Read Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3) for Free Online Page A

someone older. The baby thrashed in my lap, fighting sleep. I smoothed the few dark hairs over her scalp. One thing at a time. The papers, presumably, were taken care of as best as it could be. Another thing was sitting all too naked in my arms.
     
    I looked to Mordon, drawing his attention away from a distant gaze and absent stroking of his hairless chin.
     
    “I...was wondering if you knew where Lilly stashed the used clothes for the Care for Chronic Curses drive.” I cleared my throat. It was due to my own affliction, the gryphon's curse, that Lilly had taken an interest in the charity. The subject had always felt a bit embarrassing for me, but Lilly genuinely enjoyed her part in the group. “I thought there might be some newborn clothes.”
     
    “In the closet.”
     
    I started to rise, but Mordon held out his hand and got up first. The baby suckled on the syringe, waving one fist in the air until I depressed the plunger and fresh milk filled her mouth.
     
    “We have a closet?” I called after Mordon, wondering where it was. The commons lounge was shared by all five of us, the central hub which linked our respective residences together in the form of doors to individual apartments. As it wasn't great fun to cook for just myself back in my private apartment, I usually manned the kitchen in the commons area, so I also knew that all of the kitchen cleaning supplies were kept under the sink. However, Barnes tended to clean the sitting area, Leif the chairs and couches, and Lilly did whatever was missed—so I'd never had reason to wonder where they kept their sanitary paraphernalia. Obviously in a closet, which I hadn't known we had.
     
    “We do, indeed.” Mordon stopped at the top of the stairs and knocked on the wall. A sliding door appeared, and inside were rows and rows of shelves, and on those shelves were all the clothes folded nicely, coordinated by color and age, a rainbow of ages and genders. Lilly's work. Or, wait...
     
    “Lilly had everything in bags. By the door.”
     
    Mordon shrugged and didn't offer an explanation, reaching for a yellow dress with red poppies on it, then taking hold of plain white fabric. He totally didn't even look, because he knew where everything was, which meant I was to live the rest of my life with a neat freak. Why I hadn't realized this before was beyond me.
     
    Then he was beside me, sliding his hand between my thigh and the baby's head. He asked, “Do you know how to fold a diaper?”
     
    The unexpected contact had taken my thoughts elsewhere. Mouth too dry to answer, I just shook my head.
     
    “Watch.”
     
    So, I watched as this guy who had probably saved my life, my magic, my career, and reputation, all at least once if not more, took this tiny baby which I didn't even know how to look at, and he laid her on the cloth and made a diaper out of a square of white cotton and a pin. When she blew milky froth at him, he carefully dabbed it with the corner of the cloth, then set to dressing her, talking to me the whole while in a soft, crooning tone meant for her.
     
    “How do you know all of this?” I asked when she was dressed in the poppy dress, interrupting his explanation of how to use a swaddling blanket.
     
    Mordon chuckled, climbing to his feet with the baby in his arms, bouncing her gently. “How do I know this, she asks? How indeed, little one, since I don't have any babes of my own.” He kissed the baby on her forehead. She blinked and screwed up her face, eyes unfocused, looking concerned about the strange man holding her. “Remember, I told you that I was required to perform every station in the colony. I spent a considerable amount of time in the nursery, and in the infirmary.”
     
    Watching him with the baby wasn't something I could take my mind or eyes off of. Not that I'd ever thought of him as cold-hearted, even when we were fighting and he was being moody and petulant, but I had never once seen this level of warmth from him. I knew Mordon