Lepid the FoxFam bit his big toe.
Jace jerked up. “What!”
Examining the dent in his toe, Jace said, “Why?”
“But I don’t—”
Lepid snapped his teeth.
“I don’t love her,” Jace said. Didn’t want to love her, be bound closely to her.
Zem snorted behind Jace, then glided down to his Fam no-time, pecked at it and it opened. Lepid joined the bird, and a silent shadow padded into the tent, Carolinia. Zem opened one of his drawers, snapped up a mouse that Jace thought he still saw twitch, and crunched it. Then the Fam laid out a portion of skirl for Carolinia and some mocyn for Lepid.
Zem said,
Jace grunted, said a quick scrub spell, and pulled on his clothes. “Better to travel alone. You can always count on yourself, and nobody else.”
Carolinia lifted bloody whiskers and hissed at him.
But it was too late, Zem had lit on Jace’s shoulder, nipped his ear, then taken off to outside the tent without another word.
Slamming the no-time door shut, Jace stalked from his tent and toward the Elecampanes. Always better not to count on other people—beings. His mother had taken what he’d had and walked away . . . leaving him to suffer through Passage alone, find his way in the world without a silver sliver to his name. The last woman Jace had traveled with had made off with his tent and most of his supplies, abandoning him in the wilderness.
A jerk blew up someone else’s tent and everyone turned against you.
Not Zem. Zem had never let him down, wouldn’t. Neither had Glyssa, and she was his HeartMate.
No, he didn’t want to think of that. But he plodded to the Elecampanes’ tent all the same, only noting that the Holly guards seemed animated and everywhere.
Yeah, the camp had changed. He planned on staying the same. He liked his life the way it was.
When he appeared at their open door, Raz and Del Elecampane glanced up from their study table as if they’d been expecting him. Glyssa and Maxima sat in camp chairs, sipping drinks.
Raz smiled and gestured. “Come on in.” His brows went up and down as he glanced at a timer. “Before those fliggering Comosums wake up and we have to have another exquisitely prepared and delicious, but wretched-company breakfast with them.”
“They fliggering lied about the ship,” Jace found himself saying as he walked in.
“I don’t think so.” Del rose and offered him a mug of caff and as the wonderful scent teased his nostrils he salivated and took it. “I think they were so frightened of the whole experience their minds shut down and their Flair didn’t work right.” She scowled. “Paid them a fliggering fortune.”
“We’ll get some of the gilt back,” Raz soothed.
Del said, “Meanwhile two Fams and several people have been down in the ship fairly often. I’m going to ask our Healers to do a complete health examination of them all.”
She shot a look at Jace. “All right with you?”
“Yes, I’ll go to the new male Healer.”
“Fine.”
Raz continued for his wife. “And we’ll ask the Comosums to have a complete exam and send us the results. The hole has been open to the camp for some time, and no one is showing any kind of physical problems. I think we’re all right.”
Del nodded. “Like you said before, we’ll get more flexible people out here to do an atmospheric study, maybe even instruments from the other starship, in the spring. We can at least continue digging down the levels near the main entrance.” But Del sighed. “Dammit.”
Raz offered his hand, sat and pulled his HeartMate into his lap.
“Good morning, Jace,” Glyssa said.
“Good morning, Jace,” Maxima mumbled.
“We have news that we hadn’t quite gotten around to telling Glyssa,” Raz said.
Reaching out to ruffle Maxima’s hair, Del grinned and said, “As you may or may not know, a late cuz of mine invented the scry pebble. Maxima has the same kind of Flair.” She hugged the girl. “And we’ve arranged that she will work with the starship of
Maxima’s eyes rounded and her mouth dropped open. She turned and hugged her mother back. “Really? Really!”
“Yes. We’re sending you to stay with the Blackthorns and your cuz, Doolee, who lives with them.”
Maxima jumped up and down, joy on her face. “I will work with Dani Eve Elder and
“That’s right.” Raz’s smile was indulgent. He nodded toward Glyssa. “We’ll be sending Maxima with you on the airship that comes to take the Comosums back to their comfort zone of the noble strata of Druida City.”
“Of course I am pleased about that,” Glyssa said. She sounded resigned.
“Truly no way to wiggle out of going back home now, eh?” Del said.
Glyssa sent a wry smile at Maxima. “No offense, but I was trying my hardest to drag my feet on that.” She slipped a glance to the Elecampanes. “You know you have very loving and supportive parents, right?”
“Yes! Letting me stay with the Blackthorns in Druida and work hard on something my Flair is really suited for!” Maxima enthused.
Sounded to Jace like her crush on him was a thing of the past . . . and the Elecampanes had just slipped their daughter into the highest of the high. The Blackthorns were a FirstFamily. If she developed any new infatuation, it would be with a man more her equal.
“GrandLady, GrandLord,” said the Holly in charge of the guards.
“What is it, Cornuta?” Del asked.
The guard stared at Jace and Glyssa.
Raz flipped a hand. “You can trust them.”
The Holly just raised a blond eyebrow, nodded, and reported, “The lower cooks in the mess are scrambling. Your chief cook, Myrtus Stopper, disappeared from the camp last night.”
Twenty-three
Raz seemed stunned.
Well, they all did.
“He had in his possession some artifacts from
Del scowled. “What?”
“The subsistence sticks,” Glyssa said. “He gathered them all.”
“The subsistence sticks,” Raz repeated.
Del D’Elecampane grimaced. “Nasty, ugly, of little intrinsic value.”
“But artifacts from the lost starship, for sure,” Raz said grimly. He stood and rubbed his hands over his face, his head. “We were stupid about that.”
Glyssa’s mouth thinned, and she said in a stilted voice. “All of us were foolish in this matter.”
