Chapter Fifteen
A light rap on my door interrupted me from studying the scant instructions for Caerwyn's Recallation Potion. I jumped, thought about hiding the evidence, and called, “Yes?”
“It is me.” That was Mordon's voice. Relief hit me first, then wonder. What did he want at this hour of the night?
“Come in.”
The door opened, and I heard no voices behind him. Good. If the others had gone to sleep, I was glad to not have their interference. Mordon shuffled, as though he were holding something. Then came the dull thunk of wood on slate.
I peered around the corner and saw he had a chest. “What's that for?”
Mordon made certain the door was secured. He flashed me a grin. “If anyone else asks, it's for your clothing.”
When he picked it up again, his face strained. I pursed my lips and stepped out of his way. Mordon set it down again in the center of the dining room. It was a decent enough height to act as a chair or perhaps a very short table, I considered.
“And if I ask what is it for?”
This time his smile showed white teeth. I found myself mirroring it, without knowing why. Mordon said, “A convenient vessel for contraband.”
This was exactly the sort of thing that Railey would have done. I put a hand to my lips, trying to hide my pleasure, trying not to notice the gleam in his green and red eyes. I cleared my throat and said, “To what do I owe the honor of such gifts?”
“Barnes thought of it.” He popped open the locks on the chest. As he opened the lid, I caught the musky scent of storage combating with oak. Velvet lined the inside of the chest. I thought I recognized the hue of it from somewhere, but no longer cared once I saw what was inside.
I gasped, and found myself kneeling beside him before I knew I'd even moved. It was my iron cauldron and my set of pots and bowls. Silver, copper, steel pots, and even the gold-lined mini pot were there. My fingers shook as I picked it up. “I had these hidden. How did you find them?”
His eyes dilated. “In some ways, we aren't so different from dragons.” He looked away, and said, “Barnes and I made an excursion to your workshop and gathered up what we thought was important. Barnes thought the expensive items were a good bet.”
“That they were,” I said, lifting the pots out of the box. I teased, “It's like you two want me to stay.”
“It was Barnes' idea,” Mordon said, but he added, “Though it was me who suggested that living here wasn't too comfortable at present.”
I appreciated the notion, though the thought of the two of them going through my home was a little odd—but no worse than all the roommates I'd had over the years in college. When I reached in for my cauldron, I noticed that the empty space left by the pots was now filled with books. I laughed.
“What is this? How's this box work?”
“Like it?” Mordon asked. “It's a portal of sorts. All sorcerers have at least a couple of items like this—cupboards, wardrobes, chests, small jewellery boxes, anything enclosed works—it goes to a vault. Leif and Lilly have a vault each at Silver Leaf Storage. It's good enough if you would like to get your own. Right now your items are at my castle. Personally I think we have better guards, but I am biased.”
“You have a castle?” I said, surprise making me laugh again. Was he serious? If it wasn't for the casual way he mentioned it I would have thought he was jesting.
Mordon pulled the cauldron out for me, since I had been distracted. He said, “Not mine in sole ownership. If anything, it owns me.”
“Then what are you doing living here and running an antique shop?”
“Antiquities, my dear, antiques don't have enchantments,” Mordon said. “I'm acting as a watcher for the colony. We always have someone on the outside world, keeping tabs on the other races, updating the colony on important events and new developments.”
I seized the opportunity to learn more about where he had come from. “Colony? Are they in isolation?”
Mordon smiled, and shook his head. “Odd to hear that coming from a Swift; that's one clan who sets a high standard of isolation. But no, the colony is not considered formally isolated, though they avoid contact with other races and wandering drakes, people not in any colony or clan. There are some colonies left, but not as many as there used to be. The clans keep themselves secret. You see, we aren't particularly liked by dragons, humans tend to fear us, the same with most other races. The conquest of 1066 slaughtered nearly all drakes, and led to the formations of colonies. But raids, mass murders, and internal squabbling have decimated a lot of colonies.”
I drummed my finger on the rim of the cauldron, thinking, wondering what questions to ask him first. Mordon ran a ringed finger through his mane, then helped me pull books out of the box.
“I am the heir to the Kragdomen colony. A ruler has to understand what it means to work in every role. It means the leader can make changes and understand the ripple effect his actions have on the colony. Being a watcher is the last role I have to complete. It is done when it is done. I could be here for ten years or ten days, it is impossible to tell.”
Mordon and I kept pulling books out of the chest; I hadn't realized how many I had collected over the years. It made my head spin. Did I need them now that I had Skills of the Thaumaturge? On the other hand, it would be nice to get an answer when I needed it and not after the book had received payment.
My hand hoovered over a book when I had a thought. “What happens if a person, say, nosedives into the box? Or if a kid tries to hide in it? Would they get transferred to the vault?”
Mordon's brow furrowed and he looked at me. “I wouldn't intentionally attempt it, if that is what you are asking. It might send you to the vault, but the spell isn't set up for living things, so it might refuse. In either case, there would be no leaving the vault by your own actions. Someone would have to go get you. I haven't heard about anything like that happening.”
After we stacked the books on the floor, Mordon handed me a few plates and drinking glasses, some basic towels, a cutting board, and a knife set my father had made for me. Thus ended the home wares department of my house.
Mordon climbed up on his feet, brushed at his shins, accustomed to sweeping dust off himself. He noticed my clutter on the counter. He said, “Can I watch you make the potion?”
At first I thought he wanted to supervise, but he held his hands behind his back and was reading the same line on the book over and over again, then looking at the herbs as though lost. I stood. “Sure. I'll even explain what is going on.”
He smiled, then sobered. “I don't want to distract you.”
“Are you going to pull on my hair?”
Mordon looked alarmed.
I laughed and took up herbs on the cutting board. “I lived with a ghost, remember? They feed off attention, and the older they get, the more they demand. I'm pretty certain I can brew a potion with another adult standing nearby.”
Mordon nodded. “If there's anything that I can do…well, that I'm allowed to do.”
“Doesn't the colony have a potion maker?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, but the training is reserved for hand-chosen apprentices. I am not that apprentice.”
“Why are you flustered?”
Mordon gave me a wry grin and shook his head. “It is a position reserved for my future mate.”
“Ah,” I said, feeling my cheeks take on color for no reason at all. I busied myself with arranging my pans. “You can wash the pots. Three bowls, the little ones, I just use them to put the prepared ingredients in. The stockpot, the gold pot, and the silver.”
Mordon's eyes gleamed, amused. “Mere minutes after I inform you I am heir to a kingdom, you tell me to scrub the pots like a scullery maid?”
“If you want to be in my kitchen, you'll do as I say,” I told him as I started shaving the mandrake root.
Mordon eyed the knife. “While you're holding that thing, I'll do as you say no matter what. Just pay attention to what you're
doing and don't hurt yourself. Who taught you to handle a knife? Does it need sharpened?”
Hurt myself? Who did he think he was? I had been cooking and cleaning and potion making for years. I sighed in annoyance and pointed it at him. “Not yet. Hush.”
Wait. How long it had been since I sharpened it? A year? Two? Hmm.
Mordon obeyed and let out a startled grunt when he turned on the tap water. I glanced over. Water poured out turmeric yellow. “Let it run for a few minutes. The pipes might need to flush.”
He gave me a no-duh expression and cranked the water on full blast. “Or your water source is polluted. I can go check.”
I scraped the mandrake shavings into a corner of the board. Before he could leave the kitchen, I said, “You know where this house is? Like, where in the physical world?”
Mordon gave a noncommittal shrug. The man did know, but he didn't want me to know. I wondered why. Of course it would make sense that Mordon would have checked into the surroundings of the house when he first purchased it and the shop.
He crossed over the sun room. He went out that door. The locked door I dearly wanted to get through for the sole reason that it being locked made it desirable to unlock. I listened to the scuff of boots on the deck until they faded to silence.
Why the secrecy? What was he hiding? As if those questions weren't enough, I would have been happy to just feel the open air across my skin.
Before I could forget, I flipped to the page with my list and added: Learn to Unlock Doors (later).
Though I wasn't expecting a reply, the book wrote back: Difficulty will vary depending upon the skill of the sorcerer who cast the seal, and the strength of the seal itself.
I bet it would.
I resumed preparing the potion, slicing mugwort leaves into strips. Soon I was out of space on the cutting board. By this time, the water poured clear, so I washed the bowls.
The sliding door scraped open. Mordon came back inside. His hair was damp, as were his shoulders. He removed shoes caked in mud.
“You seem a little flushed. Everything alright out there?”
“Just needed a purification spell. It brings the rain,” Mordon said. He chased me away from the sink, rolling up his sleeves and resuming his task. He watched as I transferred the herbs to the bowls.
To be sure, I read the instructions again, and said, “So I'll need quiet now. I need to be able to listen.”
I did not tell him that I was fudging the potion recipe a little. Caerwyn did not specifically state how to treat the mandrake. Since the other ingredients were right for the recipe, I was going to use one of Mother's methods, but it wasn't my favorite to do in front of an audience.
Humming, I worked through the rest of the ingredients and warmed the pots. I changed tunes often, keeping the bowl of shaved mandrake close to me, listening for it to join in with me. When the echinacea tincture was steaming, I worried that the mandrake wouldn't sing back, that the plant had been lifted from the ground dead or under too heavy of an incantation to silence its screeching.
Mordon caught one of my tunes and hummed along with me. The mandrake started to sing, too. I stopped and listened to Mordon's rumbling voice and the mandrake's high, soft tones.
Mordon stopped, seeming to remember that I'd asked for silence. I prompted him, “No, go on. I don't know the whole song.”
Mordon raised an eyebrow.
I explained, “I don't know if you can hear it, but the root sings. Don't give me that look, it's embarrassing enough to admit in solitude. Just sing. Good grief.”
My cheeks were on fire, and they burned more when he noticed.
Mordon went back to singing, his own cheeks with a bit of color. The mandrake resumed its song, and I hummed along, trying to remember. Where had I heard the song? Certainly not my mother; I knew all her songs well.
When the mandrake's voice was smooth and steady, I stirred it into the tincture, then added the remaining ingredients and cooked it until all I could hear was the potion. I tipped the pot and poured gradually, careful to not pour any chunks into the gold pot. The mandrake's song slowed as the potion cooled and became the color of milky tea.
Mordon peered at it, as though he could hear its voice dying, too. For the first time since contemplating the potion, I felt a twist in my gut. What if I had misread the instructions? What if I couldn't remember everything, if I had converted the measurements wrong, or Caerwyn's plants were different from the ones I knew by the same name? I had checked and double-checked according to the time period, but one could never be too careful.
The song was almost gone now.
The final instruction made me shake. Upon the mandrake's last breath, I was to drink the potion, as much as I could in one swig.
Nothing did I hate more than consuming potions. So much could go wrong.
The mandrake's song grew softer and softer, weaker and slower. I bit my lip. Mordon was going to ask a question. I held up a finger to keep him silenced.
A final raspy gasp drifted off the surface of the potion, vibrating little ripples against the bowl. I tilted my head back and drank, the final line humming down my throat.
It reminded me of the first time I ever ate yogurt. The potion was a little thick, a little slimy, still runny, a bit sour, and a whole lot of weird. Never did the taste get to me—I was accustomed to drinking infusions and tisanes without sugar, but this was a special sort of texture that was entirely unappealing.
The pot made a clatter when I half-dropped it to the counter, my hand on my chest.
“Fera!” Mordon advanced, clearly alarmed.
I held out my hand and restrained myself from coughing. Coughing would lead to vomiting, and that would do me no good.
“I'm fine,” I said. My voice didn't sound fine. It sounded like the mandrake's last gasp. I dared to clear my throat, and this time my voice came out normal. “That just tastes nasty.”
“I didn't know you were going to take it right now,” Mordon said. His eyes were dark, and he looked equally concerned and angry.
Perhaps I should have warned him. Ah, well. That's what I got for assuming that he already knew the basics of mandrake brewing. I said, “That's the way this potion is. Any time you drink that much mandrake, you don't sit around and let it get stronger.”
Mordon's brow shot up. “What do you mean 'that much mandrake'? Are you sure this was a good idea?”
His outburst made me uncomfortable. I laughed. Couldn't help it. “It isn't a good idea. Anything including mandrake is never a good idea. It's a desperate one.”
I staggered over to the chest and sat, taking slow breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth. Gain control. Don't panic. Breathe in, breathe out. Settle the stomach. Clear the mind.
My throat felt like I had swallowed cotton balls. I coughed.
Warmth hazed through my body, spreading across my throat and out from my stomach. Reality became fuzzy as the heat touched my forehead, my fingers tingling.
“Fera,” Railey whispered, her fingers tickling my neck. My hairs rose. I swatted at her.
A girl in brown pigtails and a striped skirt sat in front of me, giving me a smile with a tooth missing in the front. I was sitting on my favorite bedspread, purple with fairies, the one Mother hated but never said why.
Railey struck a match in the dark and whispered, “There's a bad spirit in here, Fera. Can you see it yet? I see it. Just over your shoulder. No, no, don't look. Don't look. Even if you did look all you would see is black. Look elsewhere, look everywhere, hurry, take the match.”
I tried to take the light, but my arms were heavy, as though someone held them. I tried harder. The match started to sputter. Railey was talking again, but not to me.
“I see you. Yes, I see you, you ugly sunnagun. Think you smell flesh? Nah, just me. Bet I'm good 'nough for you, though, ain't I?”
Railey! I wanted to tell her to stop, to think. I couldn't speak. My throat was locked. I tried to yell, but all that came out was a whisper.
My heart pounded, but I couldn't move.
“Look 'round you fool! I'm doing this for you. Look, look! I'm doin' this so you can see, so look!”
I opened my eyes. A set of wooden blocks, blue with yellow letters painted on them, scattered over a carpet. Sea green paint, peeling on the wall next to me. A leather tomb held open with a bone bookmark weeping ink. And then Railey's battle scream, a scuffle, and a yelp.
I tried to call out for her. I couldn't. All was dark.
Wheezing began. The distant jangle of goat bells. The scrape of claws on stairs. The stench. Decay and blood and ink. The scraping mixed with whimpering. Railey's whimpering.
I sat in the kitchen, tucked up on the counter, frozen in terror when the walking animation crawled up the last step and opened its mouth. It had Railey's pigtails, and her voice poured out of it. “Look 'round you fool! Look, look! At the walls, the walls, look!”
And I looked at the walls. Sea green and peeling, gouged with a knife, bleeding from the wounds. Moaning of a hundred voices filled my ears. I stared at the scars in the wall, at what had been done to them, and I couldn't move.
Hands held me. Hands on my ankles. Hands on my wrists. Hands on my head. Hard hands, stiff hands, thin and all bone. Children's hands, men's hands, women's hands. Fine and clean. Rough and filthy.
The walking animation stood before me, rasping decay into my face, oozing sludge from gashes in its abdomen. It gurgled. Saliva dripped down its tongue. Railey's voice whispered between its teeth, “Give in. Give in to the will. Let it go. Let it go or die, you fool. Let it go or die.”
Voices wailed in my ears. My heart thudded in my chest. A claw touched my thigh and pain coursed through my veins. I jerked, yanking hard against the binding hands.
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