Free Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3) by Nicolette Jinks Page A

morning with her. Sure you don't want to sleep?”
     
    “So my schedule will become nocturnal? I'd rather not.”
     
    Mordon hesitated. I knew that he didn't like tired people doing detail work, he said they made too many mistakes. And he was right about this, so I said, “I can sweep and wipe down counters or whatever. Nothing heavy, nothing like picking up busted pottery.”
     
    He agreed, and as soon as Leif entered the commons lounge, we all descended into the shop.
     
    When I saw what was beyond the door, I felt like someone had smacked me over the back of the head. My ears even started ringing, but it might have been the silence. Broken glass was everywhere, shards shining on top of ripped-up book pages, tangled necklaces littered the floor, hung up on gouges in the wood. Entire shelves toppled over. Vases and urns alike were smashed and their contents scattered. Ghosts stirred from their piles, sucking the warmth from the air as they formed and giving me goosebumps.
     
    Years of bogey busting kicked in. I found myself at the front of the procession, saying, “Be at rest. We are here to clean and put you at peace.”
     
    One ghost wavered, but the others continued to gather power. Mordon repeated the message in Saxon, then Leif in Latin. All of the last ghosts shrunk back to their ashes, except for one.
     
    “What is it doing?” Lilly whispered, hiding behind me a little bit and walking in exactly the same places that I did.
     
    “Probably ensuring that we're not being disrespectful or causing trouble. They had a big shock with the grotesque and the reaction from the shop wards. It was a traumatic event,” I said, speaking loud enough that the ghost could hear me if he wanted, yet still slowly and calmly.
     
    “But why does it care?”
     
    “Every ghost is as individual as living people are. If they appear to be irrational, it could be because they're old or have had a bad day. For the most part, they are no more good nor evil than you or I. Why it cares is impossible to know. Maybe he was a law enforcement officer. Or a decent person, one who doesn't like to be messed around with.”
     
    I must have drawn too close to the ghost because Lilly wasn't behind me any longer as I crouched to search through the rubble for suitable vessels to place ashes within. One pile was obviously on its own, spilling from a busted urn. Gently as I could, I started to scrape the ashes into a vase, keeping an eye on the ghost who was a little close.
     
    “I need another replacement urn for the next pile,” I said, accepting another vase and advancing slowly to a scattering of ashes which had been rolled in. Handling human remains was not high up there on my comfort list. If I started to think about what I was handling—the burnt remains of a human body which had once moved and breathed and lived—I began to feel lightheaded and my mouth would go dry. So I started to hum. Singing seemed like a bad idea, both by opening my mouth around ashes and with the possibility of blowing the ashes away. Which was what gave me the idea to use my wind magic to sweep the ashes into the containers.
     
    All the while the last ghost stood watch while I hoped he would not turn violent. A violent ghost could burn and scratch and grasp throats. That gave me bad memories. He—it was impossible to tell for certain, as the form hadn't solidified enough to be sure—just stood guard as Barnes and I put any remains we could find into new containers. When the ashes were taken care of, the final ghost faded away.
     
    With him gone, the rest of the shop laid out before me, presenting a long, arduous cleaning task. Not merely for the simple reason of the mess, either. As Mordon collected and sold antiquities instead of antiques, a great deal of the items had enchantments or curses which had been released to do their worst. Wards had kept anything from leaving the confines of the shop, but that meant that they were all here in tight