The carpet charged us a dinaire, a seventh, and ten nobbles. Highway robbery, but today wasn't a lazy day for the taxis and so long as no one reached the limit of two dinaires it was all legal.
I almost made Mordon take Anna so I could settle in the very center of the carpet, but decided last minute I didn't want him to know how chicken I was. My position ended up being just enough off-center to not be perfectly dead center. He sat down behind me, making me scoot forward. I hadn't realized that by taking dead center, I would be robbing him of a lot of space. Still, he knew me better than I'd hoped. He took me in his arms and held me as the carpet drifted away from the deck and started its descent.
At first it was slow going, navigating through a twisting maze of folding stairways and hustling carpets with kids out for joyrides at top speed. I started to relax and even feel like maybe Anna was going to be safe in my care. Then the carpet came to a near standstill and peered down, and over the hump of its curve, I saw that the way down—straight down—was going to be clear in a second or two.
The carpet bolted like a late businessman trying to beat the train crossing before the signal bars dropped. With respect to the baby, Mordon didn't whoop and roar, but I knew he wanted to. Plunging maneuvers were among his favorites, same with rolls, and while I was all too happy to scream out delight while he was in his dragon form, I was little short of sickened. For her part, Anna seemed to be sleeping through the narrow misses with other taxis. She didn't even know of the chink of coins as their bags tapped against a walkway after cutting it a little too close. My stomach lurched into my mouth when the carpet swung up to slow down, then glided to a dignified stop on a patch of lawn which was apparently being trimmed by a pack of peacocks. Flock of peacocks. Or whatever their group-name was called. I shook as I got to my feet.
I watched as the taxi moved into the pick-up zone to rob some not-so-unsuspecting joyrider. Mordon said, “You look a little pale.”
“I've told Lilly. Things that are meant to fly have wings.”
“You're adorable,” Mordon said, and before I could take offense, he kissed me. It was the rough, breathtaking sort of kiss which took me off-guard and had to be because he'd had so many thrills today he couldn't help but to show his excitement. Seeing the way I wobbled when he let go, he tapped my arm and leaped back, anticipating a game of tag. I wasn't going to play, until he chanted,
“Catch a tiger by a toe,
Round and round we go,
Who is hunter, who is prey,
Who will lose the game today?”
I balled up a fist of air and bopped him over the back of his head, making his eyes pop wide. He stood upright, bowed half-way at me, and joined me by my side.
“Not while I'm holding a thing with a floppy neck, Drake Lord,” I said.
“If you insist.” He said it formally, but I knew he was in a cuddly mood even before he nuzzled the crook of my neck and planted moist kisses there.
“What is with this?” I tried—and failed—to be annoyed with him.
“You're brave and clever and strong and I want you to know how happy I am to be by your side. That's all.”
“So long as that's all.” I would have kissed him again, but Anna woke up, her moods as fitful as her sleep, and this time the mood was angry, or her closest approximation to it.
On every side, we were surrounded by merrymakers with smiles and revelers soaked with too much wine. Music from three folk bands could be heard strumming and pouring over the lawn. One banjo band grew louder then softer as the flying carpet they were on drifted near then away. Merlyn's Market was an endless sprawl, it seemed. So far I'd been to the cemetery and to the actual market with its many layers of floating decks and doors which changed locations on the wall on a whim.
Now we stood on the crest of a hill, one way sloping down to a duck pond populated with annoyed fowl pecking at flowers and screeching children who pursued the fowl, the other way flattening out to a very formal Victorian garden with manicured hedges and precisely placed annuals. The glimpses of the activity I saw going on within the formal gardens made the grounds a decidedly ironic choice of venue. We headed towards them.
“Where are we going?”
“To find Nest,” Mordon said.
“Agnes is here?”
“I'd be surprised if she wasn't selling some feel-goods to the crowd. She and Denise have been practicing that thing you call the Loopy Potion.”
I nodded and had to slow my pace, mindful of the lightly sleeping thing bound in a tight swaddle in my arms, feeling the too-slick grass slip beneath my feet. The traffic had bruised the lawn in paths, rendering it a pulpy mess of sludge. As soon as Mordon noticed, he took us off to the side where traction was better.
I had a part-time potions business which was blooming and consuming more time with each day. Agnes, or Nest, as the colony called her, made no waste of selling my talents and Denise had come to me for her fourth lesson yesterday. With baby Anna now in my care and needing everything that a baby needs, I was wondering about expanding my student and product list.
Loopy Potion, more properly called by the name Mother had given it, Mandrake Potion Number 1, did pretty much what the common name suggested: it made the consumer feel mildly hallucinogenic. That is, if the potion was done correctly. Done incorrectly, it gave a whomping headache. Like Mother's formal name suggested, it was the first mandrake potion a new brewer ever made. I hoped that if they were selling it, they'd tested their results out first.
The memory of Mother cut. It brought back the memory of Wildwoods, of the fight, of the way they disapproved of Mordon, and how they'd tried to get me to ditch him by offering up a ready-made life in the woods complete with house, job, and presumably a love interest to replace my old one. They'd thought Mordon was leading me around by the nose. Look at him now, and see if they'd say the same thing. On second thought, they probably would. I felt like our relationship was one of those Escher paintings where you could see the black figures or the white figures but not both at the same time.
“If you want to write a letter to them, I'll burn it for you,” Mordon said. Some days it was like he could read my mind.
“It's not me who has to apologize.”
“No.”
“But what?”
“But your parents likely don't think they have to, either. And they'll be hurt if you don't tell them about your ward.”
“But I might not have her by the end of the week.”
“Do you still think they wouldn't care to know?”
I tugged him to a stop beside the first flower bed we encountered, a rectangular thing with cornflowers and marigolds. “Don't. Not now, please. I don't want to talk to them, in any manner. I'm too...raw from our last encounter.”
“That's because you're hiding from them, not facing the issue.”
I squared up my shoulders and stood to my full height. Without heels, the crown of my head came level with the bottom slope of his neck, and my usually stocky width seemed diminutive by comparison to his chest. Despite being fairly short, I had always felt big in presence and in overall dimensions, but when I was with Mordon, I felt feminine. It was one of the nice aspects of being with him.
Mordon touched his forehead against mine. “Write to them, for my peace of mind. They'll think you left the woods just because I coerced you somehow.”
I wanted to cross my arms, but the baby—Anna—hindered that motion. I bounced her instead and she opened her mouth in what was either a yawn or the beginning of a smile. Though I didn't want to admit it, Mordon had hit the nail on the head. “Fine. I'll write something. Might not be much. You can send it tonight.”
“Perfect, thank you,” he said and took me by the elbows. I thought he was going to press his lips to my forehead. I closed my eyes and felt the first real second of relaxation in a long time.
Instead his lips touched mine, freshly licked and hot on a day when everything felt sweltering. The annoyance I'd felt earlier morphed into a ground-sp
inning desire that made me feel doped up on a good mandrake potion. An arm around my back nudged my body in line with his, and he kissed me so I hated it when he let go and stepped back. We resumed our walk, going quicker when I thought someone might be following us.
Chapter Six
The skies began to get dusky, a cause of spells not of nature, resulting from the way that the market's climate was controlled. We found where a few chosen vendors were situated with various food carts. New York Hot Dogs were grilled or boiled right alongside Lou’s Cajun Crickets 'n' Critters, run by a person who looked perhaps Irish instead of Southern, but who was I to say. Lizard's Tongue and Tonsils seemed to not sell anything reptilian, unless their hamburgers were mystery meat. However, Snakebite BBQ Pit had an assortment of things that had once slinked or slithered hanging up for sale, to be grilled on site with any type of seasoning. A few carts did vegetarian options, but vegetables didn't have the gross-out capacity to entertain kids—or me, for that matter.
At the center of the activity we found Nest with Denise by her side, rummaging through their last remaining crates for a glass swing-top bottle for a customer. Nest was a perennial gray-haired woman with a youthful sass, but Denise had changed just in the time since I'd met her. She'd lost more of her childishness, in manner as well as appearance, and grown a good inch. She'd be taller than me by lesson ten. Though she radiated energy, it was the overtaxed kind, the hyperness some people get right before their bodies yell 'stop' and signal for crash.
Sold out of stock, and perhaps knowing that Denise had had enough, Nest put up a closed sign, sold what they could to the last people in line, and began to shut down the cart. It took a minute for Denise to catch the honeysuckle scent of my magic, but when she did, she dropped her job of locking up a drawer and was hugging Mordon in a heartbeat.
“What do you have, what do you have?” Denise grinned at Anna, which surprised me. She'd never cared for having anything to do at all with babies. “She's so cute! Who dumped this little burden on you, huh?”
Denise took Anna with greater sureness than I thought she would and paraded the baby over to Nest. “See, Agnes, I thought someone we knew would come. Who does this belong to, Jerold, maybe?”
“Who, indeed?” Nest ran a gnarled finger over the baby's fine dusting of dark hair.
“Aww, it's not someone from the colony?” Denise huffed out her annoyance, but kept hold of Anna anyway. Apparently, holding someone's kid meant she didn't have to finish locking up the drawers. Mordon started on the task, leaving me to face a skeptical yet intrigued elder from the Kragdomen Colony.
“Her name is Anna,” I started, then didn't know where to go from there. “I'm...”
“A god-mother? Wow, I didn't know Leazar and Sim were having a kid, you never told me,” Denise said, referring to my brother and his wife. Denise's moods while exhausted differed a lot, a whole lot, from what I'd come to expect them to be under normal circumstances.
“A guardian,” Nest said, reading my expression all too well.
I dropped my voice and put up a small privacy circle in case there were interested parties listening in. “Her mother came to me while I was in Mordon's shop. It all happened fast, very fast, I think she waited until the very last minute to meet me. I promised to keep her away from Gregor Cole, and she birthed the child, and then...” I wanted to find a nice way to say 'burst into flames', but it wasn't coming to me.
“She died?” Denise guessed.
“She turned into an inferno and self-incinerated,” Mordon said. “It was a shock to find Fera holding the newborn and a ball of flames in my shop.”
“Fire spirits do that,” Denis said. “We were learning about them in class last month.”
“Self-immolation happens in a number of races and species, however, it is also possible that she was cursed. It would not be a pleasant way to cease existence,” Nest said. “The fire narrows it down some, but not enough. You are taking charge of the offspring?”
“Yes.” I fought down a knot of uncertainty. “And Mordon says he wants to share guardianship.”
“A wise plan. He has status and a wealth of resources. A lone young woman may face difficulties if someone were to find cause to object to her guardianship.”
My mood darkened. “Someone like Cole.”
“That is my thought. You have connections with a constable?”
“Constable Barnes, he's in my coven,” I said. “Why?”
“Have him take a statement, and find someone with legal authority—one of the market judges, you know them, too—put signatures to scroll as quick as you may do so. Once news of this child, this Anna, is out, you will have the hounds on your door and they won't stop.”
“Why do you think so?”
Nest gave me a wizened smile. “Why else would a woman on the brink of her own death seek out a complete stranger and entrust her with everything she holds dear? This isn't the end. This is the beginning.”
“I didn't say she was a stranger.”
“If she was a friend, you would know if she was a fire spirit or not.”
I had wished that Nest would have laid my fears to rest rather than confirming them. “What does Cole even want with the baby to start with?”
Or was he after the stone? But surely, he couldn't have known about the stone, could he? If he had wanted the stone, it would have been easy to steal.
“That is the very thing you must find out, but tread carefully, very carefully.”
Mordon finished with the cart, easing the top down with a soft click to form a solid wooden box which enclosed the drawers. “Can we say that the child is from the colony?”
“In order to avoid attention? Yes. Say...” Nest thought about it. “Say that Feraline Swift was called for guardian duty. It's plausible.”
“Guardian duty? Is that like jury duty?” I asked.
Mordon tilted his hand in a noncommittal answer. “A little, except you don't have to sit on jury, you have to sit on whatever child the elders give you. Doesn't happen a whole lot, but often enough.”
I had a sudden, unwelcome thought. “Nest, can you think of anyone who would pose as me? To say things I wouldn't?”
Her craggy old hands clenched. Before she had to ask, I dug into my trouser pocket and withdrew the copy of the Tribune article. Nest read it, her mouth twitching as she made 'hmm', 'mm-hmm' noises at different points.
Mordon put an arm around my waist, his hand tense at the thought of one of his colony members being behind this slander. I squeezed his hand, hoping that nothing would come of my question. At last, Nest looked up.
“The information given here is painted to be sensational, to inspire fear. It is an attempt to illustrate the importance of this Safe Streets bill. But of the information itself, the writer would have had to either compile it from various sources—or speak with someone high ranking within either the Fey Council or in the Drake Elders, as we did contribute labor and resources to restore the villages for the evacuees to return home quickly. If it was one of them who spoke and arranged this, we will not learn who it is without a great deal of difficulty.”
That was far from welcome news. I would have rather been told that no one in the colony knew all of this and that would eliminate them as possibilities.
“Are all the feys back home?” I asked. They'd gone to stay with the colony when the fire had blazed out of all control. Many had remained with the drakes until some order could be established again in the village. Last I'd heard, there weren't many feys left, just caretakers with young children waiting until the schools were opened again.
“They are by now,” Nest said.
I was about to say more, but at that exact time, I heard familiar voices calling through the privacy ward.
“Fera! Mordon! You came!”
It was Lilly, positively sober and decked out in wreaths of flowers with her red hair down about her shoulders in curls. Not far away Constable Barnes shooed an amorous couple off towards the garden maze, out of
the kid-friendly zone. Lilly looked gorgeous as always in a long peach dress with a drapey neckline, while Barnes looked stern as always in his dark blue uniform. Leif wasn't too far off, he could be identified from a considerable distance by his height and shining bald head despite his youth.
Letting down the circle, I motioned for my friends to join us. After a quick hello, Denise promptly broke the ice by saying, “Hi, I'm Fera's student, Denise. We met last week in the shop, do you remember? What do you think of her ward?”
And so saying, Denise pretty much put Anna straight into Lilly's arms and walked off, leaving two stunned friends in her wake.
Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3) Page 5