Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3) (45 page)

As I shook life into my feet, I heard the french doors slide open.

One glance at Mordon confirmed it: he'd forgotten about locking up, too.

Though it was worthy of a giggle, I hadn't the strength to laugh.

Lilly walked in, saw us, and sniffed the air, looking puzzled. “Were you smoking dope?”

I was already blushing. “Why?”

“
You two seem kind of out of it. It'd be hard for me to turn a blind eye, you know, if you want to do illegal recreation so close to the Market.”

My tongue felt fat and my brain felt slow, so I just shrugged and leaned against Mordon.

“
I am certain what we did was illegal recreation during certain time periods, and may still be so, but I doubt anyone will think to pursue a reprimand,” Mordon said.

I giggled.

Lilly pursed her lips and sniffed the air again. “I don't smell any smoke.”

“
That's because I haven't corrupted Fera that much yet.”

“
Mordon.”

He chuckled and kissed my upturned face.

“
What did you do?” Lilly's tone indicated confusion as well as concern.

“
We—”

“—
nothing. We did nothing. Right, Mordon?”

Mordon shrugged. “If she wants to know so badly.”

I gave a long-suffering sigh. With a chuckle, Mordon folded me into his arms and resisted saying anything else.

Then I had a thought. “What do you mean, that was illegal? When and where?”

“
Anywhere and anytime the church in power held a lot of sway over legislation.”

“
Why?”

“
I don't think that you want Lilly to know the details.”

Reminded of her, I realized that she watched us with growing wariness. She said, “Riiight. Well, this was under your door. I came to give you these.” Lilly extended an arm laden with bags of fresh food, mostly vegetables and fruits, thankfully only one loaf of French bread, and miraculously, there was a bag of sirloin steaks, too.

Mordon took the letter and opened it up. He'd be the one who would have to forward it on to Uncle Don if it was anything legal, so I started to put the stuff away. The child-lock spell resisted my initial efforts to open the cabinets, but this time the reminder of Anna's absence didn't bother me.

“
Fera?” Mordon asked, the concern in his voice piquing my curiousity.

“
Yes?”

“
What did Railey's handwriting look like?”

Well, that was a strange question. What did it matter what a dead ghost's writing looked like? “Frilly. So many loops and swirls that it came pre-encoded. Why?”

“
Because she's asking you meet her tonight at the witching hour. There are coordinates.”

No longer interested in the food or mastering the child locks, I examined the letter, a frown forming the longer I stared at it. It said in that too curly script,

Hey, Idiot!!!!!!!!!!

Get yer butt over here. 3 AM. Come alone or it will be katistrophic.

<3

~ME!

Below this were a series of numbers which could have been coordinates if they were broken out of their long, unpunctuated string.

“
Is it from her?” Lilly asked, then took it from me. As her eyes fluttered back and forth down the letter, I watched as she drew the same conclusion that I had.

“
It's her,” I said. “I have a letter from a ghost who is supposed to be at peace.”

Lilly held the letter at hand's length. “C-A-T-A-S-T-R-O-P-H-I-C. She knows that one bothered me.”

“
You should stay here,” Mordon said. “If you go, it is either a trap or too risky.”

“
I've been through worse,” I said with a shrug. “It's no different now.”

Mordon snorted and crossed his arms. “No different now. Hmm.”

“
Why would anything be different?”

Mordon frowned and got that resigned, quietly seething expression. “Because it is.”

“
It isn't.”

“
I think it is.”

“
And I don't think so.”

“
If our situation is the same as before or not does not pertain to the question at hand. You have received that letter, are you going to break house arrest and risk the ire of the Council in order to attend a clandestine meeting in a remote location in the middle of the morning completely alone?”

“
Of course not, do you think I'm that stupid?” I snatched the letter and slapped it to the table. “Ghosts can't write that long of a message. It's a forgery, even if a good one. Rest assured, Meadows, I'm going to be sleeping in my own bed tonight. And unless you want to
risk what might happen if you join me tonight, you'll have to trust me.
”

Mordon let out a long breath, rubbing his forehead and thinking through my words, not seeing that I was hiding the letter from Lilly's questing hands. She knew it was not a forgery, and if she spoke a single word, that would be the end of the argument. The longer Mordon knew me, the harder it was to get away with lying straight to his face.

Because I was going to go, even though it would be hard to sneak away. Mordon was correct, it would be risky, it could be a trap, but I had to know. If Railey truly was making an appearance, it meant that something had gone very, very wrong in the world—and it was probably connected to the third Unwritten and this wild idea that I'd been hearing about trying to kill Death.

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Lost Magic
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Feraline Swift finds herself outside of her home, battered and bruised, wearing shredded clothes and having no memory of how it happened. In fact, she has no memory of the last three days at all.

When bounty hunters come looking for her in the name of the Magic Constabulary, Fera runs for the man heading the case in the hopes of getting help. Instead, she finds her magic has returned and she has no control over it …

Fera killed a man and the fey community has called her to stand before them or lose her family and the magic derived of that heritage. But first, she has to survive the Verdant Wildwoods to reach them.

Can she pass the tests of the Wildwoods and face the fey assembly alike? Tricks and illusions abound and nothing will be as it appears, putting her new relationship with Mordon to the test.

In the quiet hours of closing up a shop in Merlyn’s Market, Feraline Swift, a novice agent for Death currently floundering with the rediscovery of her magic, finds something unusual: A woman running from Death’s enemy who entrusts Fera with her child—right before bursting into flames.

Swarmed with questions, Fera seeks answers no one wants to give. Who was the woman, where did she come from? Why did she self-incinerate, was it a curse, or was she a Creature? And why do the dark sorcerers want the child so badly?

A morning show host must unearth the truth behind the murder of a special forces operative and relay coded messages to the troops before the nukes fly on a very secret military base.

Betty Cratchet sat upon her favorite willow bench in Sunny Glenn market to watch the gremlins scurry up the tower with their wrenches to change the hands for tea time. Betty had boring blue eyes and somewhat dark hair and her father’s military jaw. She was not whiskey in a teacup, nor was she bubbly sweet soda, she was more akin to a cup of hot milk or perhaps spiced eggnog on the days she really had her wits about her. In short, she was best had alone, right before bed, in place of any dessert. Long had she accepted her solitary station in life, but that made it no easier to swallow, and it could not make her home any warmer.

Nor would the murder she is about to witness.

Cornelius, a prince of Sacria, has died, leaving his country to make peace with his enemy. His love, the stubborn slave girl Belle, is now charged with killing the man who took Cornelius’ life—until she discovers that the clues to ending Sacria’s curse are entrusted with her intended victim. As she struggles to appease her vengeful monarch the Queen Isabella and maintain her usual duties, Belle is embroiled in a doomed romance with the foreign prince’s assassin and first in command, Shadow. Will she be able to find the true heir to the throne before the old-world magic destroys the kingdom?

A university student, Brandy, goes to pick up her room mate from a party house. Despite warnings from a neighbor Brandy is determined to take her friend home, but gets forcibly injected with Bliss, a drug used by the Bliss dens to steal magic from victims. She is rescued from Thaimon by Nicholas Wraithbane who works for the thaumaturgical witness protection agency which operates under the guise of the Black Kettle Cafe. Brandy becomes involved in the Kettle’s affairs and intrigued by both the magic Bliss has awoken in her and Bliss itself.