“And these go by the weird vase with the lady on it?” I said, testing him.
“Yes,” said Mordon, bobbing his head like a pigeon.
Encyclopedias went by the suit of armor that catcalled anything it considered attractive, not by the Lady of the Vase. This thing wasn’t Mordon, though I wasn’t sure yet what it was. My dibs were on it being a changeling.
“Sweet,” I said, then grabbed his sleeve, “The thingamajig against the wall wants you. Says it’s going to blow up or something.”
I dragged a very hesitant Mordon impersonator through the shop.
“Are you sure it said it would blow up?” he asked.
I shrugged, “Maybe it was going to disembowel the stuffed rat then blow up. You know how these things are.”
“Of-of course,” he said.
We showed up at the open coffin. The impersonator looked around at the various items strewn over the isle and said, “Which one is it?”
I did a quick check myself.
“That,” I pointed to the floor.
“A marble said it was going to disembowel a stuffed rat then blow up?” he said blandly.
It sounded ridiculous to me, too.
“I’m sure it will blow up,” I insisted, “Pick it up and the silly thing will calm down. It’s feeling a little neglected with all these books you’ve been handling lately.”
The impersonator raised an eyebrow the exact way Mordon did, then he shrugged. He bent down.
I rammed my magic into his side and he toppled into the coffin. The door sprang shut and three nails jutted noiselessly into place. I heard the impersonator bang on the door.
“Shop, shh!” I said, putting my hand on a wood column.
The shop dampened the noise just in time. The thing inside started screaming.
I hesitated.
“Please tell me that wasn’t Mordon.”
The catcalling armor hooted from a few rows away, “Never have I beheld with mine eyne such a beauteous sight.”
I assumed that meant I did the right thing.
“Take me to Mordon,” I said, not certain that he was still in the backroom. I tugged off a glove and found my rings.
The floorboards to my right sagged and creaked. I followed the noises through rows and rows, winding me through a passage Mordon hadn’t yet shown me, under a doorway, and into the docking room with dusty boxes still packed up with tape. On a long table items from a box were being sorted out—most were put in an orderly pile that seemed destined for a true secondhand store, such as clothing and vinyl discs and the rest of the encyclopedias. A lamp and a book sat in the middle of the table, and I sensed some magic from them, though I was not sensitive enough to get any more specific. The box on the table was now empty, and I suspected Mordon had gone to open another box when he had been surprised.
I spread my magic through the room, looking for him. It rolled through and touched household goods with residual hauntings or some spell on them, but I felt the air swoosh as it found the bogart holding Mordon in its trap. My magic danced about them, and Mordon felt it even if it was too wispy for the bogart to notice.
“Chey,” came a squealing voice from the backroom, “What was it?”
“A worker,” I said, making my voice as devoid of intonations and personality as I could.
I entered the backroom.
“What you change for?” the voice came from a mist. Too late, I wondered if it was the same bogart that had booby trapped my hotel room—and if it was, would it recognize me?
My best solution was to not act like myself.
“You want two of him?” I asked, pointing to Mordon, deciding I could probably make a decent illusion of shapeshifting into Mordon if need be.
The bogart stared at me, gleaming eyes piercing the mist. It cackled and dropped its misty shroud, saying, “Chey, you smarter ‘n I thought.”
I simulated the pinched smile Chey had given me earlier, and I earned a nod. The bogart now stood before me as a hip-tall man thick from the neck down and with a face that looked like it had been crafted with sandstone and a mallet. He was typical for bogarts, except that he had floor-length white hair. I kept a sigh from my lips—dumb bogarts did not live long enough to sprout any noticeable length of hair.
“Smarter ‘n this blighter. ‘E thought I was a storage ghost!” the bogart smiled. Being mistaken for a storage ghost was beneficial to all bogarts—I only made that mistake once. Most bogarts posed as their lesser counterparts and took advantage of surprise. Mordon knew now he had no storage ghost, and his gold eyes tried to tell me so—he saw through my facade. I hoped the bogart wasn’t playing with me.
I smiled harder. I knew I looked horrible, but it seemed to please the bogart.
“Anyone else out there?” the bogart snapped, his eyes suddenly narrowed, a scowl where his smile had been.
I shook my head hard.
“Good.” he growled, “Grab the books.”
I reached for a random stack.
“No, no,” the bogart snarled, “Skills and Curses.”
I picked them up and a prickling sensation spread over my ungloved hand and I had the feeling that Skills of the Thaumaturge was scrutinizing me.
The bogart paid me no more attention, casting Mordon up hard against the rock wall before going to rifle through paintings. I caught Mordon’s eye. He pressed his palms together, then folded them out, palm-up. He repeated the motion before I realized he was telling me to open the book.
I lifted the cover and a solid mass of pages came with it, falling open to a page titled silver eagles. Before I could read any more, it flipped to a page titled Storage Trinkets—a drawing of my lotus ring rose from the page and turned in front of my eyes. The pages snapped shut and I blinked in the darkness as the book riffled through itself, stopping again on something called The Link. I read through it quickly. Clever though the book was, I sensed I was missing pieces to the plan. I lifted my eyes to Mordon. Reaching out, I felt his magic snapping around the bogart’s blocking spell, unable to reach him. I would have to trust myself and my magic.
The bogart shouted in triumph. He had a poster of a London street; he laid it out on the floor and muttered a word. The poster expanded. I had a feeling this was going to be another portal. I fingered the citrine ring, willing it to make a duplicate of my image.
“Chey, grab the drake,” snapped the bogart.
I started to walk over to Mordon, forgetting to move stiffly. The bogart narrowed his eyes.
“You aren’t Chey.”
The bogart shoved his palms together and lunged for me. Acting instinctively, I tossed the citrine ring up and darted aside, leaving behind an illusion that mirrored my movements. From his poor vision, the illusion would be exceptionally convincing.
The bogart stood, hands held apart with a spiderweb stringing between them. He looked between me and the illusion, realizing he wouldn’t be able to make another trap in time if he guessed wrong. He snarled, “Trickery!”
Abandoning me for the moment, he twitched his finger, dragging Mordon towards the poster. A small bolt of electricity set the poster into motion. I pulled off the ring with the silver eagle in it and tossed it at the bogart. The bogart ducked, and the silver eagle appeared behind him. The eagle snapped its beak at me and fluffed neck feathers, then caught sight of the bogart.
It shrieked and launched. He shrieked back and tossed his spiderweb net, the eagle cutting through it with raised talons. The two rolled. Feathers and beard hair flew. My attention was back on Mordon. He was still being dragged to the portal. I couldn’t break the bogart’s hold on him.
I focused on the poster and ordered, “Turn into a frog!”
My magic swooped to the poster and folded it over and over, pressing the paper into the largest origami frog I had ever seen. It hopped under a table. Transformation was not something I had a knack for, but I made do.
“No!” cried the bogart, batting the silver eagle aside and charging at me.
I raised my lotus ring, my still-working illusion following my example.
“You won’t do it,” sneered the bogart, “You’ll suck in the drake, too.”
I stroked my thumb along the side. The lotus flower eased open, glowing from the center. Light fell onto the blinking bogart. He shrieked and tried to move, but the light formed a bubble around him and held him still. The bubble started to shrink. The bogart shrank with it becoming smaller and smaller, floating up and being drawn to the ring.
The same thing was happening to Mordon, but his eyes were closed and he gave me a little nod. I closed my eyes and focused on Mordon’s magic, urging it to rally against the bogart’s spell. It flared up, a visible ball of fire, but not strong enough to break through. I raised my hand and blew across my palm, and a swift breeze tickled his magic. It shifted color and burned hotter, fiercer, catching the bogart’s net ablaze. Mordon fell to the floor and cracked his head, but he no longer was being drawn into my lotus ring.
The bogart was the size of a pea by the time he reached my hand, and the size of a cake sprinkle when the flower sucked him into its center, closing up its petals around him. The silver eagle craned its head at me, fluffed up its feathers, then returned to its ring.
I turned my attentions back to Mordon. My first thought was to move him, but I soon realized he was more than double my weight and would not appreciate waking up while I bruised him navigating his dead weight. Instead, I rolled him into the center of the floor, straightened his arms and legs, and found a clean bath towel to rest his head on. I also put his boots up on a short stack of encyclopedias.
I admired my handiwork, and wondered if I should also drop a blanket over him. He looked cozy, though I knew how his head would hurt once he woke up from the bogart’s sleep spell. I wished for Lilly right now—she made healing beautiful, I always brought her injured things just to watch her magic bloom, glow, and float away, leaving wounds healed without a mark.
I wondered if I could reverse the bogart’s spell. I could if the bogart had used war magic. Many spells fell into gray areas; spells were a lot like speaking: usually everyone could share and participate, but once the conversation turned to specific areas, only the people who know the jargon can take part.
I knelt on the wood floor and put his head in my lap, taking a couple slow breaths to focus and calm my jitters. What if I did it wrong and truly hurt him?
My fingers rubbed his temples in a slow circle, and I called forth a tendril of my magic, using it to work itself into his mind. It wandered around him, riffling over his mind and body until it found a magical hotspot. I blew over it, fanning it to life like a bed of coals. I fed it small bits and scraps of my magic. They were sluggishly consumed. I wondered if I was gaining anything at all, but I put more of my magic for his fire, and gave it a firmer breath. The coals lit. Then it whooshed like fire catching a vein of gas. I instantly felt his magic in the entire room sizzle; it flared up as green flames, reaching to the ceiling, roaring in my ears, licking the walls, banishing my magic before it could swirl to protect me. Then it was gone, leaving behind only a ring of green embers encircling us, basking us in magical heat.
Mordon’s eyes squeezed, and I brushed his long red-blonde hair back from his face. My magic shifted uneasily outside the coal ring, quite effectively cut off from me since I was inside his sorcerer’s circle and he had not given permission for my magic to enter.
“Lilly?” Mordon groaned, reaching up to run a heavily ringed hand over his face.
“Sorry,” I winced, knowing how much he must hurt, “healing is not something I’m good at.”
He stayed still in my lap and twitched his finger in a beckoning motion, and a single coal floated over to his hand and lit a green flame in his palm. The fire sent out two tendrils, rolling over his clothes and past his skin, easing pain as it went. The smoke smelled of nutmeg and black pepper, the signature his magic left behind. I wondered what my signature was. His flame reached my hands, then swirled up my arms and brushed over my face. It left me more at ease.
The green flame finished its job and left us to go brighten the coal circle. Mordon pulled himself into a cross-legged sitting position facing me, his eyes still closed and still breathing deeply. I knew he was sending his awareness over the shop, looking for danger and doing a general status check. I waited for him to finish, holding still and keeping my thoughts meditative and peaceful so as to not distract him. I closed my own eyes and relaxed.
When I opened my eyes, I found him regarding me, his lion eyes large and thinking, his hand stroking a beardless chin. I blushed a little, then brought up my hand with the lotus ring.
“I got the bogart.”
He smiled and shook his head a little, “You linked our magic so I wouldn’t be in there with it.”
“Well,” I shrugged, trying to downplay the gesture, but linking magic brought us together for an instant and was often used by sorcerers as a substitute for a first kiss. It had other uses—it originated with practical uses—but the modern association made the act taboo. “Barnes would want you out of there eventually and I’d rather not face everything that came before you.”
There was a change over him; he seemed kinder, less suspicious. I blushed, my face on fire, and wondered what my magic had revealed about me to make him amicable. Mordon put his chin in his palm and said, “I think you’ve become used to having someone watch your back.”
“When I’m not watching yours.” But he was more correct than I wanted to acknowledge; Railey had been a constant companion, and I was not much of a loner. I switched subjects. “What do we do about the changeling in the coffin? How will we track where this duo came from?”
“We will worry about that later, with the rest of the circle. And we will have to put Barnes on portal duty,” Mordon grumbled, standing up and stretching.
“To see where the bogart was going?”
He stared at me, then sighed. “You were affected, too.”
“Affected how? By what?”
“The time pause. There were two brownies that came in here, stole some stuff and the vase; they got through a portal. The best I could do was keep my eyes open. But, you shouldn’t have been influenced. The spell was targeted for my kind, though it was potent,” he said, moving on with a grace I was relieved to find he possessed. “Clearly we have roused up some worthy opponents, and they seem to be just as partial to you as they are to me...I have no doubt of your ability to handle creatures and things, but you have not yet been introduced to society and I worry what some elite members would do if they found you alone.”
An elite member of society such as the man I had gotten on the wrong side of already. I cocked my head at Mordon. “And your proposal is...?”
“There isn’t a person out there who would challenge me openly,” he started, then hesitated, swallowing his words.
A loud rap came from the front door, then it opened and shut. The service bell on the front counter rang.
I rolled my eyes and sighed.
Mordon was going to talk again, but the bell cut him off impatiently. He stood and let his circle of embers die. Giving one last look at me, he turned on his heel, his robes billowing behind him as yet another ring echoed through King’s Ransom.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I heard Mordon’s voice drift through the shop, greeting a familiar someone named Gregor Cole—neither seemed pleased to talk to the other, but Gregor’s voice had oily sneer in it and an edge at the front. Mordon quieted the shop so I couldn’t hear any actual words; Mordon already knew me too well.
I looked around the backroom awkwardly, wondering if Gregor would tell Mordon about how I had intruded on his house, though I doubted he would want to publically open an investigation into the damage I had done to his home. More likely that he would pretend nothing happened. And that was assuming he had tracked me here, which I doubted. Meanwhile, I was not going to show my face and it did not seem that Mordon was going to introduce me to Gregor, so I needed to find
something to occupy myself with back here—and quietly. It would have been the perfect time to do reading on Death’s Merlot or the Lady of the Vase, except that the books were outside with Gregor and not here. I pulled one ring loose from my finger and switched it between my hands, absentmindedly staring at the two books I had held earlier. What did the bogart want with them and Mordon?
As I switched a ring between my fingers, it bounced off my hand and fell. Launching after it, I almost bumped into the origami frog hoping away, then continued after my ring. It had gone beneath a chair with a skirt, and I reached under and patted the ground, hoping I wouldn’t anger a spider. The ring touched my fingers, but something else did as well. Something thin and cold. I pulled both out, and held a necklace.
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