Heart Fortune

Lepid hopped from the bed and tried to get under the mattress set on another cabinet . . . slightly lower than an average Celtan man’s height.

Jace went over to help him. Not many other places large enough to hold something that would be useful as a good pry bar. Lifting up the mattress, he saw a couple of small, torn shreds of papyrus. Lepid whisked them out and Jace let the mattress fall with a thump. Lepid dropped the scraps of papyrus at Jace’s feet. He picked them up, saw handwritten unfamiliar words, and put those in his pocket with the jewelry. Who knew, the papyrus might turn out to be more valuable than the brooch.

The cabinet under the bed was empty, too. A half septhour later they’d searched the whole room thoroughly and Jace had placed a few found items atop the dresser cube in the closet—a shirt, some small tight bent wires that Lepid said smelled like hair, an odd bottle they’d found in the cleansing cubicle that had dried stuff in it.

Despite all the distractions the fox and the brooch had provided, the truth settled hard into Jace’s bones, coated his arteries. He and Lepid were trapped in a buried starship and it didn’t appear as if they could get out on their own.

Only Zem and Trago knew where they were, and Trago would do his best to smear Jace and point people in another direction.

Jace and Lepid could definitely die—either by hunger and thirst, or by desperately trying to teleport to an unsafe place. All the other tents in camp . . . all the walkways . . . anywhere he could think of . . . could have people in them, coming and going. A botched teleportation would be fatal to them all.

Of course they had one last option, but Jace wasn’t quite ready to surrender to that.

“Come sit with me while I think.” Jace sat on the bed, patted the mattress beside him. “I’m going to let the spell light go out now. I need to save energy.”

Lepid shuddered, jumped onto the bed with him. I had to do that, too. Before. I am strong enough to make a light now, though.

Jace petted him. “In a while. Let’s settle in.” He lifted his legs, flattened out on the bed. The mattress was no bedsponge, but some ungiving material . . . and weirdly enough, Jace could now feel the contours of whoever had slept there ages before. A smaller someone, both in width and length. Maybe female.

Lepid stepped onto Jace’s chest, curled up. It is good we are together.

The situation would be better if neither of them were there. Skull-shaped terror gibbered in the back of Jace’s mind, ready to bite. He kept punching it in the teeth. Didn’t stop the cold sweat coating him.

Lepid whimpered. Glyssa is the only one besides Zem and you that I can talk to well. What about you?

“Let me check.” Slowly he let the spell light trickle away, sighed when the small energy drain stopped. As they lay in the dark, Jace became aware of the scent of the fox . . . of other smells, residue of smoke and fire, those were Earthan. Now that he couldn’t see, he felt surrounded by alien stuff. The covering on the mattress was no Celtan cloth. Even the sound of their breathing and their small movements echoed strangely in a room of metal and fake wood and other Earthan materials he had no name for.

He didn’t want to die here.

Again he forced that fear away, breathed deeply and concentrated on the links, the emotional bonds, he had with others. The strongest was with Zem. . . . no, he lied to himself. The strongest, if the thinnest, was with Glyssa. Not surprising since he’d had that, even if he hadn’t known it, hadn’t discovered it, hadn’t admitted it, since the second Passage to free his Flair years ago. He’d had Passages, had made a HeartGift, but his Flair had never obviously manifested. He stopped himself from shifting.

Glyssa had tended the bond at times when he’d been ignorant of it, when he hadn’t seen it or felt it. Unlike a few weeks ago, this time he knew the bond would always be there, would always be tangible.

Of course the solution to this whole mess was to call Glyssa. Stupid not to have done that immediately.

Especially since she was riding away from the camp with every second.

But his pride, his very heart had been wounded by her. She’d shaken his world with her words, made him see himself in an unflattering light. Made him doubt his self-identity.

Made him want to change.

Change wasn’t bad, but he wouldn’t reach for Glyssa first, beg her to take him back. Not if he could get out some other way. Stupid to want to save his pride, or not want to aggravate a hurt to him, to her, but . . .

He scanned his other ties, precious few. No Family, of course. A strong but thin white one to . . . Raz Cherry T’Elecampane. Jace winced. Calling that guy mentally would be worse than speaking to Glyssa if he wanted to keep the fact that he and Lepid had been here in the ship secret. Not much chance of that, but a sliver . . . if he . . . they called Glyssa. If they could hold out until she came. If they could work together to teleport them somewhere safe.

And her arrival back here, maybe the return of the entire band led by Del D’Elecampane, would not go unnoticed, especially by Trago.

Well, he had that unexpected inheritance from his father now that his word was foresworn and he’d broken the contract with the Elecampanes and the other shareholders and forfeited his stake.

His father had loved him, had tried his fumbling best for Jace, and he should respect that. The thing was, just the idea was surprising. His father had been so in love with his mother, so bedazzled by her and under her thumb that Jace hadn’t realized he’d loved his son, too.

Now the last trace of smoke, maybe the closeness of a snoozing Lepid’s fur and the dust from him, stung Jace’s eyes.

And this wasn’t the right kind of thinking to get them out of here.

One thing he did know, despite the new info on his father, and Jace’s unpleasant look at himself, he didn’t want to die here. He especially didn’t want to die slowly and watch a loved one die with him.

Which meant he should continue checking his bonds. There was a fuzzy, nasty black sort-of thread that reeked of wrongness. What was that?

Gently, gently he “touched” it. Shock! Stabbing pain. Anger.

Fliggering fligger! shrieked a high voice in his mind. Trago.

Jace lunged in disgust back from the tiny link.

How could that be?

He hates you. All his anger and pain is focused on you, Zem interjected. Easy for his BirdFam to say. He wasn’t stuck in the ship, hadn’t experienced the link viscerally.

I felt enough, Zem said. Felt like the blazer shot that singed my feathers.

Sorry, Zem. Jace considered the tie, didn’t think he could get rid of it. Had never heard of anything like this before.

After some deep breathing, he could feel connections again. The shortest to the closest person was to Andic Sanicle. That man would stir up trouble for Jace. No links to Funa or any of the other women he’d slept with in camp. Nothing with Symphyta, though he’d spoken with her every morning when Zem was hurt, and they were friends.

Glyssa would have stronger, deeper bonds than he, even with members of the camp who she’d recently met.

Stop brooding. Act!

The last one he traced was a faint blue link that surprised him. It resonated of male and headed in the direction of Druida and he understood it was Glyssa’s father. Not strong enough for him to contact.

I could fly very fast to Glyssa, Zem offered. Even with a bad wing.

Thank you, no. Jace rubbed Lepid awake. “We’ll, I’ll need to contact Glyssa. Lord and Lady knows how far away she is.”

Lepid licked Jace’s nose. She will come. She will save us.

She already had, both of them. Taken on a rambunctious fox kit as her Fam, Jace as her love.

He still couldn’t acknowledge the HeartMate thing. That was on him.

“Yes,” he said.