Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3) (13 page)

There was a second of silent. The clink of a chain as Mordon grabbed the compass and felt its face.

“Dolt?” one of them asked.

“It means you're dumb,” I said.

A pause, then, “Dumb? Is that the best insult you know?”

“I won't waste my breath on two whole syllables to describe you.”

Mordon snorted, an attempt to abort a real laugh. I smiled to myself.

Then the room temperature plummeted. I went still, trying to reach out to my magic. It wasn't responding. I knew that any spells I tried to cast right now wouldn't happen. I breathed shallowly, tensely waiting. My perspiration chilled, formed tiny droplets of ice. They stung as I brushed them off my arms.

A man slammed into the wall with a sickening crunch, silencing all murmured conversation. A volley of spells replaced the momentary peace. Mordon fumbled fast with the compass.

My magic rushed all about me in an instant.

Something in this room was breathing now, a heavy, rattling breath. With the stirring of my magic, I could feel a very real, physical presence in the center of the room—a skeleton figure with a thin layer of tissue and taut skin.

I tried to think.

This Unwritten was a perfected version of the one that had killed Railey. There should be ceremonial bones around—one, at least. If Mr. Mason didn't know of the Unwritten, then he wouldn't have seen the bone in his daily activities. But it should be nearby, but where?

The monster in the room lunged. He grabbed one of the last two Blackwings. Blood hit the floor. Both men yelled. The monster had his teeth in the jugular, from the sounds of things.

The Chief hit the monster with a series of spells. It shrieked, a strange noise consisting of several voices crying out in pain. Anna joined in the noise with a terrified scream.

Between the illuminating flashes of spells, I saw a manilla envelope sitting on the desk. Unopened. It felt like a bone was inside. Mordon flung the compass's chain over my neck. The wind around us began to spiral.

Hurriedly, before we left entirely, I whacked the package time and again over the wall until I heard the bone snap and saw the symbols fade from my vision.

We were gone with the portal.

Mordon angled his magnifying glass to see the enchantment etched in my rose-ornamented Earhart compass.

“Who could have ever foreseen that plan going wrong?” Leif asked. “Let's all go to an impromptu meeting at a secondary location with people we've never seen before—and tell no one else about it.”

“Yes, exactly, I'm so glad I don't have to explain,” I said.

This earned me a deadpan stare from Leif. “It is called sarcasm, Fera.”

“In that case, you don't do it very well.”

Even Lilly was unimpressed by my behavior. Our entire coven sat in the commons lounge. Mordon and I had beaten everyone else home, and while he was working on my compass I was fixing a roast, with a big pasta salad for Lilly, when the others had returned to smell adventure in the air. Mordon had told them, and now was the time for animated chatter.

“As thanks for your efforts, you broke your favorite toy,” Leif said, extending his hand toward Mordon.

My poor compass. It had endured so much abuse from me and yet kept going for a long time. “It wouldn't be such a problem if Mordon had any others to harvest donor parts off of. I think it's the back that's damaged.”

“The needle is bent, and the glass could stand to be replaced,” Mordon said.

“That's, like, half the compass.”

“I can search for other models or have a smith custom make parts,” Mordon said, rolling his shoulders for the first time since he'd hunched over the trinket. He set the compass aside. “It's worth a full restoration, but it won't be finished for weeks.”

Barnes said, “I know a proper tinkerer who will mend it. You'll get it back in a couple a months.”

Mordon considered the idea with a tired expression. “We may have to do just that.”

Lilly finished her examination of the bill from Mason Security. She took pins out of her red hair one by one as she spoke. “The seal is a forgery. I would bet that the Constabulary doesn't have a duplicate record of it.”

Intrigued, I picked up the page. “How do you know?”

“The slant of the lettering is wrong. This is to the right. Constabulary typeface is upright. Also, the scales are smudged just enough that you miss the important details.” She pursed her lips. “It is clove. Very close. Whoever forged this has seen a lot of legitimate documents. They work closely with the Constables and law, but aren't an employee.”

“How do you figure?”

Barnes said, “An employee would use an authentic stamp, and just not record it.”

“So,” I said, “the letter was notarized by someone who sees this a lot. Why bother with the stamp at all? Was it to prompt Mordon to respond?”

“Possibly,” Mordon said. “They didn't plan on you. They wanted us separated.”

“Yeah, I gathered that. But why bother with the Constabulary part of it, unless it was for real? Mr. Mason did want money. It'd be better for him to have a legit document to take to court if need be.”

Mordon shrugged. “It was a set-up.”

“Oh, sure, but think about it. He knows Mordon wouldn't pay full price, but perhaps he'd pay part of the bill. Or be forced to do so. But he'd only get Mordon forced if the courts agreed with him, which they wouldn't do if Mason presented a fake document. And if Mason got reparations from the Blackwings for setting up a meeting...” I let my words trail off. “He wouldn't have wanted a legitimate meeting notarized by the legal system if he knew that the Blackwings were going to do something illegal. Like attack him.”

Mordon leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Let's think of this. Mr. Mason wants money, like you said. He gets approached by his client to meet with me. Mr. Mason thinks he may make a quick dinaire off of me, too, but he needs the Constable's emblem. But the Blackwings don't want that. So, what, do they offer to present the letter to Constables for him?”

“And have a fake emblem on it instead?” I asked.

Barnes stopped twitching his mustache. “Wait. Any letter goes to the understaff. Some of them are paid by outsiders if the staff sees anything interesting.”

I frowned. “And interesting topics include anything related to King's Ransom, my name, Mordon's name, or our coven, correct?”

Barnes nodded. “Suppose that Mr. Mason did submit this to the office. Here is the time stamp by the first clerk before it gets dispersed to the proper desk.”

“...and then the person sees Mordon's name, calls up their 'financial supporter', and passes the letter over?”

“The 'financial supporter' as you called them then forges a stamp and returns the bill to Mr. Mason. No traces are in the Constabulary records of this letter, even as Mr. Mason thinks it is legitimate.”

“Which would make Mr. Mason a victim,” Lilly said.

We thought about it a minute.

“Are the Blackwings victims, too?” I asked.

Everyone stared at me as if I'd gone looney.

“Well,” I said, “the Blackwings didn't put the Unwritten on the wall, and neither did Mr. Mason.”

“How can you be sure?” Leif asked.

“The Unwritten was the same as the one that killed Railey. It creates Immortals, but to do that it has to claim a lot of lives first. If the Blackwings knew about the spell, they would not have set foot in the room. I think the Blackwings wanted to get to Mordon to find Anna, but he's not an easy guy to get the drop on, so they had to work with Mason to lure Mordon. Now, the thing about the Unwritten is that there's only one man who we know who has that particular colonial-era demonic spell.”

Leif rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a long sigh. “Cole.”

“Yes, and what happens to people that fail Gregor Cole when he pays well?”

“It was a clean up job,” Barnes said grimly. “A way to express his disappointment and send a message to others who fail him.”

Leif nodded. “Mordon would be a bonus. If he even knew that Mordon was supposed to be there.”

Lilly said, “You're saying our story looks like this: Cole hires the Blackwings to get Josephina and Anna. The Blackwings subcontracts Mason Security for one reason or another. When Josephina goes missing, Mason and the Blackwings try to recoup their losses. However, Cole is already tired of their incompetence and arranged to murder all of them, thus removing any trace of their connection to him.”

I said, “That is exactly my thought. But does the Blackwing Chief know about Cole's betrayal?”

Barnes grunted. “If he does, he would renegotiate a deal with Cole. Money soothes all ills, and the Blackwing Chief won't be caught napping twice in a row. Cole and he will have come to a new arrangement by now.”

“Which means Anna can't be without sturdy guardian constantly at hand.” I sighed. I poked at Anna's foot, making her wriggle. “You've cost me my freedom, little rugrat. I hope you're happy.”

She started to blow foam bubbles.

I continued, “If I can't pop by the market whenever I need something, I want to get a decent collection of potions plants. Think if I lay her down for a nap that one of you can babysit her while I get things?”

No one immediately jumped at the opportunity. They'd been working all kinds of random hours lately with the increase in activity going on around Merlyn's Market. Supposedly one of the judges had left for another market, and they had yet to replace him.

Lilly brightened. “I can get you the plants.”

“Can you tell the difference between
Taraxacum officinale
and
Hypochaeris radicata
?”

She nodded enthusiastically, but what came out of her mouth was, “Ummm...tarragon versus basil?”

“The first is the common dandelion. The second is known as catsear, flatweed, or false dandelion. It has more jagged leaves than the common dandelion, and its leaves are rarely bitter. They do make acceptable substitutes, but it can be deadly to confuse other plants. No, Lilly, it's best that I go. Potions need the right plant, and you never know if the seller genuinely knows plant identification or not.”

I'd had it with the crying. She wouldn't let me shower in peace unless she was in the room with me and the curtain was cracked so she could see me. That wasn't the full extent of the trouble. It was that to get into the water, I either had to leave her line of vision and thereby suffer a wailing fit, or I had to open the curtain wide enough that the water went everywhere and the draft made my legs cold.

“I didn't think they were supposed to be so clingy. Not yet, anyhow,” I said, my hair still wet, possibly still soapy, when I was downstairs next and speaking to Mordon. “All I wanted was fifteen minutes to myself. Is that too much? I mean really, is it?”

She started to cry again. I wanted to pull my hair out or scream or something, but all I did was give a resigned sigh and reach for the diaper bag.

“What does she want, Love?” Mordon asked.

“The other half of her feeding, probably. She was being picky earlier. Such a shock to have me getting clean, you know.”

“That, or the sight of your nakedness—”

I slugged him, hard, on the shoulder with a vengeance which had been reserved for giving dead arms to my brother. “Don't you dare finish that sentence.”

He laughed, not even doing the courtesy of giving me a little wince. I must be weaker than I thought. That or my brother was a real royal pansy. I crossed my arms and let out a huff.

“Love, don't be upset. I was going to say that she was crying because she wouldn't inherit your beauty.”

Was I charmed or annoyed?