Heart Search

by Robin D. Owens

  “I did promise Laev that I wouldn’t interfere more in his life some years ago,” Vinni said softly.

  “Dat’s twue, I heard it,” Cal said.

  “But I wish to tell you to be careful, and that I am sorry you chose the path you did.”

  Oh. Yeah. That was helpful. Camellia dropped Cal’s hand and the boy marched past them, pushing hard at one of the doors.

  She managed to swallow, nod. “Thank you, GreatLord T’Vine. I hear you.”

  “Yes, you heard and you listened.” Another quick smile. “It might be enough. Thank you for the courtesy.” He pivoted, stretched out an arm, and shoved the door open, holding it for her after Cal bulleted through. So, of course, she couldn’t do what she really wanted to do and run.

  She entered to see all the Hollys, Cratag, and Laev, and T’Ash, engaged in a melee.

  “Huh,” Cal said.

  “Not everything is about you, young Cal.” This time Vinni’s smile was without shadow and he winked at Camellia.

  Cal walked onto the floor. The room quieted. Obviously everyone had heard that the boy was the reincarnation of Tab Holly. The child set his hands on his hips, looked at the Holly men. Before he could say anything, Vinni T’Vine swooped down on him, picked him up, and whirled him around. Cal laughed.

  In the still silent room, Vinni said, “Didn’t we agree that it was wrong to mix lives?”

  Cal looked at him solemnly. “Maybe dere’s a weason I wemember.”

  “Maybe,” Vinni said, but handed the boy over to Cratag, who’d strode up.

  “The Cherry theater is advertising a role for a child in their new play. What say you and your mother and I go down there and see how you’ll do?”

  “Weally? Weally!” Now Cal was all child, wriggling in his father’s arms. “Yes! Let’s ’port now.”

  “I can’t teleport,” said his father.

  “I will—” Cal started.

  “No. The glider awaits and we will drive home. But we can take a fast, luxury airship in a septhour. Your mother mentioned that auditions run today and tomorrow.”

  Cal began chattering excitedly.

  Vinni T’Vine nodded at Cratag. “Well done.”

  Cratag nodded back, nodded toward the other men. “Had help.” Then carried his son from the room.

  She looked at Laev, who had retreated from the cluster of fighters and was across the room, dressed in the black leathers he used to shoot in.

  For the first time since she’d met him again, Laev looked tough . . . and mean. He was wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with an expensive white softleaf.

  And she knew why she’d been compelled to come to the Green Knight. Deep within, where their bond lurked, she’d known he was here.

  Now she knew that she had to follow her heart. She had hurt him, and that was wrong. She would be brave now, and vulnerable. That was right.

  So she strode over to him, saw the haughty mask of a GreatLord descend upon him . . . not only his face, but his whole manner stiffened.

  After one huge breath and putting some stiffening of her own in her knees, she said, “I’m sorry I hurt you. I was wrong and fearful and I apologize.”

  He flicked a hand as if wanting her to go away. His gaze burnt into her own. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.” She swallowed. “With everything I have. I want to get back together.”

  “No.” He pivoted.

  “I love you,” she said, and his shoulders tensed and she knew it was too little, too late. Nivea had probably told him she loved him. He wouldn’t know that this was the first time Camellia had ever said the words to any man other than her brother.

  Oh, she hurt! As much as he must have. She pushed that away— she’d been in the wrong, was still in the wrong. Both she and Nivea had abused his feelings and she loathed that she was in the same category as the woman.

  She turned and Vinni T’Vine was there, looking sympathetic. “What do you think I should do?”

  He stilled, surprised. “You’re actually asking me?”

  “Yes.” She wouldn’t have second thoughts.

  “People don’t usually do that outside of formal consultations. Thanks.” He studied her thoughtfully, glanced at Laev disappearing into the men’s room. “Fight.”

  Camellia blinked. “Fight?”

  “Everything you do today, fight. Don’t give up.”

  She took a step in Laev’s direction but couldn’t face him again.

  “Leaving him for now is also good. I didn’t mean him, now,” Vinni said.

  “All right, you’re confusing me.”

  Vinni shrugged a shoulder. “He’s your HeartMate, he’ll come around. Eventually. Just as you did.”

  She and Laev had been doing a back-and-forth dance. She let a breath sift out. He would be back, or she would say the hard but lovely words to him again. In a while. A couple of months, maybe.

  She turned aside, noted that all the men seemed to be studiously avoiding looking at her. Fine. Nodding to Vinni, she said, “See you later.”

  “I hope so. Remember, fight.”

  And that just terrified her, so she stuck their conversation into the back of her mind and teleported away.

  It was one of those days when everything went wrong—in both of her teahouses—and kept her scrying back and forth, with the occasional teleportation.

  Mica had been whiney and underfoot so much that Camellia had banished her from the businesses. Camellia had had to call and cancel her morning training with Cymb Lemongrass and teleport home to change into a different set of clothes. A large urn had broken and poured tea all over her trous suit, which, of course, had been cream colored.

  She’d taken a quick waterfall and wanted to sink into one of her chairs for just a few minutes to gather her thoughts when a knock came at her door.

  Extending her senses, she knew it wasn’t anyone she knew. Walking silently to the door, she looked out of the peephole and saw a large, ruggedly featured man looking back at her. Something was familiar about him, and she realized she’d seen him before, watching her home.

  “Who are you?” she projected through the door.

  “Garrett Primross, private investigator.” He held up a card and she stared at it.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I want to talk to you about your father and uncle. You want me to shout my questions through the door so the whole neighborhood can hear?”

  “Most of the neighborhood already knows what’s going on with my father and uncle,” she retorted.

  Let him in, Mica said, trotting up to the door. I seen him.

  Camellia switched her stare down toward her cat. You’ve seen him!

  He is at Brazos’s house sometimes. She sat and licked a forepaw. Laev’s friend.

  Ideas whirled and clicked into place. Laev had come to her office and she and her friends had deduced that Nivea had stolen from him.

  At least Camellia had never done that.

  But that was why this Garrett Primross was here. And how did her father and uncle feature into the whole business?

  She laughed in a broken voice, shook her head. Of course her father and uncle would feature into FirstFamily thefts if at all possible. And . . . could this have been another fateful thread to bind her and Laev together? Maybe.

  It was all too sad, though.

  “GraceMistrys?” the investigator prompted.

  She opened the door. “Come in.” Gesturing to the mainspace, she said, “Sit down, do you want anything to drink?”

  Primross’s brows rose, then he smiled, and Camellia noted it was a good one, something that might stir a heart. But not hers. “I like smoky tea,” he said.

  Camellia suppressed a sigh. That could mean at least three packets of leaves that she had on hand. She went to the tins lining the kitchen counter and chose the blandest.

  “Sweet or milk?” she projected her voice.

  “No, thanks,” Primross said.

  She boiled water in two s
turdy mugs with a Word—since she did that all the time it took little energy. She brewed the tea, knowing that as the minutes passed, the investigator was in her largest chair and studying her space. He murmured to Mica and rubbed her.

  When Camellia exited the kitchen and gave him the mug, he said, “I’m here on behalf of Laev T’Hawthorn.”

  Her heart jumped in her chest, even as she knew that Laev wouldn’t have sent him for any personal reason. Then she noticed the card he was holding out.

  “Prime Investigations,” she read aloud after she took it.

  “I’m a private detective searching for certain items that became missing from T’Hawthorn Residence.”

  She put into words her own previous deduction. “Nivea Sunflower Hawthorn took Hawthorn heirlooms.”

  The large man shrugged. “That’s right.”

  “I told Laev all I knew about the Salvage Ball.”

  “I’ve read the file on your recent complaints against your father and your uncle.”

  Heat flooded her, then chill. “You haven’t reported that to Laev, have you?” The day before yesterday, Laev would have used all his considerable resources to find and bring her male relatives to justice. Now she didn’t know.

  He raised his brows in a cool manner. “No.”

  Her muscles remained tense, the knowledge hadn’t eased her.

  Primross continued, “Some artifacts belonging to Hawthorn Residence passed through your father’s hands, particularly when he was in Gael City. I’ve just returned from there.”

  She wanted to close her eyes, but even that minuscule comfort was beyond her, she was wound up. “When you report to Laev, can you not mention my complaints?”

  The detective considered her, then inclined his head. She responded. They both knew that the items just being in her father’s possession would be enough for Laev to act against him and her uncle. They’d made an enemy of a FirstFamily GreatLord, and no one did that and prospered. Their rampage would come to an end, sooner rather than later, just as she’d hoped.

  It gave her no joy. Her being seemed hollow.

  “What puzzles me,” Primross was saying, “was how your father and uncle continue to enter this place easily.”

  She blinked. “Isn’t that in my report? There’s no alarm my uncle can’t disarm. There’s no door he can’t open, no hidden safe he can’t find and open.”

  Primross jackknifed up. “What?”

  “My uncle can get through anything.”

  The detective plunked his mug down hard enough that the bottom thunked against the wood of the table. His eyes gleamed as he got to his feet. “Now I know them. They’ve been implicated in robberies in Gael City, were part of a gang operating here some years ago.”

  None of that surprised Camellia.

  “I can’t believe it wasn’t in your complaint.”

  Camellia shrugged. “I’m sure I told the guards. One of the men never approved of me filing complaints.”

  “Fligger,” Primross said. “I need to look at all the files again, but this is the last bit of information I need to close some cases. May I teleport away?”

  “Sure.”

  He stepped onto her teleportation pad, his face hard. “Laev told me that he couldn’t find his HeartGift.” Not looking at her, he added, “Seems to me that the other party might be able to do that. Might be a nice gesture.”

  She shook her head violently. “No, it would only remind him . . .” But the man was gone. Still she finished the sentence. “Of us both.” She didn’t want to, daren’t.

  All she could manage to do today was get through it the best she could.

  “Let’s go back to the teahouse,” she said to Mica. “It’s time for me to make a round with my customers.” Since pretending good cheer was exquisitely painful, Aquilaria had her doing it more often today. Almost every septhour.

  You are a stup, Mica repeated, something she said almost every septhour.

  “I know.”

  Laev is a stup, too.

  “He’s a proud man.”

  Stup. Even Brazos is a stup. I am the only Smart One in the Family.

  Camellia winced.

  Twenty-nine

  After his morning session with Jasmine, Laev contacted Cratag T’Marigold by scry since the man was in Gael City. He and his HeartMate, Signet, and Cal all beamed out at him on the large panel. “I suppose I must congratulate you on getting the part, Cal?” he asked.

  “Yes!” The boy hopped up and down.

  “That’s wonderful,” Laev said.

  “What’s wrong?” Cratag asked.

  Laev hesitated. The Family and Residence knew that his wooing had crumbled into splinters, but Laev hadn’t said it aloud and didn’t intend to now.

  “HeartMate problems. I know that look,” Signet said. Her pleasure dimmed a little as she grimaced. She punched Cratag in the biceps. “I saw it often enough on my face for some weeks, years ago.”

  Cratag looked away—from his wife’s pain and from Laev’s. Memories of how Cratag had been the only one from the Family at Laev’s wedding shot through Laev.

  “Not again!” Cal said.

  Laev cleared his throat. “Cal’s . . . recollection is why I scried.”

  All three stared at him curiously.

  “What?” asked Cratag.

  “I want to make Cal my heir. I need to designate one . . . just in case.”

  Cal scowled, thrust out his tiny chest. “I am Mawigold. I am not Hawthown.”

  Laev raised his brows. “The closest young relatives I have are my cuzes, who are Holm and Lark Holly’s children. I cannot, in good conscience, let the Hawthorn holdings go to a Family with whom we feuded. I am closer to Cratag than anyone else in the Family. He’s a good man and like a brother to me. Cal, you are his son, younger than he and me, and most likely to survive us both. I want you as my heir. The Hawthorn HouseHeart approves.”

  Signet’s brow creased, her eyes looked troubled. “We understand. But we’ll discuss this as a Family.”

  “For now, can I record my choice with the FirstFamilies Council clerk?”

  “For now,” she agreed reluctantly.

  “Good. Thank you. When you return, I’d like you all to spend the day here. I don’t think Cal’s toured the whole grounds or Residence.”

  Cratag inclined his head. “We can do that.”

  “Good.” Laev waited a beat. “I am hiring Antenn Moss-Blackthorn to redesign the MasterSuite.” He dredged up a smile. “The Marigolds are famous for their good taste, I could use your input.”

  “Done.” Signet’s smile was a whole lot nicer than his. Then she said softy, “It does get better, Laev. Every day. And HeartMates are forever.”

  He felt his face get stony. “Blessed be.”

  “Love ya, Laev!” Cal piped.

  Now Laev’s smile was almost real. “Love you, too. And you, Signet and Cratag.”

  “Love you,” Cratag said gruffly, and Signet in that same soft tone that made his insides ache.

  Laev cut the scry and another one came in immediately from the Green Knight. “Here,” he said.

  “My brother told me you were incredible at the shooting range yesterday,” Tinne said. His teeth showed in a slightly predatory smile. “Perhaps even better than me.”

  “I wouldn’t say—”

  “Shut up, Laev. Don’t you know a challenge when you hear it? Pistols at the range, EveningBell. Be here. Dress the part. The prize is teaching youngsters shooting, consider that. Later.”

  Laev actually found his lips curved slightly. He liked teaching Jasmine, he might like teaching others.

  Signet was right. It got easier. She’d gotten the culprit wrong, though. He was the one sticking now. He wasn’t sure how long it would take him before the pain diminished enough for him to trust life and destiny and his HeartMate again. A year. A season. A month.

  Not today. Meanwhile, he needed an heir who was not a Holly. So he drafted the formal paper and got on with his life as
a GreatLord.

  Tiana scried as soon as Camellia arrived at home at WorkEndBell. “A colleague has requested me to officiate at his wedding tonight in GreatCircle Temple! You’re invited! Can you come?” she panted.

  “Congratulations.”

  “For all of us. The marriage is an impulse, but we all think it’s a good match. Say you’ll come! The Licorices are all coming!”

  Camellia frowned. “I have the delivery of the wardrobe shortly, but as soon as Clover puts it in place, I’ll be there.”

  “Thanks! Later!”

  No use telling Tiana she should relax, or reminding her that she’d done half a dozen other ceremonies and been an excellent priestess. Camellia shook her head. Then sagged a bit. She dreaded going to Temple. A wedding. How hard.

  Loud knocking came at her door and she pushed her hair away from her face. She didn’t want to answer it.

  “Clovers’ Fine Furniture!” a man shouted.

  Her wardrobe! Her spirits lifted a little. She’d been living moment by moment, and this particular moment felt better than the rest that day. She hurried over to the door, opened it. A brawny man stood on the threshold, balancing the wardrobe with a glider spell. “Where do you want it?” he asked.

  “The bedroom. East wall where the tapestry is. You can take the cloth down.” She gestured to the hallway. “First right.”

  He scanned her mainspace. “Can I push this through or will I have to translocate it?”

  “You can glide it through.” She waved a hand.

  The scry panel sounded.

  “Go ahead and take that.” Clover smiled cheerfully, walking slowly by her, pulling the wardrobe.

  She answered the scry panel; her stomach knotted when she saw her father’s face. “I’m sorry, Father, I have someone—”

  “Stop. If you want to see your brother again, listen carefully.”

  “What!”

  Her father smiled. “You like Senchal. You can keep him alive, for a price.”

  The words made no sense. “He’s your son!”

  “I doubt that.”

  Realization was beginning to set in. Nausea splashed through her, settled in her throat. “You have no reason to doubt that. He looks like you.”