Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3) (15 page)

“I heard about what happened at Ransom, and I want to know the truth of it.”

“What did or did not happen is not a thing I will discuss with you.”

At my words, she turned ugly. Not physically, it was like there was a switch inside her which made her mood reflect on the outside. Maybe it was the furrow above her eyebrows. She struggled to control it, plastering on a pleasant smile instead. “Speak with me, and I will tell you who leaked the Wildwoods information to the papers.”

I shook my head at the obvious baiting tactic. I wasn't fool enough to think that she'd tell me anything, even supposing that she knew who was truly behind it. Now, I'd officially had enough of deal with her. As there was an empty staircase nearby, I stepped into the crowd, used my ring, and left Mrs. Johnson fuming by herself on the walkway.

I couldn't be sure if he was following me, but I was certain I'd glimpsed him twice before—at about the time I saw Shelly Johnson, now that I thought about it. This time he was closer, close enough that I should be able to get an impression of his features at the very least. Instead, as I neared him, I felt a foggy inclination to not look directly at him.

Twirling my brood ring around my finger, I started towards the market walls. One staircase down, I pressed myself against the bare rock of the canyon. Not far off there were stores selling home wares, glass bowls, copper pots, and beginner level potion paraphernalia. Though I waited a few minutes watching the staircases, I did not see the man in the black coat again.

As I wandered into a shop to buy a fresh grater—my last no-mandrake-allowed grater had been used on mandrake thanks to one of my students—my thoughts turned to the man in the black coat. Had I seen Shelly Johnson signal to him once before, or was I paranoid? Grater selected, I went up to the till to pay. The shopkeeper was taking his time adding cafetieres to the top shelf. I cleared my throat.

“Won't be one minute,” he answered and slowly climbed down, one hand on the ladder, one hand holding up his slouching trousers. He turned around, saying, “What can I do you for—” and then his jaw dropped and he scratched the stubble on his chin. “Hello?”

Oh! I'd put my invisibility ring on. I took it off in a hurry. “Sorry 'bout that.”

“Jeosephates!” he cried and jerked backwards, a wand levelled at my chest. “You going to get yourself blown away, missy.”

“I didn't know I was wearing it, sorry.”

“The theft protections work if I see you or not.”

“I know that, I work at King's Ransom. My mind was elsewhere. All I wanted was to buy this. Sorry, alright?”

While the man grumbled and huffed, I brushed the hair off my face and did not look at him.

My gaze landed squarely on a guy in a black coat who happened to be staring at me. When I blinked, he was examining the tuning crystals meant for harmonizing group chants.

Unnerved, I left the shop and tried to pass him, to get a better look at the man. Before I could reach him, a carpet cut onto the walkway—I ducked, and I next stood upright, the man was gone.

I stayed where I was for a while, thinking. Shelly Johnson has to be behind this, but why? What could she hope to gain by following me? Nothing came to mind. I shook out my hair and set foot into the flow of traffic, my strides purposeful. Whatever this man's interest in me, if it was or wasn't linked to Shelly Johnson, I would not like it. Returning to King's Ransom with a tail wasn't an option, either. I mentally pulled out my bag of tricks, determined to try them all.

The simplest ones first.

***

The simple tricks failed within an hour. Doubling back, hiding low, stalking my stalker, all of it was not working at all. I was getting desperate.

Glancing at the crowd today, I noticed that brunette and black hair was the predominant color range. My blonde stood out like a red flag in the wind. Quickly, I bent down as if to inspect an enchanted looking glass with its silver handle. Instead I grasped my hair and wove one of Aunt Linnia's illusions through the strands, resulting in a dark walnut color which pleased me until I realized I looked like my mother right after she'd had a date with a box of dye. Not that there was anything wrong with looking like Mother, she was pretty, but now I hated my hair. For good measure, I grabbed hold of my spider silk dress and folded it up on itself, shortening the hem to above-the-knee, then pressed the skirt to look like a pencil skirt. It matched the most popular of women's clothes now, and no one would expect my clothes to morph. Still, I was flushed, and I couldn't wait to get home and shed the illusion.

Unfortunately, my pursuers would also be scanning the crowd for a single woman. Couples or groups may be overlooked. Studying the crowd, I saw several lone men and women, but the women soon found their friends. This left me all the more conspicuous. And being invisible in a crowd this thick would cause more disturbance than it would prevent. One woman I approached hissed at a cauldron salesman, calling him foul names, and I redirected my course to someone else.

The nearest someone else was a man about Mordon's age but a little younger. He had bright, alert eyes and dark hair, giving off an approachable air about him. He reminded me a little bit of Mordon but softer. His gaze drifted over the crowd as if he had a bit of time to kill.

“Excuse me,” I said, waiting just long enough for his eyes to meet mine before I continued, “I'm alone and there's this creepy guy following me around. Will you walk with me to one of the stores?”

He seemed surprised, but I couldn't tell if it was at my news or my request. It was not the first time I had made that pitch before, often enough I had asked it of security guards or random families to traverse a dark parking lot. It had been some time, though, and I found myself embarrassed and blushing since he had not yet answered.

“It's fine if you don't want to.” I started to leave.

“Wait.” He grabbed my hand then tilted his head off to the side. “The crowd is thick this way.”

As we plunged into the current of bobbing heads flowing towards something, I hoped I wasn't giving the poor man any ideas. The pace set by the crowd was a brisk one, one where any lollygaggers were scowled at and stepped around. I would have been lost in the press of bodies if he hadn't held on to my fingers. My side ached by the time we left the swarm of people and stood breathless in front of a shop selling tea out of great round tins set up on two whole walls.

The sales assistant presumed at an instant that we were together and pulled out two chairs around a table prepared for sampling his products.

“Rush hour, rush hour, rush hour!” the assistant said, shaking his fist as the crowd ducked to avoid an errant flying carpet complete with its rider who did not appear as frightened as he should be. “You two are lucky you survived the stampede. They ought to create a bypass for these people, if they aren't in the market to look at the shops.”

“Where are they going, then?” I asked.

“Coast to coast. The portal stations are always packed full like this, and when it gets real busy, the overflow foot traffic chooses to march from one end of Merlyn's to the other with no regard for the real purpose of this place. We're not in the teleportation market, you impatient pack of corporate cronies!”

I stifled a giggle, worried it would give me away as part fey. The man returned his interest to us, giving the man beside me the smile that one gives to friends. “You brought someone with you.”

“He just made sure I survived the stampede,” I said. “It was very kind of him.”

“Call me Val,” my new companion said, slowly relinquishing my hand.

I hadn't planned on exchanging names at all, much less getting to know him. “Val is short for something?” I asked.

“An old name. Valerin. And you might be, Miss …?”

No way was I giving him my last name, it was too well-known and too unique. “Call me Fera.”

Too bad I wasn't clever enough to come up with a fake name while under the influence of those searching eyes.

He seemed to understand my reluctance. As the crowd passing by the windows gradually thinned, we spoke about common things that didn't matter. I revealed nothing else about myself and Valerin did the same. We sipped tea and I bought some out of courtesy to the salesman.

“What were you doing in the market today?” Valerin asked.

“Just this and that.”

Valerin gave me a smile. “I see you wear a ring. Whose family does it belong to?”

“Uh,” I said, even though it should be a simple answer. “Meadows. Mordon. Of Kragdomen.”

Valerin lost his smile, the one that replaced it was strained. “They've accepted you fine?”

Not at first, I had to admit, reflecting upon the first meeting. I shrugged. “It depends on who you ask. Typical of any family, really.”

He hesitated. “At times mates for such an environment are difficult to obtain.” Valerin leaned forward, speaking very quietly. “The man you were running from didn't happen to have put that ring there?”

I startled upright. “Goodness, no. I'm hiding from the press.” A grandfather clock chimed four times while we sat silently. “Is that the time?”

“Will you turn into a pumpkin by five o'clock, Cinderella?” he asked. “Or are you running away from me?”

“I'm not running away. Josephina will be hungry.” I forgot what her real name was for an instant, substituting her mother's name instead.

Valerin jerked as if I'd hit him. “Josephina?”

“My cat.” I bit my lip. “She rips up the couch if I'm late for her dinner.”

Valerin might have believed me. I couldn't tell from his expression.

“Will I see you in the market again?” he asked.

“Perhaps.”

Perhaps meant, I'll be avoiding the market for the next two weeks so I don't have to chance seeing you again.

Not that I'd ever say that aloud.

I left the tea place in a hurry.

It wasn't until I got back to King's Ransom Magical Antiquities and I was briefing Mordon on my adventure that I realized I had acquired a new ring. This one had a green stone egg in a silver setting shaped like a dragon crouching on my finger, ready to pounce, all too similar to the sapphire brood ring which twined itself around my fingers already.

When I had returned from my shopping expedition, all thoughts of Valerin fled my mind at the sight before me. Packages of all sorts filled the clean area of King's Ransom, taking up the entire space behind the counter. Plants, paper-wrapped boxes, and a few cloth bags were laid out in an attractive arrangement, as though it were Christmas and my clematis plant was a summery tree. Mordon was behind that, no question.

“How was it?” he asked, though I couldn't see him past the bookshelf he had righted and was in the process of re-stacking. Seeing the shop now that it had been cleared of the broken things, I was left with a place which felt utterly foreign. Devoid of its china, paintings, and a lot of nick-knacks, the shop seemed...well, to be honest it seemed clean. And it already had the skeleton of being orderly. Inside me there was a war between if I liked it or not. Much to my relief, there was a whole stretch of floor dedicated to the mending of books, and I started to put pages into their respective piles.

“Not a bad shopping trip, but I was followed.”

“Oh?”

“First by Shelly Johnson. Then by someone else.”

I heard the clatter of books and saw Mordon's face staring at me through a clearing in the books on the other side of the shelf. “Do you want to tell me about her first or about your not so distant admirer?”

“Not much to say about Johnson,” I said, then went on to describe my interactions with her. Mordon didn't offer a comment—but he'd have spoken to her differently, I knew that. Being a pure blood himself, the uppity humans treated him better than they treated mixed bloods like me. But as he didn't voice disapproval, I couldn't have said anything too horrible to her. Sitting back on my heels, I told him of my 'not so distant admirer', the man in the dark coat.