Chapter Fourteen
Sneaking out of the house was easy with the invisibility ring. Even though I had made an illusion of my still-closed door and employed that while slipping through it, I need not have bothered. The four of them were so thoroughly wrapped up in spell-casting that they did not notice me behind them. There were advantages to all my years of startling ghosts; it made me sneaky.
My hardest challenge would have been to keep the goat bells from signaling my exit, but no one had put them back up yet. They still sat on the banister at the top of the stairs. This was going entirely too well. I expected that my return trip would be far more problematic.
Once in Mordon's shop, I took a guess that the market was accessed by the main door. I thought perhaps the market was down the street, but I realized my error once I opened the door, stepped out onto a deck—and ducked a flying carpet.
I had imagined a farmer's market-style thing with tables and tents sprawled out over a park or something. I was utterly wrong.
A maze of boardwalks spread before me, doors like Mordon's lined the walls as far up as I could see through the gaps in the decks, and continued as far down. There was no reason to the doors, either. Though they each had a number, they were not ordered by their address nor were they ordered according to category or style. They simply sat next to each other like friends in a classroom.
At first I didn't see any way to go up or down a deck, but when I walked to the end of a boardwalk and peered over. I saw one carpet rolling up towards me, creating steps as it went. On the other side, a carpet rolled down.
I wandered up a deck and observed that the vendors—who docked at the boardwalk on portable floating platforms—arranged themselves by level according to their wares. A fair number of the shops were closed up. I wondered if I could find what I needed.
I found my own way to the place where potion ingredients were sold. After asking one well-stocked vendor about a couple of items, she immediately referred me to someone else named Agnes. Then she went back to talking about who her daughter was courting to the woman standing next to her.
The person I had been referred to was a squat woman with small hands and authority in her eyes. At a glance, I thought she was ancient, but her hands were sure as she tied a scarf over her hair. Keen eyes examined me from head to toe.
“Let me see the list,” she said.
I gave it to her. Only when Agnes scowled at my handwriting did I wonder why I agreed. Did she have some sort of spell on me?
She stared at it, then at me. “Is this for recallations or for desensitizing?”
“Recallations. Caerwyn's potion.” Once again, I was dumbfounded by my instant compliance. I shifted, suddenly noticing how dry my mouth had become.
“And you parentage is…?” Agnes asked.
I bit my tongue. Why should it matter?
“Different races have different tolerances,” Agnes said. “What are you?”
What would it hurt? “Fey and human.”
Agnes blinked and her eyebrow raised. “That is all?”
“That I know of, yes.” I had discovered the fey part because there needed to be some explanation for the reason the trees followed Mother. I couldn't be positive about my father, though. We hadn't discussed genealogy round the dinner table.
“Mmm.” Agnes did not look convinced. She said, “What is your surname?”
This one caught me by surprise. I rubbed my arm and said, “Swift.”
“Swift,” Agnes repeated, then faced her wall of tin canisters armed with my list. “Potion makers. Fine ones. Love their cursed forest. Good to see one of their ilk out in the world. They lose too much time. You come to me, youngling, and I will give you fresh goods.”
Her words made me smile, even as I had no idea what to think of half of the things she had told me. Forest? Losing time? Then I remembered. “Will you trade? I don't have coin, but it's a trinket.”
“What sort?”
“I brought a few,” I said, displaying the rings on my hand. I had chosen the ones I was ready to part with.
Her brows shot up in surprise. She tapped her finger on the table, thinking. “Craft workmanship on the lot. You have a bargain for the copper, and some credit on the next time you visit to make it fair. Give me a few minutes.”
I agreed, feeling a little sad to be parted with the ring but it hadn't been a gift. Plus, I did not use it as much as I thought I might. I examined her other wares, beads and pearls and horns of all sorts.
Though it had been behaving so far, my magic now chose to wander between the items on the table, things I wanted to touch but didn't dare. I felt the surprisingly rough twist of unicorn horn, the grit and silk of pearl powder, the unsanded edges of a box.
Something wriggled beneath a strip of velvet ribbon. A flash of gold poked out from under the ribbon. I said, “Something's moving there.”
“Mmm?” Agnes squinted. A thin smile touched her lips. “Ah. Pick it up. I want to see which one it is.”
Would it bite? Was she joking? I checked her expression and decided Agnes was serious. I drew the ribbon back, and saw a nest of dragon shaped rings, each one in different poses and with different styles, some with stones, some without.
The ring which had come alive was unfurling itself from protecting a star sapphire. The dragon opened a ruby eye and yawned. I admired its teeth with apprehension, held out a finger to it. The golden dragon sniffed my hand. Blinked. It slithered into my palm, clutching the sapphire with envy. Once settled in my hand, confident that I wouldn't unsettle it, the dragon stretched her wings. Like a cat grooming itself, the dragon set about cleaning tiny scales.
Seeing it, Agnes nodded and went back to work. I reached down to let it back with the other rings. Tiny claws dug into my skin like burrs on seed heads.
Bolting up my wrist, it crossed to the back of my hand, between my fingers, around my wrist and thumb as though it were an obstacle course. I smiled, tried to coax it off my hand, but only succeeded in making it race around my fist like a squirrel on a tree trunk.
As though to steady itself, the dragon looped its tail over my finger.
“Use all I give you,” Agnes said. I looked up, saw she held a linen bag for me by its drawstrings.
When I looked back, the dragon had fallen asleep hugging my finger and the stone. Worried, I tried to gently pry it off. Needle thin teeth bit me. I jerked my finger away, bleeding through pinpricks. I glanced at Agnes.
“Um…? Can you get it off?”
Agnes put her hand on her hip. “The ring isn't mine to take away. It goes where it goes with whomever it wishes.”
I rubbed my forehead, wishing I had kept my magic to myself. I said, “What does it do?”
Agnes's smile was no comfort. “It looks pretty and stays put. For a time.”
For a time? What did she mean by that? “It isn't going to turn into a dragon?”
“No, not a dragon, my dear.”
Alarm shot through me. Then what did it turn into? I held the copper ring out as though it were a coin. “I've learned not to walk away with half-explanations. What is it, what does it do, and when will it come off?”
Agnes arched an eyebrow. “Only here would you use that tone on me. Nevertheless, I can smell your fear. It's nothing to worry over. It's a ring, it looks pretty, and it lets go when it is ready.”
She plucked the copper trinket from my grasp and placed the bag in my hand. She patted my elbow. “Come see me again, my dear Miss Swift.”
Her answers were no answers at all. I opened my mouth to say so, then thought the better of it.
Mordon had been right, I stood out in my street clothes, and I would like the fewest number of people to see me.
I stewed in silence for a few minutes under invisibility.
Returning to the shop, I lost my way once and almost a second time. The market was not hard to navigate; I just forgot to pay attention when my mind wandered. Still, I was greatly relieved when I saw the door to Mordon's
shop.
Hoping it wasn't locked, I put my hand on the door. It slid open as though inviting me in. Was that a welcoming sign or an ominous one? I walked in, shut the door. It locked with one scraping thud, then a click higher up on the door, and then the grind of a deadbolt.
Huh.
I didn't know what to think of this.
My eyes adjusted to the dark. Odd, the market had been fully bright. Was there a time difference, or was it artificial lighting? No matter what the case was, I had to feel my way through the shop.
My shoes made nearly no sound as I strode for the door up stairs.
“I wouldn't go up there yet if I were you,” Mordon's voice made me jump and stifle a yelp.
He was behind one of the shelves, finger on a line illuminated by moonlight. I bit my lip, gazed at the door.
“Do they all know I went out by myself?” I asked.
“Not unless they knocked on your door. I smelled your trail when I came for quiet,” Mordon said. Was he angry? Distressed? But if he could smell my scent, he could have followed after. Clearly he hadn't thought that was necessary.
I joined him. He was rubbing his temples over a diagram like the one Barnes had drawn.
“What are they 'being loud' about?”
Mordon's eyes were wide in the night, giving him a dangerous presence. “You.”
“But if they think I'm behaving myself—”
“And therein lies the argument. You're no child, but caution would have you treated as such.”
“Ah,” I said, not knowing what else to say. There seemed no point in explaining myself to Mordon. He understood my position and I would gain nothing by airing my frustrations to him. I asked, “What's the spell?”
An eyebrow quirked in surprise. “You should know this. We just did it upstairs.”
Was I wrong? I got a better look at the book. I shook my head. “The drawing was different. Same symbols, but different scale. Oh wait, this one is different. Does scale matter?”
“It does in this case,” Mordon tapped the drawing and the page went blank. “Draw it if you can.”
So I drew it, though the lines wriggled and I had to fix two symbols.
Mordon grinned upon seeing it. “I am not alone in underhanded endeavors. See here and here? Barnes brought a little of your magic in the spell, as a sort of secondary spell-caster. That was probably what started the argument. I wondered.”
I couldn't tell one symbol from the next. I just remembered them. Mordon said, “What is in the bag?”
“Something for the book,” I lied. I didn't want anyone else in my business. I didn't want to depend upon him, or anyone.
Mordon's face went slack. “You aren't alone, you know.”
“I could be.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Things happen.”
Mordon scowled. A thought crossed his face. “Two twelve-year-old girls go out at night. The one that came back did so realizing that life is fragile. Are you going to let that knowledge hobble you with fear?”
He struck more than one nerve. I couldn't think. “Leave off,” I snarled and crossed my arms. I considered storming off upstairs and entering into the fray.
“That wasn't kind.”
“The world isn't kind, either.”
“And that is a reason for you to be crude?”
I pressed my knuckle against my eyelids, rubbing them. I turned back to Mordon. I admitted, “I like you. People I like end up dying or disappearing or pushing me over.”
Mordon cocked an eyebrow and frowned, unimpressed. “It happens to all of us.”
I kept back a snap, thinking to myself, Let him finish.
“We all have loved ones who die. We all have friends who stop talking to us. And we all get betrayed. What makes you different, I think, is you use independence as a balm. It is good to an extent, but community is the thing which will make a culture, achievements, and an existence beyond survival.”
Well. There wasn't a single thing I could deny. Though I had survived for the last several years, that seemed to be it.
I bit my lip and said, so softly I could barely hear it, “It's for Caerwyn's Recallations potion.”
Mordon's brow shot upward. “That has mandrake. Do you know—? Of course you do, you're a Swift. Not used to seeing them walking around.”
Why was I hearing that so much lately? My mother's family seemed to have quite the reputation. I had always supposed that it was not so spectacular, but it seems I was wrong.
Mordon said, “You could make a pretty penny specializing in those potions.”
“I do,” I said.
Mordon was intrigued. “Do you make custom changes?”
I winced. “Simple ones. I don't understand how magic makes everything go together. The chemistry classes only teach so much. I just follow instructions. Mother taught me the basic things.”
Mordon fell to musing over this bit of information. I shifted, awkwardly, still thinking about what he had said earlier. Our conversation fell flat, and my thoughts drifted to Leif. “Are you going to tell them?”
“Hmm?” It seemed I had disrupted this thinking. Mordon shook his head. “It's your business, not mine. But if I'm ever to guard you and you try to escape, let this be your warning.”
“Let this be yours,” I replied.
Mordon grinned and his eyes sparkled in the silvery light as the moon shined after a cloud. “This is going to be fun.”
Warmth flushed my cheeks. I squirmed under his gaze. Then I declared, “I'm going to see if they're still fighting.”
Mordon's chuckle made my cheeks burn more.
Upstairs, I found Leif and Lilly in a heated argument which Barnes had apparently abandoned just the same as Mordon had. Closer inspection found him twitching his mustache and scowling. I met his gaze. He tapped his ear in warning. Just then, Lilly's voice pierced the air, cutting through it in a way which made my ear drums split.
“Ow,” I said.
The voices stopped.
“Fera? What are you—I thought—” Lilly said, the color leaving her face.
“You didn't need any help, so I went out to run errands.”
Lilly gaped at me, then her voice rose. “You snuck out to the market alone? Fera!”
“Why are you yelling? No one else is. Do you conduct yourself with grace at the market but not here? Do we not deserve respect?”
She was going to argue. I said, “I will speak with you in a conversational tone. If we need to take a fifteen minute break, then we should take it and talk again after that time.”
Lilly's face went bright red, her nostrils flared. Her voice was tense and rushed. “You went to the market. What if something happened?”
“Then I would have been proven very foolish.”
“You were foolish. You don't know what could have happened. You broke the law. Did you know that?” Lilly was keeping her tone steady but it was a fight. “You are feral. You aren't allowed to be unescorted. What if you lost control again? What if—?”
“If you want to report me, then do so. It was a quiet time, and nothing did happen.”
Leif said, “This is an official warning. Do not leave without telling anyone again.”
Lilly stared at the floor. Barnes watched Leif, who watched me. I said, “I am warned. But am I to be treated like this all my life, or until I pass some sort of test?”
When no one answered, I said, “You have talked about me but not with me. What is the time line? Is there one? May I exit the room without permission or must there be a supervisor to ensure I don't go digging up the neighbor’s roses?”
“That's not fair,” snapped Lilly.
“No, it's not, not from anyone's perspective. But if I am to be imprisoned the rest of my life due to magic, I may as well go without it.”
Leif's eyes fastened on mine. He said, “You don't mean that.”
“I might,” I said, but I looked at the dragon ring.
“No,” Leif said. “
You don't. I'll put a council together and address your concerns. Yours is a special case.”
“Thank you,” I said. I meant it.