The Chocolatier's Wife (89 page)

His
mother
saw
him
coming
down
the
path, and
opened
the
door herself.
“If
you
wish
to
see
your
intended,
the
answer
is
no.
I
have
had
quite enough of all of this i
n
formality.”

“Give
it
up,
mother.
This
is
a
battle
you’ve
already
lost.”
He
took
her
by the
shou
l
ders
and
gently
pushed
her
back,
then
went
into
the
parlor
to
wait. Tasmin was
seated
there
already,
so,
without
preamble
he
asked
her
what had
been
bothering
him
all
morning. “What
do
you
suppose
the
Heart
of Ithalia
is?”

She
blinked, then
held
out
her
hand,
presenting
to
him
the
woman
in the
other
chair.
“Aunt
Elyria,
this
is
my
intended,
William
of
the
House of
Almsley.
William,
you
may
recall
my
aunt
is
my
mother’s
sister,
and an
elementalist.
Aunt,
you
may
recall
I
told
you
that
William never
looks before he leaps.”

He
bowed
to
Tasmin’s
aunt.
“My
pleasure,
ma’am.”
She
smiled
faintly, but he thought she looked amused.

“To
answer your question,
William,”
Tasmin
said,
“I
have
no
idea what you are
tal
k
ing
about,
but perhaps you will sit with us?”

“I
would be honored.”
He settled into a
chair.

“For
shame,
Tasmin, I
thought
your
education
a
bit
more
thorough than that,”
her
Aunt
said.
“I
knew
I
should
have pushed
for
you
to
go
to Bearboune,
you would have
done so well.”

Tasmin
rolled
her
eyes
and
poured
William’s
tea,
fixing it
as
he
liked without
any
apparent
pause
to
think
about
it.
He
wondered
if
it
was
on the
list
of
things
women
trained
themselves
to
do,
like
tying
cravats and spotting dust on
their husband’s jac
k
ets at 30
leagues.

He smiled at Tasmin
as he took
the cup.
“Well,
Elemental Lady
Elyria, if you would be so kind
as to inform
us,
I
would be most grateful.”

“He
is
charming.
You
are
right,
Tasmin.
I
shall
reserve
my
judgment
on whether
he
is
too
charming
for
his
own
good
until
later.
Now,
let’s
see.
I
am going
to
assume
that
you
are
as
sadly
educated
as
my
darling niece,
here, and
start
from
the
beginning,
if
that
suits?”
She
paused
to
let
him
nod,
and then she did so,
and
this is the story that she told:

“Years
upon
years
ago,
a
group
of
witches
controlled
the
seas.
They
had been
cast
off
of
land
for
their
varying
and
dire
crimes,
and
so
they
divided the
waters
amongst
themselves
to
create
their
own
domain.
One
of
them, it
is
said, was
so
particularly
evil
that
the
others
feared
her,
and
so
they killed
her,
and
took
her
heart, and
made
it
into
a
most
powerful
amulet. The
person
who
controlled
the
Heart
of
Ithalia
could
navigate
through
the
Strait
of
Sorrows
and
the
Sea
of
Pain
itself,
and
find a
route
to
the
lands beyond, and
wealth unimaginable.”

This
was
an
impressive
feat,
for the
two
places
she
had
named
had
not been called so out of poetry.
Many had died trying to sail the strait,
hoping to
find
a
way
to
the
lands
and
riches
beyond.
The
Sea
of
Pain
was
teeming with
the
most
terrible
of
sea
creatures,
and
those
few
who
survived
the strait would probably be taken
by the sea.

William sipped
his
tea
thoughtfully.
“It
is
true
that
if
one
could
make their
way
through
they
could
connect
to
the
Empire
of
Zyrekia
and
the lands
of
Sophalia.
They
would
be
able
to
control
trade.
If
one
could
acquire silk
in
a
month
rather
than
half
a
year,
or
all
the
exotic
fruits
that
one
would like
to
bring
back,
but
can’t
because
they
spoil
before
they
even
reach
here, one’s
wealth would be enormous.”

“Do
you
think
Lavoussier would
consider
that?
Be
willing
to
risk everything
he
has
on
the
chance
the
story
is
true?”
Tasmin looked
quite thoughtful.

“Of
course
it’s
true.
My
mentor
saw
it
herself.”
Elyria
shrugged,
and took
some more
tea.

“She
went
to
the
Bearboune,”
Tasmin
said
knowingly, and
William nodded as if everything now made sense.

“What
was
it
like?”
he
asked.
“Not
Bearboune,
but
the
Heart,”
he
added with a
smile.

“She
said
it
was
amazingly plain.
Like
a
stone.
Square
shaped,
gray
.”
Elyria
shrugged.
“But
she
also
said
that,
placed
at
the
prow
of
a
ship,
it would
part
the
weather.
And
that,
my
children, is
something
I’m
sure people would kill
for.”

“Would
it
protect
a
ship,
even
if
not
on
the
prow?” he
asked,
leaning forward.

“Probably.
It
does need to be controlled, though. It
needs the wishes of someone
to
pull
from,
if
for
nothing
else
because
it
feeds
off
intentions
and energies, like a
par
a
site.”

He
got
up
and
began
pacing. “But
it
doesn’t
make
sense.
If
the
pirates had
such
a
device,
why
did
they
not
use
it
to
defend
themselves?”
He
looked at
his
hands,
moving
them
as
if
along
imaginary waves,
reenacting
the battle
in his
head.
“We
caught
the
weather
gauge.
The
wind
brought
us right
about
and
we
were
able
to
blow
her
to
matchsticks. If
I
had
such
a thing, I
would
have
taken
the
wind
right
from
my
e
n
emy’s
sails,
left
them in
my wake,
not engaged in
a
three-day-long chase.”