Chapter Thirteen
“I think it's a warning,” Leif said.
“That detracts from the excitement, though.” I cradled Mordon's favorite mug against my chest, not drinking the brew. No matter how hot the cup was, my fingers remained ice. Scorched a bit on one side, but still ice. My legs were folded up underneath me in Barnes's arm chair. Anything to keep from shaking like the last leaf on an autumn branch. “It's so dramatic to get a death threat.”
“Not funny, Fera,” Lilly said.
Wind rattled through gaps under doors, chilling everyone on a sultry summer night. Under other circumstances, this would be welcome. But now, I was cold enough without my magic playing feral. Gas lamps like hissing fairies cast eery shadows on worried faces. It felt like a spook house, and that brought out the professional side of me. The me that this coven had not seen before. No one had caught on how to handle me yet.
“Constable, can you confirm the scroll was burnt to me?”
Barnes twitched a handlebar mustache. “It was the first thing I did. It was sent within an hour ago.”
“That was while Lilly and I were talking. It's a relief that I didn't have an intruder.” I rocked forward, pointing with my shadow. “Be careful or you will be Unwritten. Capital U. Think it means anything?”
Mordon said, “It is possible that it is synonymous with killed, or it could be a reference to the Five Unwrittens.”
A thrill went through me. The Five Unwrittens were spells so dangerous they had been ordered erased from record and memory. What they did was a matter of scholarly debate, because even that detail had been lost to prevent temptation.
Leif leaned in. “It's impossible. After the Ninsheen Coven was arrested and their minds wiped, there haven't been any other practitioners.”
“I thought the Black Claw Cult were the last,” Lilly said.
Barnes shook his head. “Ninsheen was recent. Ten years ago. The White Wizard Council kept it hushed up. Couldn't panic the general populace.”
Mordon stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Ten years ago is living memory and the note says family secret, barely legible. Which implies it was recorded.”
We sat in silence as the ramifications of that comment sank in.
“What's this about the cleansers?” I asked.
Barnes frowned. “Not a clue. Never heard of anyone going missing, much less Unwritten.”
“Huh.” I wondered if I should mention that Griff had indicated otherwise, decided against it. “Who were the ones behind doing the mind wipe?”
Silence.
I didn't know how to interpret the present mood of the room. I continued, “Suppose that whoever was meant to be doing the mind wipe decided to keep the information for themselves?”
Lilly pursed her lips. “It says family secret.”
“Yes, but it doesn't say how long—oh, I guess it does say 'for generations'. Nevermind. I'm a conspiracy nut.” I rolled the mug between my hands, sipped it. “Keeps life interesting to trust no one, you know.”
Leif held both hands out in an appeasing gesture. “Fera.”
“You're all wondering it, so I'll get it out of the way. I think Griff sent this. It's his signet ring, his handwriting, his cooler-than-thou style. I think it is indeed about the Unwrittens. He would be all over a project like that. Exciting. Challenging. Dangerous. Probably why he stole Mordon's vase.”
“What?” Mordon's nostrils flared, his eyes got vertical pupils.
“I thought I told you? No? Not between then and now? Oh.”
“He's a gryphon.”
“He's got a human form. It's one of his spells. A challenge. One of his portfolio pieces, I'm sure.”
Barnes said, “You should have filed a report if you knew who the thief was.”
“Sure, and then I'd have had to explain why it was my key that let us into King's Ransom, and fess up to another lie to Mordon, and take a step back to explain how I knew what Griff looks like as a human, how he sort-of tricked me with rumors—and I'm making absolutely zero sense at the moment, I can see it in your faces.”
Mordon stood. We all watched him take three steps, put his face in his hand, and just stand there. Slowly, he returned, towering over me. Black pepper and nutmeg enveloped me, making me feel lightheaded and all nervous. I swallowed a lump in my throat. He knelt in front of me. Our eyes were at level.
“I think,” he said, “it is time you started from the beginning. The whole unfiltered truth. Doesn't matter if it takes you three full days to tell it. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
It felt like signing a contract. The fact that there were other people in the room no longer mattered. He would be the judge if I was telling all. And I did want to make it up to him.
The lines around his eyes softened, but he was still commanding as he asked, “Will you tell me what happened that night at the house on Ferret Drive?”
He knew the address. I crossed my arms, shivering. “You must have been reading some old Tribunes.”
“I was. The case came to a very abrupt halt, and owing to your age at the time, the reporters were very scant on the details.”
“Yeah, my age was a nice excuse for a cover-up.”
“If you do not wish to tell me. . .”
“No, not that. Just thinking of how to phrase it. I still have nightmares about that night. The night truly starts back earlier in the day, when I got into a fight with Griff. He cursed me. Claimed to have put a lock on my magic, and that he'd unlock it later. Oh, goodness, I don't remember the details. But I didn't believe him. Fast forward a little bit. Railey saw ghosts. It was a gift and a curse. She was vulnerable to them. I was supposed to keep her safe. I used to be in your role, you know. Protector of the youthful coven. Cocky as all could be, too.”
Mordon smiled. “Is there any one of us who hasn't been cocky at one point or another?”
“True. But this is where things get hard. Railey's parents didn't believe in magic. That changed in a big way afterward, the episode caused some kind of mental break and now they're sorcerers like anyone who has been wielding a wand since they were ten. Anyway. They thought we were friends playing childhood games, even if Leif was a tad old for such things. Railey thought that I was the only person she could go to about her haunting. And I wasn't going to ever turn her down when she needed me.”
“It was your duty.”
“She woke me up the night I didn't believe Griff and said she was going to the spook house we had seen about a week prior. She said it haunted her. The ghosts wanted free. I was not usually frightened when Railey talked like this, but this time there was something different in her expression.”
“You two went.”
“We had to walk. Nearly two miles one direction. That's quite the walk when you're feeling sick from having your magic locked. So we got to Ferret Drive, and she started digging. I was having second thoughts. Thinking that I should have told my parents, let them look into the whole fiasco. But, you know, twelve years old is an interesting time in life when it comes to decision-making. I guess I thought nothing would happen.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “There was something in the house, a living shadow. I can't remember the details of the attack; I'm certain I fought against it. We were ambushed? I think? It's all such a mess, I don't remember. Leif told me about kill-spells, and I was thinking about that. He said that Railey and I might have shared a spell, but I don't think so.”
Mordon stroked his chin, brow deeply furrowed. His fingers stopped stroking his non-existent beard. “Griff's magic lock. The one that blocked you from accessing your magic.”
“I'm glad you think so, too. I was thinking, that lock prevented the kill spell from taking out my magic. Due to the lock being present, it kept me alive.”
“But damaged the lock enough to make it permanent.”
I nodded. “It makes sense.”
“It does.”
“When I finally woke, I was in the meadow behind Leif's house. His mo
ther was kneeling over me, and I heard my parents answering a Constable's questions. No one needed to tell me what happened. I could feel it, inside my heart. My world stopped that day. No more dreams of five friends rising the sorcering ranks and transforming the world. No more stealing brooms and trying to bewitch them. No more pulling pranks on the others with Railey as my conspirator. No one had to tell me that thing killed Railey. It killed her, and I don't know why, and I don't know why the investigation stopped so short. What I do know is, I was left alive, magic-less, and with a ghost who swore to watch over me.”
Mordon put his hand over the back of mine. “Thank you for telling me.”
I leaned against his shoulder, needing the comfort, wondering what his story was. What made him connect with me so strongly?
He pushed me gingerly away and said, “Continue. What happened after this?”
I blinked. “After?”
“Between then and the time you first spoke to me.”
“Ah. Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Well, when it clear that I didn't have any magic and people were talking, my parents packed us all up. We left overnight. Whole fresh start deal. I was against it. Especially since Railey showed up as a ghost and served literally as a daily reminder that it wasn't all a crazy childhood game of play-pretend. Years went with me trying to get my magic back. We went to healer after healer, gave medical doctors an attempt to see if there was anything 'wrong' with me. Nothing. One of the healers told me with he had never before seen anyone so dead to the ether as me, much less than the average non-magic user even.
“I devoted myself to herbology and the study of magical trinkets. My parents involved me in the occasional demon hunt. Though I could pull an impressive stunt or two using various trinkets and a well-timed potion, I didn't go with them on anything too dangerous. They didn't want me to be hunted. When my name was starting to get mentioned by devils, I agreed it was time to retire from their circle.
“I got into the house cleansing business after I'd taken all the chemistry and greenhouse classes I could stomach at the local college. In return for eradicating an attic of bogarts and storage ghosts, a farmer gave me a small corner of his land where there a dairy barn, a chicken coop, and a random shed. I earned enough to pay for groceries and the occasional new trinket. And this is where the story picks up again. A witch doctor contacted me, saying she could give me a cure.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I thought, why not? Got a list of potions ingredients from her. Half the list was toxic. I thought, maybe she's got some nifty method which I can use myself. By that time, the ghosties were getting a bit freaky and I'd perfected my potion recipes. I thought I could retire to making potions in one of the markets, maybe Oberon's or Merlyn's. So I made the appointment for Sunday. Next thing I knew, it was Thursday morning and the bounty hunters were hot on my tail.”
Mordon nodded. “Then what?”
I blinked. “I came to King's Ransom.”
“You picked up Griff along the way.”
“Ah. Yes.” I plunged into that story, repeating as best I could all his rumors and exact quotes. It surprised me a little to see how shocked Barnes was as he recorded my words.
“Are you sure that is the transcript?” Barnes asked.
“Very close to it. That was a conversation I devoted to memory.”
Mordon shook his head. “And you couldn't recall if you'd told me about Griff?”
“I thought about telling you a lot. I must have decided against it.”
He ran his hand through his hair.
Picking up the warning note, Leif said, “What comes next is deciding what to do about this.”
They'd evidently been thinking about it while I'd been talking, because answers were forthcoming.
“I will look into the other house cleansers. See what shakes out,” Barnes said.
Leif nodded. “I'll ask some contacts if they've encountered anything with the Unwrittens lately.”
Lilly set her shoulders with determination. “I will keep an eye out for any strange activity from Griff. I'm getting good at finding those who have business with him.”
Mordon stared pointedly at me. “And you, Fera?”
“I'm too busy wrangling with my magic to bother with anything else. I'm out. And I'm going to sleep in this chair unless you let me go to bed.”
Mordon raised a single, skeptical brow, as if asking what I was really going to do.
The answer was so straightforward I wondered why none of them accused me of it.
I was going to find out what happened between witch doctor and waking up on the ground with Gregor Cole on my tail, and it just-so-happened that I had finally finished up my 10 articles for a recallation spell from Skills of the Thaumaturge.