“Just the ones who would have been too frightened to do the same in my place.”
I raised a tentative glance at his face. He was watching me with a mixture of warmth and amusement. I wasn't ready to be buoyed up yet. “But, I've drawn you into it. A lot of people into it. And you said yourself, this is dangerous territory. With whatever Josephina was involved in. It's dangerous.”
“So were you, my chicklet, so were you.”
My chicklet? That was a new term of endearment, not one I'd even heard applied to me before.
A tiny fire started on the table between us. My first instinct, after the fireball of earlier, was to put out the mysterious flame—but then I saw the corner of an envelope being left behind as the fire spread. As it grew and wavered, the black following the flame turned white and crisp, and before long I saw a familiar shorthand of hard vertical lines.
“Who is that from?” Mordon asked.
I picked up the envelope, impatiently waiting as the last corner formed and the fire died out. “My contact in the Tribune. It's been ages since she's written me. I wonder what's up?” I tore the flap open and exposed a thick wad of papers and parchment. I read the cover letter aloud. “ 'Swift, I am enclosing an article to be printed in tomorrow's edition. If you find it is not accurate in its source, please sign the last page and burn it back to me now. RJ.' ”
Mordon took the last page from the bottom of the stack while I read the article. “ 'Wildwoods Burn After Black Magic, Feys Return to Damaged Home, by Simona Eccles, American Sorcerering Today. A spokesperson for the Wildwoods Fey Council has confirmed today that a black magic spell has caused over 70% of the Wildwoods to burn. The identity of the spellcaster is as yet unknown, and authorities are seeking information related to the incident. Rumors of the Fey Council seeking legislature to identify and license practitioners of harmful magic have not been confirmed, but it is suspected they will add their support to the grassroots movement Safe Streets in order to prevent tragedies like this in the future. “The loss of the forest of the Wildwoods hurts us all,” says' ...some man from a socio-economic company. What is Safe Streets?” I asked, putting down the page.
“A movement to document everyone who has magical abilities over a certain threshold. It died out about five years ago, too many people calling it intrusive and a violation of privacy rights. Ironic to call it grassroots, though. It originated from a strong ruling class family.”
“Can I suppose that family was the Cole family?”
“It wasn't their idea, and Gregor Cole was playing coy with the topic,. I think he supported the movement, just not the man who proposed it.” Mordon tipped his chin to encourage me to read on. “Who does it say is the spokesman for the feys? I personally cannot imagine that their council would want anyone to know of their vulnerability. People may decide to storm the woods if this gets out.”
“Why bother?”
“Power, spider silk, even digging the dirt itself. A lot of medicinals come from the Wildwoods, and no one likes how the feys hold dominion over the management of those resources. Personally, I believe the feys like to sell as much as they dare, but others disagree. Such as that socio-economist quoted.”
“I don't like the ramifications of this article, and I haven't even read the second paragraph,” I muttered and flipped to the next page, where a name was circled in red ink. “Oh, nice one. How illegal is it, exactly, to get violent with a journalist?”
“Not at all if you know how to incinerate the body without leaving a trace,” Mordon said. “Why?”
“Because apparently the spokesman for the Wildwoods Fey Council is me.”
“Did you contact them?”
“Of course not. I haven't hardly talked to you about it, nevermind shooting my mouth off to the papers.” I felt insulted he even asked.
The paper made a rustling noise as Mordon smoothed the trifold creases out of it. “Best sign on the dotted line then.”
“What is it?” It was clearly a form, with my name and details filled out in RJ's block capitals.
“Two copies of a fraudulent account notification. It says that someone falsely claimed your identity, that the information contained within the story is 'horrifically inaccurate' and that if they publish anything about either the event and/or with your name associated with it, you will pursue legal reparations for damages associated with your life and the lives of those involved. Your contact has taken the liberty, too, of signing you into the books of a certain Donald Steele and has submitted a complete copy of all items to him.”
“He's my father's brother. Does criminal cases. He's one of the Wildwoods' Hunters. You saw him at the Wildwoods welcoming party, but we didn't have a lot of time to talk at that moment. So he chases down criminals at night and prosecutes them during the day, and there's some loophole that makes it all cool with the law. Go figure.”
“Well, hurry up and sign these things then. I'll burn one right back to your contact, and the other should go to your uncle.”
I did as he asked, and he stuffed the first one into an envelope marked URGENT while I signed the second copy. While I was addressing the copy for Uncle Don, Mordon focused and lit the letter on fire with the green ember in his hand. I tried not to be jealous. One day I'd learn how to perform the method of communication that everyone else in the whole sorcering world had down pat. Mordon took care of the second envelope, too.
“Who do you think it was that wants to make me out as a traitor and put the Wildwoods in danger as they do it?”
“An excellent question, and one we should keep an open mind about.”
“So you don't have a clue?”
“I have several people who come to mind, but I'd rather see who draws your attention first. If our lists match, we might be onto something.”
I nodded, feeling weary and like the day had transformed me into someone older. The baby thrashed in my lap, fighting sleep. I smoothed the few dark hairs over her scalp. One thing at a time. The papers, presumably, were taken care of as best as it could be. Another thing was sitting all too naked in my arms.
I looked to Mordon, drawing his attention away from a distant gaze and absent stroking of his hairless chin.
“I...was wondering if you knew where Lilly stashed the used clothes for the Care for Chronic Curses drive.” I cleared my throat. It was due to my own affliction, the gryphon's curse, that Lilly had taken an interest in the charity. The subject had always felt a bit embarrassing for me, but Lilly genuinely enjoyed her part in the group. “I thought there might be some newborn clothes.”
“In the closet.”
I started to rise, but Mordon held out his hand and got up first. The baby suckled on the syringe, waving one fist in the air until I depressed the plunger and fresh milk filled her mouth.
“We have a closet?” I called after Mordon, wondering where it was. The commons lounge was shared by all five of us, the central hub which linked our respective residences together in the form of doors to individual apartments. As it wasn't great fun to cook for just myself back in my private apartment, I usually manned the kitchen in the commons area, so I also knew that all of the kitchen cleaning supplies were kept under the sink. However, Barnes tended to clean the sitting area, Leif the chairs and couches, and Lilly did whatever was missed—so I'd never had reason to wonder where they kept their sanitary paraphernalia. Obviously in a closet, which I hadn't known we had.
“We do, indeed.” Mordon stopped at the top of the stairs and knocked on the wall. A sliding door appeared, and inside were rows and rows of shelves, and on those shelves were all the clothes folded nicely, coordinated by color and age, a rainbow of ages and genders. Lilly's work. Or, wait...
“Lilly had everything in bags. By the door.”
Mordon shrugged and didn't offer an explanation, reaching for a yellow dress with red poppies on it, then taking hold of plain white fabric. He totally didn't even look, because he knew where everything was, which meant I was to live the rest of my life with
a neat freak. Why I hadn't realized this before was beyond me.
Then he was beside me, sliding his hand between my thigh and the baby's head. He asked, “Do you know how to fold a diaper?”
The unexpected contact had taken my thoughts elsewhere. Mouth too dry to answer, I just shook my head.
“Watch.”
So, I watched as this guy who had probably saved my life, my magic, my career, and reputation, all at least once if not more, took this tiny baby which I didn't even know how to look at, and he laid her on the cloth and made a diaper out of a square of white cotton and a pin. When she blew milky froth at him, he carefully dabbed it with the corner of the cloth, then set to dressing her, talking to me the whole while in a soft, crooning tone meant for her.
“How do you know all of this?” I asked when she was dressed in the poppy dress, interrupting his explanation of how to use a swaddling blanket.
Mordon chuckled, climbing to his feet with the baby in his arms, bouncing her gently. “How do I know this, she asks? How indeed, little one, since I don't have any babes of my own.” He kissed the baby on her forehead. She blinked and screwed up her face, eyes unfocused, looking concerned about the strange man holding her. “Remember, I told you that I was required to perform every station in the colony. I spent a considerable amount of time in the nursery, and in the infirmary.”
Watching him with the baby wasn't something I could take my mind or eyes off of. Not that I'd ever thought of him as cold-hearted, even when we were fighting and he was being moody and petulant, but I had never once seen this level of warmth from him. I knew Mordon the Grouch. I knew Mordon the Worried, and Mordon the Royally Pissed-Off. But Mordon the Swooning Father was not a thing I'd ever witnessed. I wasn't sure how to respond to it. Other than to kiss him. And I so wasn't ready to exercise yet another emotion so fast on the heels of the others. So I fell back to my standard position. Planning.
“Before we go, we should give her a name.”
He raised a brow.
I rushed to explain. “People will be asking.”
“Yes, they will. I wanted to know what you had in mind. Her mother was Josephina.”
“But we've discussed saying she came from the colony, so it should be a drake name. You know those names better than I do. Maybe something that doubles as human? Denise's name is like that.”
“Sebile?”
“Not very human.”
“I think it's Saxon, actually, but I see your point. Anna?”
The baby shrieked, just the once. I put my hand on Mordon's shoulder and tried to discern a smile on the infant's face, but if anything she looked shocked that the noise had come from her own mouth.
“Anna will work.”
“Here, hold her.” Mordon passed her over before I could back out of the duty. “Her neck muscles aren't strong enough yet to move her head.”
She settled in my hands, the position feeling strange now that I'd had a few minutes to hold my hands the way I felt comfortable holding them.
Mordon continued, “Her head will flop around unless you're mindful of what you're doing. You were fine earlier, but I can't help nagging a little.”
I could kill her with my ignorance. The very thought served as a switch to instant panic. “Mordon, I don't know what I'm doing. Not a clue. And she could be mine for years. I'm not ready for this. I don't know if I can do this.”
“You've survived Death, killed monsters, and saved the Wildwoods, and you can't take care of a little orphan?” Mordon bent to whisper in my ear, his voice sending tremors down my spine. “You're not alone. No matter how long it takes, no matter what happens.”
“But this isn't your oath to fill. You didn't agree to it. To be a parent.” The word numbed my lips.
“I'm agreeing now. If need be, I'll be father and mother to her.”
“It's dangerous to be around me. The shadows, the Unwrittens, how can I bring her into that?”
“You didn't. You were chosen. And it's natural to be afraid, but don't let it undermine your strength. Now, come. There are people who may be able to shed some light on circumstances, but we must move, now.”
I took him by the crook of the arm and molded myself against his side, letting him guide me through the portal and out into Merlyn's Market.
Chapter Five
Flying carpets filled the air, a huge portion of them with customers kneeling on them. So many carpets were going in the same places, actually, that their steady flow followed an invisible road ducking between the holes in the floating walkways. It was like watching a video of soldier ants packing off with their cargo, except the ants were flying at thirty to fifty miles an hour.
Actually, Merlyn's Market was downright terrifying today. Usually it wasn't this packed. Must be the Midsummer Festival bringing in all the crowds.
I looked around our surroundings, a bit confused. The portal had dropped us off between door 58 and 823, very much out of the ordinary place next to King's Ransom Magical Antiquities. It took me some time to identify the merchants on the floating deck. It was the Produce Deck, a place which I admittedly didn't spent a huge deal of time on.
Mordon gazed around, staring at the hideyholes between crates and watching as carpets folded up from forming staircases between the floating walkways.
“How long are we going to have to run around for?” I asked. “Is it going to always be like this?”
“Not always. But after every sighting, it would be a good idea. You do not want to let them catch up with you.”
“But they'll eventually chase us into a trap,” I said, less out of fear and more because that's what I would do if I were hunting myself. “So we'll have to be careful about creating predictable patterns.”
“I'm not bound to abandon my territory,” Mordon said, his eyes forming vertical pupils.
Before he would do more, I took his arm and snuggled against him while a flying carpet at a rapid descent dodged a flock of songbirds. “I didn't expect you would. But I would like a back-up plan.”
“Our back-up plan is that I shift into dragon form and kill them all.”
I laughed at the simplicity of it, not that it was necessarily very funny, or that he'd said it as a joke. “And if you aren't there?”
We approached the edge of the walkway and waited while a carpet unfurled itself from the deck and uncoiled to meet us. Beneath my feet, it was solid enough, a little springy. Having Anna had given me fresh worries about the possibility of it failing one day. So far there had been no incidents, though.
“If I'm not there, you shift into your dragon form and kill them. Or take flight. Whichever appeals to you at the time.”
Being on the solid wooden dock was a relief, but I didn't relax until we were in the center of the walking path lined with merchants who hooked their moveable decks up to the dock. It was sort of like the pictures of a marina, I mused, every stall like a ship. Hopeful shopkeepers called out their wares.
Merlyn's Market was an enclosed ecosystem. It might as well be called that. The only way in or out was through portals. Leif had once said that the market had started out as a standard box canyon in the middle of the desert, but I'd never have guessed that now. Permanent portals had moved in, lining the walls of the canyon with their storefronts from top to bottom, walkways going around and around. More pathways were in the center, sprawled this way and that like someone had given a child the option to draw out the floors using a game of Tetris. The top was sealed off, to keep out the weather and prying eyes. Spells held artificial lighting so the market stayed open at all times to accommodate every time zone.
“Where does the festival take place at?” I asked, wondering why the decks themselves were so dead while the carpets bustled with activity.
“All the way down, Ma'am, upon the floor,” answered a cheerful shopkeeper with fat cheeks and beady eyes. He motioned to his produce. “Rune Gourd or Turban Squash? They're fresh from the field.”
“Not today, thank you,” Mordon said, steering
us toward the standing platform where taxi carpets waited for customers with bags tied to their tassels for receiving payment. It sounded like a much better idea than making our way slowly down many sets of carpet stairs, even if I wasn't fond of riding the carpets.
Mordon handled the cash. I'd gotten good at working the till, but I still triple-counted everything. Where we'd inherited the monetary system, I had no idea.
The biggest unit was a dinaire, a coin imbued with an authentication spell while it was cast. We also had sevens, which were a seventh of a dinaire. Beneath them were nobbles, thirteen nobbles made up a seventh. Lowliest of all were pennies, a hundred to the dinaire. Why we bothered with pennies when there were a total of 91 nobbles to a dinaire, I had no idea. Other than pennies had been an experiment to convert the magical community into using a standardized system—it had only made things more complex, but they stuck around anyway. Prices in the shop were usually written something like this: 1d2s11n2p. To the frustration of all too many customers, I made up most of the change with pennies, as I hadn't figured out how to do anything more complex yet.
Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3) Page 4