Heart Dance (33 page)

“Dufleur?”

“Ummm.”

“Dufleur.”

“Minute.”

“Dufleur!”

“Not now!” A tool clattered, the rat moaned, twitched, died. “Dammit!” Dufleur stood, rolled her shoulders, turned; frustrationwas on her face. “Do I interrupt you while you are matchmaking?” she asked in a low, furious voice.

“I’m not doing something illegal. Dangerous.” He looked pointedly at the rat. “Deadly.”

Rat was dying anyway
, Fairyfoot said.

Dufleur ran her hands through her hair, tugged at it. “No, you can just ruin lifetimes.”

He flinched.

FamMan ruin experiment
, Fairyfoot sniffed. She still didn’t look at him.

Dufleur’s inhalation and sigh was ostentatiously audible. “I apologize. I know your Flair is great and that you use it for good.” She walked up to him and kissed him on the cheek. “You saved the Thyme HouseHeart last night.”

“We did it together.”

“I couldn’t have done it alone.”

Saille couldn’t look away from the dead rat. “You experimentedon that rat and killed it.”

Her face went stiff. She took a step back, put her hands in her lab coat pockets. “I am an ethical scientist. I abide by all the laws of Celta regarding experimentation. I sent word through the feral community for volunteer diseased rats. Some came. Like Fairyfoot said, they get out of the cold and damp, get good food and pain ease. You make me forget my duty.” She turned and went to the tube. She studied it, passed her hand over the cylinder, and it opened. With a word, her hands and upper arms were coated with a yellow-tinted molecular shield.

She was taking care of herself in that way, at least. She examinedthe dead rat, treating it gently and with respect, wrote down her notes, marked the rat’s left ear with an intricate pattern,said a blessing over the corpse, and teleported it away.

“Where does it go?” He was reluctantly fascinated.

“To death grove of feral animals.”

“Haven’t heard of that one.”

“There’s a small order of priests and priestesses who run it, with some low-level Healers for corpses found by citizens. I alwaysmark my subjects with the disease it had and how it died.” She looked away, her lips firmed. “Human error.”

Fairyfoot licked a paw.
It would not have lived long anyway, a day or two.

“They come to you. But what do rats know of living and dying?”

“I don’t know. They know what I can give them.”

“With the winter we’ve had, I’m surprised you don’t have a stream of rats coming to this place.

“They know rats come here and never come out. It takes a sick and desperate rat to come here. Sometimes they don’t have what I need to work on.” She shrugged. “I house them anyway.”

Snow today stopped them
, Fairyfoot said.
Good.
She sniffed again.
They are sick rats. I do not get to play with them or eat them, or I will become a sick Cat. It is hard not to play with them.
She hopped down from her embroidered velvet perch and went to a closed door, sat in front of it, tail twitching.

“It’s always hard to go against instincts, isn’t it, Saille? You told me once that your MotherDam forbade you to practice your Flair in the countryside. What did you do?”

He unclenched his jaw to say, “I disobeyed her, but she reallydidn’t care that ‘yokels’ were getting the benefit of GreatHousematchmaking Flair. What do you work on?”

Her eyes widened. “You don’t know? My father had been studying a reversing time spell that would only affect bacteria or a virus within humans. His beloved younger brother died of the same virus as your MotherDam as a child. When your MotherDam heard that a Time scientist instead of a Healer might find a ‘cure’ for the virus, she offered a huge prize. That’s when Agave started the same research, I think.”

Saille felt the blood drain from his head. His fingers went chill. “You want to kill my MotherDam’s virus, revive her.” He couldn’t even move. “That could tear the Family apart.”

Twenty-five

Saille continued, “Some of my Family have come to prefer me.”

“Of course they would. Anyone would.”

“I’ve only been in power a little over five months. If my MotherDam were revived, the FirstFamilies Council could decideshe should retain the title after so long. They are more familiarwith her.” Another breath in and out. “I’d fight. It could get very messy.”

She looked aside. “You can be easy on that, anyway. I’ve had no progress with that virus. It is too virulent. I’ve changed to another.”

Relief weakened him. He went to the worktable and hitched a hip on a free space. The room contained only one chair and Fairyfoot’s perch. Sterile in the extreme.

Fairyfoot hopped to her feet, nose sniffing at the crack under the door. She growled.
There is a healthy rat in there. He lied.
She sent a narrowed look to Saille.
Rats lie.

“I don’t,” Dufleur said, her gaze steady on his. “I don’t lie. You came here to say something specific, Saille.”

“I want to protect my HeartMate!” He took a breath and held it, released it. “You have plenty of other responsibilities— embroidery for the Enlli Gallery and the commissions. To Passiflora. Why must you continue this endeavor that could tear you apart, as it did the Thyme Residence!”

Her eyes were big and blue. “Because practicing my craft feels good. It’s something for
me
.” She put a fist on her heart. “It fulfills
me
. For good or ill, embroidery is not the pleasant pastime it once was. It’s how I support myself and Fairyfoot and my mother. You forgot to list my responsibilities as a daughter, and what I am or should be doing regarding the legal case against my mother and D’Winterberry.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He opened his lashes on anothersigh. “I saw how you reenergized that no-time last night, why can’t you limit your skills to that?” He knew that limiting primary Flair was tough, a person wanted to know the extent of their capabilities. He knew what he was asking was unreasonable.

“A no-time repair person. Doesn’t sound like a successful career.” She crossed her arms. “There’s a ban on researching time. Your MotherDam saw to that after my father died without a solution to her problems. Punishment, perhaps.”

“If I asked you to stop for a while, until spring, would you do so?”

“I won’t lie. I don’t think I could, Saille.” Her eyes fired. “The law against my craft is
wrong
. And convincing the FirstFamiliesCouncil to lift it, to clear my father’s reputation, is right.”

“Your father killed himself and destroyed his house, impoverishedyou and your mother.”

“And he paid for that. But it must have been a freak accident. He wouldn’t have continued to work somewhere that would hurt others.”

Dufleur didn’t, either
, Fairyfoot said.

“You had a problem!” he roared.

Fairyfoot tilted her head.
Seared My whiskers.

“I want to protect you.”

She came up to him, put her hands on his chest, lifted her face. “I’ve been very careful, Saille.”

“You’ve been careful of others. Not of yourself.” But he’d caught her scent. His body instinctively remembered loving her, sexual tension tightened his muscles.

“I am not good with people, Saille. I make bad mistakes.”

“We have a difference of opinion here,” he said steadily, wanting nothing more than to ’port her to his bed.

“I can’t promise to stop my experimentation,” she said in a small voice.

“I don’t like that at all. But I understand it. I don’t accept it, and we’ll consider options.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What options?”

“I don’t know. There must be a compromise.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“I’ll find one.” He set his hands on her shoulders. “You must promise me to be especially careful.”

“Yes,” she said.

It wasn’t enough.

He teleported from Dufleur’s laboratory back home. He’d
been aroused and irritated, and she’d shown no interest in sex. He hadn’t been in the mood to persuade her, not to mention the laboratory had no ambience whatsoever. He’d taken some hits in the pride and the heart, and anxiety still buzzed in his brain at the thought of any threat to his HeartMate.

The day, which had started out with such promise, had become frustrating. The breaking of a marriage and his worry that his MotherDam’s botched matches would come to light and harm the Family, the argument with Dufleur. Both had weighed on him.

More, he couldn’t get the Thyme HouseStone out of his mind. Residential entities seemed to be playing a part in his courtship with Dufleur. He had freed his from the constraints his MotherDam had set upon it. Dufleur’s mother was accused of neglecting an estate and a Residence and could have her home taken from her. Dufleur and he had rescued the core of a Residence last night.

That was one thing he would never regret and an accomplishmentthat would always give him pride. And that nudged him into thinking of his own Residence. It was standard lore that a head of household should spend at least a day’s worth of time in the HouseHeart every month. He hadn’t.

So he made that his priority.

His steps slowed as he reached the HouseHeart. He’d barely been in it since he’d become T’Willow. His MotherDam had never admitted him to this place, never taught him the right words or rituals. She had merely ignored the fact that her previousheir, her older sister, had imparted the knowledge to him. When he’d taken the title, he’d named his mother as his Heir and shared everything with her.

Despite all his personal and professional successes two floors above him in the ResidenceDen, and the acceptance of his Family and the FirstFamilies over the last two months, this being was the core of the Family. Would it accept him? He’d been loath to put it to the test.

He’d accused Dufleur of being cowardly, of being too aware of others’ opinions. He should have aimed that argument at himself.

So he took a big breath, shucked the robe he was wearing, and placed both palms on the ancient wooden door that had hardened with age and spells into stronger than steel. Softly, he recited the pretty poetry spell one of the previous many
D’Willows
had crafted and felt the door swing away from his hands.

A tendril of warm, scented air drifted out, redolent of generationsof female Heads of Households, spring flowers mixed with a hint of musk. The scent of the Family itself. Nostrils widening, he caught the faintest trace of masculinity. It was enough to have his shoulders easing.

He strode in. “My apologies.” The thick rugs, angled many ways and a blur of competing colors and patterns, caressed the soles of his feet. He walked to the center of the octagonal room and stood near the altar. The room was well lit with bright natural sunlight from hidden shafts on the property, set precisely in the four directions. Physics and Flair and mirrors. Saille thought a male Willow had contributed that.

“As you said, I haven’t spent much time here as the GreatLord.” His jaw flexed. “I
am
the GreatLord, T’Willow. I want that acknowledged.”

It is acknowledged
, the HouseHeart voice sounded mildly amused.

Saille closed his eyes and let out the breath he’d been unconsciouslyholding. His spine straightened. He hadn’t realized he’d been a little hunched, either. “Thank you.”

Perform the empowering ritual, T’Willow.
No humor now.

He tensed again, shot his Flair around the chamber, up into the Residence, checking for weakening, for loss of energy. There was none, but with the example of Winterberry and Thyme Residences before him, he was all too aware of the need to keep the essential entities alive. With blood pulsing faster because of the scare, Saille bowed toward the altar, blew the dangle of nearby windchimes, enjoyed the light sounding of lovely random notes, then spent the next septhour reinforcingall the spells needed by the Residence. When he was done he was barely able to slip into the hot, bubbling tub that was the “water” portion of the four elements. He sat on a stone ledge and relaxed, head back. He was sure that this luxury wasn’t included in most male-dominated HouseHearts. Bless the ladies.

All is as it should be
, the HouseHeart said, as if it had been doing its own check.

“Thank you,” Saille murmured.

That sent a little spurt of interest through Sallie but not enough for him to open his eyes. “Each generation has more Flair,” Saille said lazily.

The Residence is well maintained for the next quarter.
Approvalhummed in the HouseHeart’s voice.

“Mmm.” The water—there was some faint scent to it— soaked stress from his muscles.

That woke Saille up. “She
does
believe that.”

She is the past
, the HouseHeart said simply.
One cannot dwell in the past.

It occurred to Saille that the HouseHeart had seen many generations of his Family come and go, yet still looked to the future, and he had another distracting thought that time was very often spoken of casually by all and understood by none. Except Dufleur.

Before he could comment, a soft yowl came, then a cat-expressionof horror. Myx sat, whiskers twitching wildly, a few feet from Saille. Another plaintive mew.
Your Whole Body is in WATER.
The cat shuddered.

“I like it,” Saille said.

Welcome, Fam Myx. You do the Residence honor
, the HouseHeartsaid.

Myx preened.
Nice place.

If you would be so kind, FamCat, to do me a favor
, said the HouseHeart.