Heart Fortune

Glyssa shook her head. “I need to talk to my sister. She’s hurting emotionally.”

Both Jace and Laev flinched. “Good luck,” Laev said heartily.

“I could join you, Laev,” Jace said.

“Excellent. I’ll send a hired glider for you. It will be outside the PublicLibrary shortly. Later.” He signed off.

“You’re sure you don’t want to come?” Jace asked.

“Something’s wrong with my sister,” Glyssa said. “I need to help her.”

“She hasn’t been kind to you,” Jace said. Remembered what T’Licorice revealed to him, and as much as he didn’t want to bring up the subject, said, “She doesn’t have a HeartMate?”

“No. Not this lifeti—Oh!” Glyssa’s frown deepened. “Our bond . . . yes, that is it. She’s envious.” Glyssa kissed his jaw, moved in to hold him again, and then dropped her arms. “You go find out about Myrtus.” She turned away.

“What’s down that hall?” Jace asked.

“The teleportation room.”

“Oh.”

Glyssa kissed him again and smiled. “My parents are taking a little break, then will return here. My sister is off for the rest of the day. I’ll see you in a while.”

“Yes.”

And she was striding down the corridor. Jace thought about teleportation. Flinched again at the memory of his father’s death. The amount of time he was thinking about that lately . . . maybe he’d develop some sort of callus over the pain. Instead of denying the pain, he accepted it and moved on with his thought.

After his Second Passage, he’d done a little teleporting. But the skill was mostly related to light, knowing the light of the place you were ’porting to, and he didn’t stay very long in one spot. Might be interesting to study the guest suite and try a couple of times.

Glyssa opened a door, waved back at him, then went through it and he headed out of the library.

* * *

The meeting with Laev T’Hawthorn’s contact was short and boring, but better than being with Glyssa and her sister.

Jace enjoyed the glider trip through Druida, recognized the area where they were meeting—a lower class neighborhood—if not the man.

Who turned out to be a guy who dealt in stolen goods and blackmarket artifacts. He’d genially admitted to selling a lot of subsistence sticks as genuine Lugh’s Spear objects, which they were, since Jace studied the one he had left and confirmed it.

The man appeared pained at Laev’s veiled threats, but refused to give up his client list, stoutly stating that he expected an honorable FirstFamily Lord such as Laev wouldn’t punish him just for doing his job—and well. Hinted himself that he might be helpful in the future . . . if he wasn’t arrested for theft. After all, he hadn’t known the sticks were stolen when he’d sold them.

One extremely important fact Jace and T’Hawthorn did learn, and that was Myrtus had insisted to the fence that he hadn’t been the one who’d set the explosion. He’d just taken advantage of having all the subsistence sticks. The temptation had been too much for him. The low-level entrepreneur had stated virtuously that he wouldn’t have dealt with a man who’d hurt anyone.

As for Myrtus Stopper, he had acquired a fortune, bought some gems, and set out to the south with a merchant caravan. Lucky man.

Then Laev had consulted with T’Blackthorn and the Elecampanes regarding the thefts and they agreed the issue was a camp matter and that the Holly guards would investigate. The first small box stolen had not turned up.

Jace accompanied Laev to his home and one of T’Hawthorn Residence’s workshops. He didn’t quite make a deal with Laev to handle his leather goods. Despite everything, he didn’t want to make a business of practicing a private joy.

Laev had shrugged, then scried to set Jace up with trial memberships at various clubs, a social one or two, and The Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon.

Then Jace and the Fams—Zem, who’d flown in, and Lepid, who’d teleported there—got to tour the castle Residence and the seaside estate of a FirstFamily GreatLord.

* * *

Glyssa mulled over her words and made some hot cocoa with white mousse to take up to her sister.

She knocked on Enata’s door, stood as her sister checked mentally who was there, heard the refusal in Enata’s mind before she voiced it.

“I have hot cocoa, with white mousse and cocoa sprinkles just as you like!” Glyssa called.

Curiosity flowed from Enata through their bond and she opened the door to her sitting room, which appeared to have been recently redecorated.

“Nice,” she said.

Enata shrugged. “It had been more than a decade since I’d changed my rooms.”

Glyssa nodded.

“Where did you get the cocoa? It’s not accessible from any of the regular no-times until after Halloween and Samhain, the new year.”

“I took it from the ritual no-time.”

Enata’s eyes bugged a little.

“That’s not a good look for you,” Glyssa admonished, handed her sister the drink, pushed open the door, and went to a new wing chair of deep teal furrabeast leather. “I’ve learned that enjoying the moment is important. The hot cocoa drink option in the ritual no-time was completely full. So we should use some.”

“Not like it will go bad,” Enata said, then, “What do you want?”

Glyssa lifted her brows and Enata rolled her eyes and sighed. “Sorry for the rudeness,” she said, sounding anything but.

“I have a plan.”

“Of course you do.” Enata settled in a comfortchair that conformed to her shape, excellent for reading or watching vizes.

Sipping a little of her own cocoa, Glyssa said, “I think we should buy an appointment for you with the matchmaker, Saille T’Willow.”

Enata gasped. “Such expense.”

“You’re worth it. And you’re the only one without a HeartMate this generation,” Glyssa tried for matter-of- fact. “You deserve that from the rest of us.”

A mixture of feelings crossed Enata’s face. She swallowed. “You think?”

“Yes, I do, and I can make a good case to our parents.”

“The expense!”

“Gilt is not as important as happiness,” Glyssa said. “We all know that.”

“Ye-es.”

“And it isn’t as if the return won’t be worth it. The GreatLord will find you a husband, a partner, a helpmeet.” Stupid of Glyssa to think that so far her own HeartMate wasn’t quite at those points. “You’ll be happier, your work will show that. We aren’t meant to live alone.”

The small silence was only punctuated by tiny sipping noises. “You believe that,” Enata said.

“Yes, I do.”

“It’s easier to believe, I think, if you have a HeartMate.”

“Perhaps. And I think we need to put it in the Family charter held by the Licorice ResidenceLibrary that all individuals without HeartMates will be allowed an appointment with the T’Willow or D’Willow matchmaker, if they so choose.”

Enata was shaking her head. “It costs a lot.”

“Stop harping on that!” Glyssa said. “What is gilt for except to make us happy?”

“To further our research? To ensure the Family never is poor.”

Glyssa waved the comment aside. “I insist. T’Willow has a ninety-eight percentile success rate with