her over the edge into another shattering climax. “That’s it. Just like that. Fuck, I love you.”
She clung to him as aftershocks rippled. “Tell me again, Malachy.”
“I love you.” He kissed her soundly, tasting of her, then helped her to sit up. “Be careful in New Orleans. I don’t trust Lakwa.”
“You don’t trust anyone.”
“I don’t trust him especially. Keep a close eye on Lakwa. I want to know immediately if anything suspicious happens."
"So, spy on him."
"Just make subtle observations and report back. If something were to happen to you…” A wave of anguish crashed over his features.
The back of his fingers trailed down her cheek, featherlight down her arm.
He captured her hand in his and touched the malachite ring.
“The ring is a traversing anchor. Twist the ring and I’ll come to you, no matter the time nor distance. ”
One last, lingering kiss, and Cora had left.
Malachy now worried the ring on his finger, paired with hers.
Last week, he had traversed to New Orleans so the path would be fresh in his mind in case she needed him.
Whilst there he had taken some measures to ensure Cora’s safety that she would not be pleased to hear about, but it would be easier to ask forgiveness than permission if she was still alive.
With a glass of whiskey and a deep breath, he turned his attention back to the two letters on his desk and opened the first. His brows rose with each sentence.
The Prime Minister himself was requesting Malachy’s “assistance” in securing a “mutually beneficial peace treaty” in the “vexing” Irish War of Independence.
His lip curled in disdain. The Prime Minister wanted Malachy to do his diplomacy for him, again. Irish business in England’s hands would be a filthy job.
Unbeknownst to his handlers, Malachy had been playing both sides of the Irish Sea for decades.
He supplied weapons to the IRA and careful half-truths to the Englishmen who thought they held his leash.
Before the Great War, Malachy had left Dublin for London partly to win true freedom for Ireland—not with rifles but with careful bribery—and partly because his late second, Emmett Moriarty, had told him that he’d find what he was looking for there.
The Chronomancer had been right, as usual, though Moriarty would never have the satisfaction of hearing it now, six feet under.
Malachy set aside the first letter, took a hearty swig of whiskey, and reached for the second, most dreaded letter. He smoothed back the curling edges of the Death Parchment, both sides filled with Lazlo’s trembling handwriting. His chest constricted. He downed the whiskey and drew a long breath.
Any worries Malachy had entertained about human and mage politics were overshadowed by what he read.
Dear Mal,
Cora shared your regrets and kind sentiments. Do not trouble yourself on my behalf, old friend. I am at peace, together with my Helen once more. I no longer feel the ache of old bones in winter.
I hope you will forgive me, my dearest friend, as I unburden myself after carrying this secret so long.
For you see, your suspicions of the Tribunal proved right.
When I left London on New Year’s Eve, after the Sciomancy ritual to detect the Specter’s Scourge curse on Teddy Walcott, I went searching for answers.
I have neither the energy nor the parchment to explain it all.
Suffice to say that the Tribunal has been compromised by forces beyond this Realm.
Master Ghose once peered through the veil of time and saw a vision of the future he was determined to make true.
A future where mages are superior, and humans our chattel.
He managed to acquire the Ruination Stone, the Tribunal’s magic-draining weapon long lost to time.
It is likely in the demons’ possession still.
Ghose and Ikelas were not the only Masters to succumb to the Profane Arts’ dark seduction.
They were but one branch of a sinister body. Evil must be ripped out at the root.