Heart Fortune

life—outside her Family. Glyssa at “Lugh’s Spear” as opposed to Glyssa the SecondLevel PublicLibrarian that most of her friends knew. Or SecondDaughter, in her Family.

Even after hours, duty called. Today she’d started work and it was time to set down her first day in a log.

With a few moves, Glyssa changed the large table into a smaller desk, no Flair needed, all excellent workmanship by one of the top luxury furniture providers, Clover Fine Furniture.

It felt odd to sit in the middle of the room at a little desk, but her desk in the PublicLibrary was larger than this pavilion room, with plenty of space to move around. Rolling her shoulders, she admitted a new discovery. She liked a lot of space around her as she worked, and preferred that to a huge desk. Trade-offs, something she should have anticipated she’d have to make, compromises with regard to her living space, but she hadn’t because she hadn’t correctly envisioned her space.

She’d have to keep this desk and her files—both papyrus and recordspheres—ruthlessly organized.

She’d known she’d have to compromise with Jace. She hadn’t handled that well, either.

Early days.

She glanced out at the to-ing and fro-ing of the camp at sunset. This was one of the weeknights that a huge bonfire was lit in the circle and people gathered around it.

Though she wanted to be there, she was also tired of so many people being around her all the time and the lack of privacy. That she’d foreseen, but hadn’t anticipated how naturally solitary she was and how much she stayed within her own little social circles. Though she had decided she wanted to change that. She wanted to experience the frontier and all the sorts of people drawn to a project such as the excavation of Lugh’s Spear.

And she would be more extroverted. Tomorrow.

She set a stack of papyrus to her left and pulled out a writestick. Those tools were traditional and her Family, that is, the First Level PublicLibrarians insisted on such a written record so that old ways were not lost.

There came a wild, gleeful shriek in her mind, Lepid with feelings following closely: I have it! I have the mocyn! Kill! Yum! Food for Zem, too!

She withdrew fast, but knew her wonderful Fam had dealt bloody death. And was feasting on mocyn—the Celtan equivalent of Earthan rabbit.

Rubbing her face to block any images, she tried sinking her mind into a meditative state.

But anxious vibrations came to her from the Elecampanes’ tent. Should she go over there or not?

Her nose twitched. They could always refuse to talk to her.

She headed to their canvas pavilion, stopped outside the threshold guarded on one side by two cats and the other, the older FoxFam, Shunuk. The cats eyed her and twitched their tails, said nothing.

Greetyou, GrandMistrys Licorice, Shunuk said. He peered around as if searching for Lepid.

“He’s out hunting,” she said. Lifted her chin. “He just caught a mocyn.”

Shunuk lifted his upper muzzle in a sneer.

Ignoring him, she called, “Here!”

“Come in,” Raz said.

He and his HeartMate sat on the inflatable twoseat. Maxima wasn’t with them. The couple held hands, their expressions were smooth—rather like the expressions on Glyssa’s parents’ faces when an emergency came up at the PublicLibrary.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, then winced.

The Elecampanes shared a look, then Del D’Elecampane got up to pace the short length of the sitting room and back, letting herself frown. “The rumors about a damn cursed project aren’t dying. More like spreading like wildfire.”

“Negative ideas are always easier to entertain than positive thoughts,” Glyssa said.

Del laughed shortly, aimed a forefinger at Glyssa. “That’s damn true.”

Raz said, “And it can get boring here. We are, after all, essentially an isolated small town. We had all the crew we needed, so we haven’t signed on very many this year.” He smiled at her. “You’re the newest face we’ve seen in months. The airship pilots don’t tend to stay.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Del said. “But I don’t like how some of the crew are spooked. Some people might have left already except that they’d have to walk out across the plains. Not much between here and Verde Valley, our place, which is the closest real civilization.” She ran a hand over her HeartMate’s head. “Because of you.”

“Because of us.” He reached out and snagged Del’s hand, kissed it.

Thousands of kilometers, and they’d walked . . . or ridden it themselves with Maxima.

“I don’t doubt some are considering heading back to Druida when the next ship comes in,” Raz said.

“The cowardly ones,” Del agreed. She stopped her pacing to sit next to her husband.

Raz chuckled and a not-quite-nice gleam came to his eyes. “Most of our staff are adventurers, mercenaries, those who don’t fit well in cities and like the risk of the frontier.”

Like Jace.

“Usually they live from paycheck to paycheck, and to get them out here, we offered a deal.”

“Oh?”

“We’d fly them in. But if they wanted to leave, they had to find their way back. We offered to take the cost of their return trip out of their first paycheck.”

That sounded a little bit mean to Glyssa. “Clever.”

“Very. Only about twenty-five percent accepted that.”

“So now some of them are stuck.” D’Elecampane glanced at Glyssa. “Including Jace Bayrum. Until they get their next check and make an appointment with the airship company to pay for their return flight.”

Raz cleared his throat. “Cherry Shipping and Transport, my Family’s company, is leery of taking I.O.U.s from our staff.”

“Understandable.” But sneaky. Glyssa ached for Jace. Trapped. He wouldn’t like that. She didn’t dare offer him gilt.

“Of course, a lot of barter for goods and services goes on,” Del said. Again her light green eyes met Glyssa’s. “Jace Bayrum does quality leatherwork.”

“Beautiful,” Raz said. “I’ve purchased a few of his items myself recently.”

“Have you?” Del perked up.

Raz winced. “For holiday gifts. Don’t tell Maxima.”

“Of course not.”

Glyssa thought of the wallet she had tucked away in her most private no-time storage unit. How often she’d taken it out to look at it, tried to sense the vibrations of the man who’d made it. “I have an item of his work,” she murmured.

“So do we,” Raz said. He shared a significant look with his wife. Hesitated, then gazed back at Glyssa. “We have his HeartGift.”

Glyssa stopped breathing. “What?”

Del swept a hand around them. “When you travel a lot like Jace, bunk down in camps like this, or merchant caravans, or whatever, you keep what’s important to you with you. We offer a very secure vault for our staff. He put the HeartGift in there.”

Raz said, “Naturally, since neither of us could see it well, and it radiated intense Flair beneath the excellent spellshield, we knew what it was when we stowed it.”

“The HeartGift he made for me,” Glyssa breathed. It was here. At the camp. Where Jace could offer it to her and she could accept it and they could be legally and formally mated. For a moment she was dizzy with the possibilities. Then her dreams crashed. He was barely speaking to her. If she thought hard, she’d still be irritated at him.

“Did you bring yours?” asked Raz softly, trying to draw the information from her.

Relationships were built on trust. She wanted them to trust her, so she had to give a little. “No. It’s . . .