Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3) (16 page)

“That isn't exactly following you, Love,” Mordon said.

“It was just suspicious, 'k? I didn't think he was doing anything then.”

“And you being you, you tried to ditch him.”

“I thought it was better than an outright confrontation,” I said. “And it turns out, he was following me. I went up a few levels to get food, then back down a few levels to get diapers, then up again by five levels to have a wander. And either he was as scatterbrained as I pretended to be, or he was shadowing me.”

“If you tell me that you didn't disappear in the crowds and reappear behind him, I'll be very disappointed.”

“Tried that, just didn't seem to work. That's what has me concerned. See, I never faced his back. But I also can't tell you what he looked like.”

“Is it that you can't remember or is it that you never were able to see his face?”

I dropped the page which I hadn't had any success in matching to the book. “It's both. Like, he'd always be partially behind something or someone—but even so I know I have to have seen his hair color or how tall he was, and I can't for the life of me tell you.”

Mordon was now peering at me around the shelf, intrigued. “How do you know it was the same person, then?”

“It was the way he moved. Like he was floating. Don't laugh, I'm not talking like the way they describe ghosts, like...I don't know, maybe like the way a ship sails. And I just got this feeling from him, that he was watching me but he didn't want me to know it.”

That was when I saw the newly-acquired ring with its jade stone held between two silver wings, the style geometric and angular. Mordon's brood ring didn't have the precise definition between its scales that this other ring did, and the dragon was heftier than the narrow, lithe dragon on my right hand. Unlike Mordon's ring, the new one fit tightly.

How had I missed seeing it before? Stunned, I showed it to Mordon. “Is this a...?”

“Brood ring, yes. I wondered when you were going to get to this part of your narrative.” Mordon took my hand and smiled mischievously. “This makes matters all the more interesting.”

A dozen questions popped into my head at once. “I've already got a brood ring, how can I have another one? Do I have to go through it all over again to get rid of this thing? Can't we just cut off my finger? Who did it even come from do you know?”

Mordon kissed the back of my hand, his eyes brimming with merriment. “No one I have spent considerable time with, but it is not likely that a man would have displayed his ring to me. Did you brush up against anyone in the crowd?”

“Yes, it was a wrestling competition during rush hour. But I did happen to meet someone to duck the creeper. I got the help of a man who took me to get a drink—”

“Meeting strangers in bars now? You must be getting bored of me.” He said it seriously, but the laugh lines under his eyes meant he was teasing.

I couldn't take it that way, though. “It was tea, not a bar.” I crossed my arms, upset. “How's the baby?”

“She's fine.” Mordon stopped me from leaving and kissed me lightly on my unwilling lips. “Now who was the tall, dark stranger who rescued you from the 'creeper'?”

I lifted my hand in between us. “I did not want this. I'm happy with you.”

“I understand that, but you have an attractive, adhering personality. You may get other proposals from time to time until we're mated.”

“And why am I to suffer for that? Does this mean I need to go find him out? I don't want another man caterwauling under my window.”

“You said you liked my singing.”

“Exactly, yours! No one else's. Can't we cut this thing off—ouch!” The ring sank its slender claws deep into my finger at the threat. I shook it violently. “Fine, whatever, stupid trinket. No making me bleed, though.”

“Think of this as an opportunity to meet more people and grow your circle of acquaintances.”

The exact details of a brood ring had not been fully explained to me before, but I knew a little. Each family had a ring which was presented to potential suitors. If it fit on a suitor's finger, the ring would not be removed until the possible couple had taken time to know one another. Once an understanding was reached, the ring would loosen and the couple needed to reach a decision to stay together or go separate ways. I wasn't sure if I would keep Mordon's ring after the mating, or if there was another ring for other members of his family to use. That hadn't been high on my list of questions. Even now, I had more pressing concerns.

“What if I can't stand getting to know someone else? What then?”

Mordon sighed and rested his forehead against mine. “If you can't do it, we can find an alternative.”

I bit my inner cheek, not liking his tone. “You know what they are.”

“Your alternatives aren't pretty. I wouldn't be able to watch you go through it. But nor would I let you do it without support.”

With a heavy sigh, I said, “You're asking me not to take a shortcut. To fall in love with another guy.”

“I am.”

“What could be so bad about the shortcut?”

Mordon's brow furrowed and he ran his jeweled fingers through his hair. Then he started to re-stack his pile of papers before giving up and slumping back onto the chair behind the counter. “They're approximately all the same, slight deviations in methods. It involves peeling off your skin and disenchanting all tissues in both your hands. It's usually reserved for torture or as a way to sterilize dangerous sorcerers so they can't spellcast with their hands any longer.”

“Oh.”

I glanced down at my hands with one ring each.

Mordon was rubbing the back of his neck, not looking at me.

“I guess I don't want to go through that, if I can avoid it.”

“Thank you.” Mordon ran his hands through his hair again, disturbing its waves into frizziness. “As for the usual way, you'll find the owner of the ring again, in its own time and its own way. After all, you found me.”

I rolled my eyes at the memory. “Yeah, and you were super pouty about it.”

“I remember a different set of emotions, but I was not gracious about the ring, no.”

Mordon was now stroking his nonexistent beard, not asking me anything. Was I better to interrupt him so I could get into his head, or was it better to let him think things through and ask him his opinions later? I never knew what to do with him. So I decided to let him be, for now, and went back to matching typefaces with pages to books.

I felt the way the shop was shell-shocked. There was a hint of its former personality still hanging around, but it didn't want to step out in the open. Though the grotesque was gone and had been gone for a time, there was a sense of foreboding. That the shop had seen a parade of people sifting through contents and wards had been necessary, but what a way it left the shop and keeper feeling. As though they were the ones being violated and blamed for what had been done to them. Mordon would never say so much, but I knew that was how he felt, because it had been how I'd felt myself.

He was turning his rings around his fingers when I next returned to him.

“We will get through this,” I said.

“Never had a doubt.”

“Not much we can do to keep life from changing.”

Mordon got to his feet and cocked his head at me, pondering my mood, most likely, and he said nothing.

“Where's Anna?”

He pointed to a basket where a pink face slept in a bundle of blue blankets, the carrying wrap folded beside her. Then he asked, “What is on your mind?”

What was on my mind? I didn't know, not really. But I tucked my hands in my pockets and gave it some thought, letting the pieces fall into place before I spoke again.

Shelly Johnson had reminded me of all the accounts I'd read of civil unrest and ethnic slaughter. Intolerance and inequality were natural to society, no matter the time period nor the people involved, but scary things happened when people like her spearheaded campaigns like Safe Streets. The polarizing division between people like my parents and Gregor Cole was going to get worse as mildly-opinionated people became stressed into joining one side or the other. Too many lies, too little truth, and no media darlings to set the facts straight. Death and the Immortal, they were the kings in this game. And if it didn't end soon, it would end in tragedy.

That's what I thought, but what came out of my mouth was, “There's a war coming, and dark times.”

I expected him to ask how I knew, or to dismiss it as crazy talk. But this was Mordon, and he did not handle conversation the way a normal person would. He just nodded once and surveyed his shop, the way it used to be, the way it was now. Then he said, “Has anyone ever told you that I was named after one of the ancient elders?”

“No, though I'd suspected that others had had your name before you.” The news had me intrigued. Unfortunately, the drakes didn't like to keep a written record of their past, and they kept it alive with appointed historians. The best person to ask was right in front of me, but I didn't know if he'd tell me the tale. “Who were you named after?”

“Mordon.”

He said it seriously, and for an instant I was taken aback, then I felt myself blush angrily. He laughed and said, “None of that, now, I'll tell you everything later. But for the time being, all I can say is that I'm the third. And that the first one brought a period of peace and prosperity. The other enabled the spread of the Black Death.”

“Oh.”

There wasn't much else to say to that. Even in the normal world, people think long and hard about naming their kids, and they take into account who is associated with the name and how strangers will react to their child. Certain names had been largely left for history books, names like Adolf. That there had only been two other Mordons meant that it was on the drake's do-not-call-your-kid-this list. No wonder his name inspired instant recognition in so many people.

“And what bearing does this have on my comment?” I asked.

“We've known there's going to be a war since I was born. Why do you think the colony is so cautious about who I accept as my mate?”

I started to say something, a partially formed question about their naming practices, then changed my mind. “This does explain a few things. Is that also why you're taking your time with me?”

Mordon would have answered, but there came a hard, rapid knock. And when he rounded on the door with a scowl, it opened without his permission and in came Uncle Don and both my parents.

As crazy as it seemed, I had taken the lack of response to my letter to mean that my parents were either uninterested in anything I was up to—disowning me by silence, if you will—or that they were so furious they hadn't finished writing their letter yet. That they would come to Merlyn's Market in order to visit me had never once cropped into mind. Mother's distaste for crowds often meant that she didn't so much as go into grocery stores if she could help it. From Uncle Don I'd expected letters. But to have them all bust down the door of King's Ransom? Not expected.

A steady rain slapped the glass roof, the only noise following their entrance. Bursts of wind howled at the door as Father shut it. I stroked my hair back off my face and just gaped at the two stocky men in front of me, men built like mountains and with the strength of them. Mother had chosen a frilly dress in orange and purple, her slim body lost in the ruffles. They all spent a while staring at the disorder in the shop, the evident gouges in the floor and walls, the destruction wrought by the grotesque, then one by one their eyes found me. Thunder rumbled.

There was a gurgling noise and something let out a shriek from the floor. Mordon bent over and picked up a now-awake Anna. A face full of furrows and displeasure blinked up at us.

With that simple movement the stunned silence was banished. All three of them spoke at once, their words bouncing off one another and meaning nothing. My stomach knotted itself. This was going to take a while to sort through.

“Uncle Don, this is Mordon Meadows, my fiance. Mordon, that's my Uncle Don, and you already know my parents. How about we all go upstairs and I'll get some brew started? Tea for you, Mother?”

Mother was on an intercept course, so I took her hands and pulled her along behind me. “You got my letter then?”