Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3)

by Nicolette Jinks

  “Of what, a crypt?”

  The comment, meant seriously, Mordon took as a joke, which resulted in his sigh and glare. Upon seeing my sour expression, he said, “Churches. They guard churches from evil.”

  “I thought those were gargoyles,” I said, watching as it leaned over the edge of the bookshelf, its haunches high in the air, its other half steadying itself for a jump to the next place of shelter to get nearer us.

  Mordon said, “No, gargoyles are fancy looking water spouts to keep the church walls safe from rain. Grotesques do all the heavy work, keeping the undesireables at bay.”

  “What's it doing here?”

  I said, “If there's anyone behind that thing, it's Cole, and if there was ever a man to be refused admittance to a church...”

  “I know it.” Mordon seized me by the waist and I braced myself.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “The only thing we can do.”

  The grotesque jumped for a shelf up on the wall which would provide easy access to us. When its hands closed on the edge of the shelf, the other end of the shelf shot upward, sending a spray of antique urns everywhere. Some hit the grotesque as he fell, others broke on the way down and a host of particularly angry ghosts burst forth, falling on the grotesque as it floundered on its back.

  In the haze of ashes and confusion of shrieking ghosts, we ran.

  Chapter Three

  My heart, which up had settled into a steady pace, began its double-time pace hammering away under the head of the baby. Mordon took me by my hand. I knew that we didn't have long to decide what to do. But, that thing was tearing up the shop and the wards which were going to start protecting the shop would make it unsafe for us to remain in it.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “Away from everyone.”

  Under his quick rap-tap-tap, the wall took the form of a door and Mordon's hands tightened as he waited for it, impatient. Everything that had happened today repeated in my head: the flirting, the woman, the birth, the promise, the stone, and now the infant in my arms. The grotesque, strangely enough, was the most normal thing about this entire day. Still I wondered if I had somehow caused the woman's death, if I could have done something differently which would have kept her alive. What else was I supposed to do, leave her alone in her condition? The door finished forming in front of us and Mordon squeezed my hand too hard to be comfortable.

  He wrenched the door open and we plunged into the darkness. We thrashed around from one side to the other, Mordon pressing me tight against him. Usually his portals were far superior to this, but he'd rushed it, and I felt a fresh bolt of fear. Mordon never rushed it, so—we were on the run from something even he did not want to face. And that gave me the chills.

  I wished I could go back and shake Josephina from the dead. Tell her to tell me what she'd done, who was after her—besides just Cole—and why. Not the least, why she'd left me with this all too tender burden in my arms. I knew I'd only had seconds to make my decision with her, and that I'd done rightly, but all the same I wished she'd have gone to someone else. Eventually the portal smoothed, and then the pressure about my ear drums changed. We stepped out into our destination.

  The ground under my feet was strange. Black asphalt. I'd grown used to the market's wooden walkways swaying ever so slightly underfoot, and had forgotten the 'normal' world of concrete and blacktop. I caught the briefest glimpse of a grocery store parking lot which had been unlit and unused for long enough that the gas prices still read below $2 a gallon. Imagine that. But I didn't have time to admire the scene, because Mordon already was leading me towards the filling attendant's station. Our escape hadn't set in yet, but I did feel marginally better without having the grotesque ripping into the shop right before my eyes.

  What did we do from here? Where would we go? How long would we be away before we reported the incident to a Constabulary and what would we say to them? Then there was the whole thing with the infant. I didn't even know if I was allowed to claim guardianship over a stranger's child. What if Josephina had been avoiding the father, would the father have paternal rights to her? Or would those be suspended until the mystery was solved?

  The night air was sticky and warm, and I was about to ask where we were when Mordon reached out to the door and said, “Onloocan.”

  In the fraction of a second between what he said and the response, I guessed: an unlocking spell.

  The door opened and we stepped inside. I stopped a sense of victory over my translating success. Of course, given the circumstances, it would make sense if he wanted the door unlocked. The real question was why did he want in the abandoned mini-station, and where were we going from here?

  Before I could ask, Mordon yanked open the drawer under the counter, exposing a miscellaneous junk drawer consisting primarily of torn candy wrappers and crushed soda cans. He snatched a lanyard and wrapped it over his wrist, my wrist, and the baby's.

  “What is this?”

  “A portal trinket.”

  Trinkets gave a rough ride, but it shouldn't be worse than what we'd just gone through. Mordon had a knack with imbuing and enchanting, so I wasn't afraid of what was in store for us. What I did worry about, though, was what he wasn't telling me. Were we on the run? Where would we go?

  “Mordon?”

  He shook his head to keep me quiet. “An escape plan. Just stay with me and keep yourself safe. We must hurry.”

  “But—”

  “They'll be so confused they won't know up from down. Don't worry, I set up the shop wards to mimic the things you did when you were racing away from Barnes. You gave Leif, Lilly, Barnes and me the slip back when you were completely feral, it'll be the same now.”

  “Where will we go? You know, when we're done?”

  “Back to the market.” He said it as though it were an obvious destination. “This is just to waste their time and energy.”

  For a second, I believed him, but there was no merriment in his stiff frame as he started the portal. So I gave him a grin. “Who is the liar now?”

  Ah, there was a flicker of amusement. I didn't have long to savor it before we were plunged into another portal, this one rustling my hair with the wind and swaying underfoot like the rocking of a ship. It took us all of several seconds before the ground solidified and we found ourselves in a kitchen. Confused, I looked around. High-end white cabinetry, gloss-polished concrete counters inlaid with glass marbles in a pattern, track lighting embedded in the ceiling. It smelled of glass cleaner and brand new carpet, and the housekeeping was positively magazine-photo-shoot immaculate.

  “Someone isn't going to be happy about us crashing their home,” I said. “Or rather, anyone who follows us.”

  This was the sort of place that I wouldn't be able to stand living in. I'd feel compelled to keep it in perfect condition, and that would mean either never using it the way a home ought to be lived in, or hiring a full-service maid. Given the state of my homes past and present, the full-service maid might be a half-decent idea, actually. I snuggled the baby closer to my body. Particularly if I was going to have home inspections or dumb stuff like that. Did the Council do home checks in special cases, or was I just going bonkers?

  “Show house. It isn't sold yet. Too many zeros added on the end.” Mordon put a hand on the counters, leaped up, and searched the top of the cabinets. He jumped down with a thin artist paintbrush, the cheap sort which came with children's water color sets. It must have been from an old set, it was made of wood. “Hold this but do not break it.”

  Before I could ask what he was up to, I saw both that the house had alarms on the windows, and that he was going to open the door. I found a way to cover the infant's ears, but as soon as the siren blared through the house, she jumped and started wailing. Less than ten cries of the alarm later, I already felt a matching throb starting to form into a painful pulse behind my left eye. A migraine was the very last thing I wanted today of all days. The glare I gave Mordon made him give a sheepish s
hrug, then he took the other end of the paint brush.

  Breaking it wasn't as easy as you'd think, but I was impatient to escape the assault on my ears. The noise followed us through the portal and hummed around my head for a time after we were left standing on the sea side.

  Deciding that the noise was just in my memory—or maybe a trace remnant from the portal—I walked slowly along the beach, shushing and sympathizing with the baby as we went along. By now I felt like I'd spent all day and night drinking at the snail races at the Mermaid's Tale, and it took me a few minutes before I noticed, much less enjoyed, our surroundings.

  I knew next to nothing about beaches. I'd never lived within two hundred miles of the coast, so I had no way of knowing if this was east or west. But I was reasonably certain we weren't north of the 45th parallel, and probably weren't as far south as California unless it was unusually cold. Nor was the beach sand the pristine white of tropical paradise but a motley grayish color, and the skies were dark. It was getting colder as the sun had evidently already fallen below the horizon.

  To my embarrassment, I didn't even know if the tide was coming or going. There were so many things I didn't know, such as what I was going to do with the baby or what was with the amber stone I was determined to keep safe.

  I exhaled, releasing all the fear and pressure from the last hour or two. My hands were cold, shaking, just remembering what had happened with Josephina. The grotesque wasn't too terrible, I told myself, but at the uncomfortable weight of the child in my arms, I felt more terrified than I could ever remember being in my whole life.

  What had I done? What would my parents say, what would Mordon do when the immediate troubles were over? I knew this would change everything. Like, everything. Right down to how I took my showers in the morning.

  All I could do was feel anxious. This wouldn't be the first crazy thing I'd done, so my parents and Leif and Lilly would be cool enough about it. Probably not perfectly OK, but they'd understand. In my parent's case, I fretted getting a talking-to. Adult I may be, but I didn't feel like one at the moment. Not with the harried way I'd been chased, not with the sheer uncertainty of how to cope with the sudden responsibility in my arms. Mordon was occupied doing his thing, whatever it was, but I didn't want to interrupt him anyway. For a few minutes longer, I wanted the illusion that the two of us wouldn't be radically changed by the presence of this tiny body.

  I knew our relationship would never be the same again.

  Or at least, that's what all my child-rearing cousins and friends said. That their relationships had changed after kids.

  One had even ended in divorce.

  That was a reassuring thought.

  As the child calmed, I watched the ebb and swoosh of the waves as they washed ashore, flurried with seaweed and foam, then slid back into the ocean. Every now and again I heard the roaring of a big wave building, and it would crash against rocks and send spray up into the air, to land with a slap on the shore. After a while, I started to get wet. The tide must be coming in. The baby had fallen asleep, and I went to find Mordon.

  He was finishing a portal in the sand, his neat symbols a little overhasty. At the sound of a big wave building, I said, “Put that a little close to the water, didn't you?”

  “That's the idea. No trace of where we've gone.”

  “Think they'll get wet if they follow us this far?”

  “I hope so. You have no idea how glad I was that we weren't hip-deep ourselves.”

  “Last jump, then?”

  Even he looked wearied as he pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Last jump.”

  The wave washed ashore. A thin curtain of water rolled over the sand, turning into froth at the edges of Mordon's portal. At the twitch of his finger beckoning me inside with him, I stood hip to hip beside him, closed my eyes, and lent my own magic to mingle with his own taxed strength.

  He took my hand and said on a sigh, “Aginnan.”

  The portal started as another wave, larger than the last, rolled towards us. This one just may be the one which reached the edge of our portal and wiped it away, the way the sea had scrubbed from its face so many a child's sand castle.

  Not for the last time, I wished that I wasn't slapped with the infant in my arms and a hundred questions I never thought I'd ever need the answer to.

  Wishing that my relationship with Mordon would come out of this madness intact.

  Chapter Four

  Several minutes later found us in the communal living quarters above his shop, the commons room we shared with Leif, Lilly, and Barnes. The shop had sealed itself off, running through what Mordon called a decontamination routine. Apparently it involved a series of pre-made spells to contain as many disturbed ghosts, spirits, and curses as possible before allowing human admittance. Magical antiquities. Not to be mishandled the way that normal antiques could be disturbed without retribution. At least I hadn't heard a crash or shriek coming from downstairs in a few minutes.

  Mordon sat at the breakfast table with a pair of pliers, a dainty chain, and the teardrop which he'd put into a plain yet pretty setting. The pliers tapped against the table as he put them down. “Come here, eat, and give me your foot.”

  I had found a plastic jar of first-milk concentrate powder to mix up, but had to make do with a needle-less syringe to feed the baby. Lilly had a bit of everything, except baby bottles. From this point on I would stop complaining that we needed to use the cupboard space for more practical items like food. The child blinked at me with unfocused eyes and thrashed her fists in the air, blowing frothy milk bubbles instead of drinking.

  Baby in my lap, I sat across from him and picked up my fork. Mordon slapped his thigh. I eased my bare foot onto his leg, asking, “What are you doing?”

  “I'm going to make you a quick anklet to keep the teardrop safe. Less of a chance anyone will get a good look at it.”

  “And then what? We can't go around with a newborn minus its mother.”

  “Unless you work up an illusion to make it look older. A few weeks older.”

  “Mordon, I'm tired. I don't want to do an illusion.”

  A thoughtful expression crossed his face. “I'll claim it's a colony child you got stuck with.”

  “A new mother does not just pass off the baby like that, does she?”

  “There are a few circumstances which would require an impartial party to behave as a guardian. Criminal cases, for instance.”

  “But I'm not...I don't know how to do anything baby-related.”

  “Did you or did you not promise to look after her?”

  “I did,” I admitted, grudgingly.

  “Then you're her guardian and she's therefore your ward.” He puffed out his cheeks, looking aged. “And since I'm technically your guardian in order to keep the overenthusiastic males at bay, you're my ward, and that makes this child mine as well. And in order to keep the both of you safe, we should hasten off into the most crowded place we can.”

  The baby was already making me feel fatigued and positively terrified. How was I going to do this? “So, we're still going to the Midsummer Festival?”

  “And we're going to blend in with the adults. Be ready to be the center of attention, everyone is going to want to croon over her.” Mordon grabbed the pliers, clamping the ends of the anklet shut above my foot.

  “How long will it take to find this Septimus fellow?”

  “That depends if he's easy to find. Could be a matter or days or weeks. If not,” Mordon closed his eyes and tilted his head back, “it could take a while.”

  The implication gave me a bad feeling, but I had to know. “How long is a while?”

  “Months. Years.”

  “Years!” The outburst lacked strength, just a whispered cry of despair.

  “You're the one who made the oath.”

  A retaliation on the tip of my tongue, I glared at Mordon—and saw a strange, soft expression on his face. “You...weren't accusing me of making a mistake?”

  Eating with one ha
nd, he grasped my ankle with the other, passing his thumb over the bottom of my foot. “It wasn't that long ago that I had an intruder in my shop. Got through all my wards, didn't set off a one of them, not until someone else set them off.”

  I put my head in my hands. “Mordon.”

  “Let me finish. She was hurt and in trouble, and she had nothing, nothing at all, to offer me. There wouldn't have been a single person who would have blamed me for turning her aside. But she had a need, and I was in a position to fill that need. Why would I be angry with her now for following in my footsteps?”

  The baby was starting to get the hang of swallowing the milk instead of letting it drip down her jaw. “People thought you were crazy.”