Heart Fortune

When he went through the thick wooden door, he found himself in a small entryway, no grandhall, and the furnishings weren’t something his own mother would have thought of as good. No doubt they were sturdy antiques, and well enough cared for, but they had chips and dings, scratches and the occasional tattered area, worn spots in the rugs.

“So you are Jace Bayrum,” said a woman’s light voice, and he stiffened and immediately stopped scanning his surroundings to focus on Glyssa’s mother.

She wasn’t as tall as he, or quite as tall as either of her daughters, but she held herself with pride. Her face was thinner than Glyssa’s, with worn lines around her mouth and across her forehead, her hair a dark auburn, her hazel eyes intent.

Jace untwined his arm from Glyssa’s. With his best manners, he stepped forward and gave as graceful a bow as he could manage to her. “I am,” he said. He didn’t drop his eyes.

She nodded briefly, then her eyes flamed with curiosity as Zem flew from his shoulder to the newel post at the end of the wide banister edging the stairway to the upper floors. “A hawkcel, nicely colored.”

Thank you, Zem projected at the same time Jace said the phrase.

A quick nod. “I am Rhiza D’Licorice.” She gestured to the man standing just behind her right shoulder. “My HeartMate and husband, Fasic Almond T’Licorice, whom you spoke with a few days ago, and my older daughter, LicoriceHeir, Enata.”

That daughter, too, had darker hair, greener eyes. Her gaze bored into Jace. He sensed she already disliked him for some reason of her own.

D’Licorice’s mouth turned down. “I suppose I shall have to put you in the rooms next to Glyssa.” Her lips pressed together a moment, then she said, “Come along.” She took off at a good clip up the stairs to the second floor and down the hallway to the right. After a glance at the others, who remained expressionless, he followed the GrandLady. “The suite does not have a connecting door to Glyssa’s rooms. It is our best guest suite and the colors are blue and cream. The furnishings feature a lot of lace. I trust your fascinating Fam will not tear the lace.”

He didn’t know whether she was being sarcastic or not.

Zem, who rode once more on Jace’s shoulder, replied, I do not have a nest here that I would like to decorate with lace.

For a moment the woman stopped, though she didn’t turn around, and shivered. “You nest in the wilderness.”

Jace found himself soothing her. “There’s been a camp near Lugh’s Spear for a couple of years now. The land is cleared, and there will soon be a town.”

“I hope not,” she murmured, then headed down the hall, threw open a doorway on the left, facing toward the back of the House, with a view of the PublicLibrary in the distance. This was more like he’d imagined. Gleaming curves of expensive and polished furniture. Delicate lace and silkeen wall coverings in a watery blue, trim of a cream tint with an edging of gold. Lace accents everywhere. “Please,” the woman said stiffly, not meeting his eyes, “be at home.” She looked at her wrist timer. “Dinner is in three-quarters of a septhour.” She paused. “The waterfall in this suite is one of the best in the Residence.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he murmured, again doing the half-bow thing.

Her glance grazed him, didn’t stay. “You are quite welcome,” she said, and he knew she lied.

“I’ll be down in half a septhour.”

She nodded and left, closing the door behind her. Jace set his duffle on the thick, pastel Chinju rug.

The lace is very pretty, Zem said. It WOULD look good in a nest.

Jace closed his eyes, went to the nearest wing chair and sank down into its soft depths, leaned his head back.

“Welcome to D’Licorice Residence,” said a low and mellow, yet austere, voice.

Jace was too tired to flinch. He didn’t open his eyes. “Thank you, Residence.” He wet his lips. “I’d like to sit here for ten minutes. Could you notify me when that amount of time has elapsed so I can use the waterfall room and get ready for dinner?” Not that he had any appropriate clothes.

“Certainly,” said the House. “Glyssa is obtaining a couple of perches for Zem. One for here, and one for her sitting room.”

“Sounds good,” Jace said. He could hear the slight whir of Zem as his Fam flew through the rooms, but still didn’t open his lashes. The whole day had twanged at his nerves, and this last bit . . . on his way to this suite, he’d passed Glyssa’s. And through the very walls of her rooms, he could see the glow of the HeartGift she’d made for him. He hadn’t brought his own. Hadn’t wanted to give it to her in an impulsive moment he couldn’t take back.

But the radiance of the thing shook him.

When the Residence gave him the time, he opened his eyes and saw a room his mother would be ecstatic to be in. One she’d have done anything to live in.

Jace got up and paced to the waterfall room, stripped off his clothes and stood under the huge, rushing water, soaping himself with nice-smelling, foamy stuff.

He came from the massive greed of his mother, a woman who’d pick, pick, pick at a person until she got what she desired. He came from a man loving a woman and working himself to death to give her what she wanted. And Jace never forgot that.

He always kept his relationships light, always surface, never deep so they roused anything he couldn’t control.

So he was selfish himself, wouldn’t let himself be manipulated by a woman for what she wanted that wasn’t good for him, too.

No, he didn’t want to think about any HeartGifts, way out of his league. The whole day, far from his comfort zone . . . the Ladies’ Tearoom, for fliggering fligger’s sake.

He snorted, tossed wet hair from his eyes, and managed to scrape up some equilibrium.

Until dinner.

D’Licorice herded them all into a dining room, where food in covered dishes already awaited. Everyone took their seat at the table that would hold eight and passed around the food. Jace got the idea that D’Licorice alone chose the menu.

Glyssa’s father introduced a general topic of conversation that rapidly escalated to something Jace didn’t understand, but was of interest to the four Family members.

He ate steadily, and listened, and looked at the quality of the things around him. His mother would have loved them, too.

“Eat your greens, Jace,” D’Licorice said.

He hated bitter greens.

“I noticed that Glyssa needed more greens when she got home. She wasn’t getting the best nutrition at that camp,” D’Licorice said.

Jace ate the greens.

“And you must tell me,” the woman plowed on. “Since you’re working with Glyssa on this fiction project. Are your story stylings rooted in good research and fact?”

Jace was sure that Glyssa would have assured her Family, all of them staring at him intently with judging FirstLevel Librarian eyes, that everything they’d written was minutely researched.

He swallowed a mouthful of nasty greens that dressing couldn’t make palatable and said, “Of course. Glyssa is a very good historian for the project, recorded everything right for the Elecampanes, and transcribed Hoku’s journal well.”

Glyssa’s sister snorted.

D’Licorice frowned. “How could you judge? You have no formal train—”

“Enough, Rhiza.” Glyssa’s father smiled at Jace, then stood, went to a cabinet in the corner that turned out to be a disguised no-time, and pulled out a plate of raw spinach, placed it on the table. He served himself, Glyssa, and raised a brow at Jace.

“Thank you.” Jace held out his plate.

“Those aren’t nearly as nutritional as bitter—”

“We know,” Fasic T’Licorice said. “You’re the botanist, but we all know. But it tastes better.”