Heart Quest (17 page)

He frowned, pulled out his thumb. “Needs sparkly spell!”

“Wai—” T'Ash lunged forward, too late. Nuin touched his wet thumb to Greyku's nose and garbled a Word.

YOW!
Greyku shrieked. All her hair now stood out—except a bunch that fell onto the table.

D'Ash scooped up Greyku, held her close, muttering a few couplets. Greyku sighed and cuddled.

T'Ash picked up his son. Their scowls were similar. “Didn't I tell you that brilliance spells are
not
for Fams or people, just jewels?”

Nuin Ash stuck his thumb back in his mouth and sucked noisily.

D'Ash joined her husband, frowned at her son. She gestured to Vertic, who was the only Fam still sitting on the bench. Zanth sat near T'Ash, the others had bolted. “Fam Vertic brought a young dog fox to us today, ready to be
your
Fam, Nuin. But I can't let you bond with him if you aren't going to be nice to Fams.”

The youngster opened his mouth and yelled.

“We'll have a man-to-man talk,” T'Ash said above the noise. He looked at Ilex.
Meet you in my ResidenceDen in half-septhour.
Tucking his son under his arm, T'Ash and Zanth strolled out.

“Now, Greyku,” D'Ash said. “The shock was rough, but you survived it, and you're back to normal.
Except
your fur. Take a look.” She set the kitten back on the table and held up the mirror.

Ilex blinked—he'd been paying attention to the people—but Greyku…shimmered. As if every hair on her body had been given a translucent shining coat. The tinting had changed the colors too. They looked bright and glowing.

Greyku turned around and around, admiring herself in the mirror. “Yessss.”
Little Ash right. I needed More. I am much More ME.
She sniffed.
But I will want More from Citrula too.

“Of course,” murmured Ilex.

I am very beautiful, FamMan, am I not?
She looked smugly at him.

“Very unique, as always.”

Trif released a slow breath. “I'm glad you're pleased.” She smiled up at Ilex. “Thank you for coming.”

He gave a half bow. “You're welcome. But I also needed to speak with T'Ash.”

Her face fell.

“If you'll excuse me?”

Waves of hurt flowed from her, but she kept a frozen smile on her face. “Of course.”

He went in to his own interrogation.

 

F
or Trif, the next morning was a repeat of the previous day.

We have a message. The scrybowl pulses Holly green!

Trif rolled over, opening bleary eyes. When she saw her bright glittering Fam, she flung an arm across her eyes. She hadn't been able to return to MidClass Lodge last evening. There had been a final note in Ilex's voice, and she knew enough about nuance to understand that he wished their association at an end. That was unexpectedly painful.

But she had to face facts. He must prefer more mature, worldly women like himself, not gauche ones who showed up at his
office
bubbling with enthusiasm at passing a Test that he'd done easily and long before. He'd been wonderful, but had grown tired of her.

So she'd taken the brilliant Greyku home to Clover Compound, and her family had oohed and a ahed over the kitten even to Greyku's satisfaction. They'd partied. Trif had toured the section that would become her home, and felt a bit of pleasure as her father and uncles pointed out the space on each of the three stories designated for teleportation, and the addition of cat doors. She had returned late, 'porting to her bedroom and skipping the mainspace altogether.

Come and see. Holly green!
Greyku insisted.

There had been talk the night before of the Hollys, and the three Clovers who were training at Tab Holly's Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon. They had strict orders to spend as little time as possible in the cursed household.

“All right, all right,” Trif grumbled. She rose from her bedsponge, straightened her crumpled sleepshirt imprinted with a saucy saying, and glanced at the scrybowl. It was, indeed, from the Hollys. Tinne Holly. Why would he be calling her? As she ran her fingers through her hair, she realized it was a mess, and her face no doubt had sleep lines. No way was she scrying the HollyHeir back looking this way.

Greyku sat on the scry table, looking expectant.

“Gotta clean up first,” Trif mumbled.

Eyeing her, Greyku nodded. “Yessss.”

When Trif was dressed and looking her best, she took a few deep breaths, and initiated the scry to T'Holly Residence. “Trif Clover returning HollyHeir's scry.”

The man wearing Holly livery who'd answered nodded. The scry was put through to Tinne Holly, who looked a lot more serious than he had at the Maypole. “Greetyou, Trif and Greyku.” His smile was perfunctory. “My mamá wishes to audition you as an Apprentice or Journeywoman in the craft of composing. Is Mid-Afternoon Bell acceptable for you?”

Trif opened and closed her mouth. A chill had taken her, then she flushed. The great D'Holly was interested in
her
? In her twiddle-tunes?

Tinne frowned. “Trif?”

He wasn't accustomed to having to wait. None of the Hollys were. In fact, T'Holly's arrogance had been his downfall and the reason for his household suffering under his broken Vow of Honor.

She cleared her throat, managed a half bow. “I'd be honored.”

“Good. See you then.” The scrybowl water rippled as he ended the call.

Trif pressed hands to her galloping heart. Her breath came too quickly, unevenly. She could feel the sizzling of her Flair, zooming out of control.

Greyku mewed. Smiled a cat smile.
We go to Holly's today
.

Her knees simply giving way, Trif sat on the floor. Since it was under the scrytable, the area was tiled and cool under her bottom.

“I…I am auditioning for
D'Holly,
” Trif squeaked.

We will be purrrfect
.

“Uh.” She just sat there, dazed, until Greyku began splashing water from the scrybowl on her. “Stop that.”

Alarm to catch public carrier ringing and ringing
.

She'd been so dazzled she hadn't noticed.

“Yes.” She licked her lips. “I wonder what Daddy will say.”

He will say great honor. Go and study
.

“Yes, he will.” She pushed herself to unsteady feet, looked down at one of the ordinary trous suits she wore to work. “I'll have to change for the audition.” She went back into her bedroom. Her hands trembled as she undressed.

Greyku smacked a paw on the timer that still rang.
We can teleport to work now. We don't need public carrier reminder. We could teleport home to dress for D'Holly later, then to Holly Residence
.

“Yes, we could. But I don't have the energy and Flair to teleport a lot.” She glanced at the timer. If she threw on her nice clothes and grabbed her music case with all her instruments—had she put the silver flute back? yes—they could run and make the public carrier. “Also, I don't want to use all my Flair in 'porting in case I need it for the audition.” Fingers scrabbling, she pulled on a fine silk trous suit subtly patterned with leaves in light shades of green. “Hurry! And be careful of my shoulders, this tunic doesn't have pads.” She changed her shoes too, then carefully lifted Greyku to her shoulder. The cat's sparkling fur was distracting, but Trif grabbed her instrument case and shot from the apartment.

T
hat afternoon, Trif 's triumph at 'porting to the Holly
gates was buried under waves of nervousness.

Greyku hooked her claws into Trif 's tunic and she felt pinpricks.
We will be purr-fect!
She turned and swiped her tiny tongue up Trif 's cheek; then the kitten turned to the scrystone set in the wall and screeched,
We are here! Let Us in!

A chuckle came from the stone and an older man's wrinkled face appeared. “You must be GentleLady Trif Clover and FamCat Greyku.”

The little cat preened.

“Please, enter. A member of the Family will meet you along the glider drive. Or do you need transportation to the Residence?”

Clearing her throat, Trif clutched her instrument case tight. “No, thank you, GentleSir.”

With no more than a whisper, the greeniron gates opened. Trif gingerly took a few steps onto the gliderway. She could feel the pebbled white stone through her thin-soled dress shoes.

As soon as she was clear of the gates, they shut behind her. She walked more confidently than she felt up the drive, and when T'Holly Residence came into view she stopped. Trif supposed she'd been thinking it would be an elegant manor house, like cuz Mitchella Blackthorn's Residence. She'd forgotten her grove study lessons that had indicated that this place was a fortress. It loomed tall and gray, only one massive door behind a grille-breaking up the stone of the lower level. There were no windows until the third story.

Then the grille swept up and one half of the iron doors opened and Tinne Holly exited. Again, his expression was serious, though he put on a polite smile when he neared her, then gave her a half bow. “Merry meet, Trif Clover. Greetyou, Greyku.”

Greetyou, Tinne Holly,
Greyku purred.

Trif smiled back at him. Somehow she wasn't as nervous as she had been. She knew this Holly and he wasn't so formidable. “Merry meet, Tinne.”

He offered his arm, and she transferred her instrument case to her other hand and tucked her fingers in the crook of his elbow. These Nobles certainly had much more formal manners.

“My mamá is looking forward to meeting with you.”

All her anxiety rushed back. “I don't know that I'm qualified to study—”

“From what I heard at the Maypole, you're very well qualified to study with her. Since she's listened to a couple of informal sphere recordings of your music, she agrees.”

The great composer D'Holly had music of
hers
? “How?” Trif asked blankly.

Tinne lifted a shoulder. “We Nobles usually get what we want.”

Now that was the simple truth.

But the idea that D'Holly had actually listened to some of her flutings made Trif a little dizzy and she clutched Tinne's arm.

“Don't worry.” He patted her hand. “She likes what she's heard. As I said, she's anticipating meeting you. It will be very good for her.”

They were approaching the door, and it dwarfed them.

Tinne slowed his pace. “Might I request something of you?” he asked in a low tone.

Trif blinked at him. “What?”

Tension made his arm as iron as the door. “Please, if you have any compassion within you, request that my mamá teach you somewhere else. She doesn't leave the Residence as often as she should.” His mouth tightened, then he said, “The place, the broken Vows of Honor, work on her.”

Trif caught his sideways glance.

He continued. “If you can possibly think of
any
excuse to get her out of here and to someplace—cheerful, please. I'd be in your debt.”

We will ask D'Holly to come to Clover Compound,
Greyku said calmly.

What on Celta could they give as a reason for that?

Tinne smiled and appeared more his age. “I'm grateful.”

The big door swung open.

Trif goggled as he led her down large corridors filled with weapons—all arranged in decorative patterns.

“Forbidding, isn't it?” Tinne was back to being severe. Trif didn't like it. She'd seen him, briefly, before the events that had made the Holly Family so cursed, and remembered him as someone much like her own self—optimistic and adventurous and cheerful.

“It's not much like T'Ash or T'Blackthorn Residence, and those are the only ones I know,” she confessed as they walked up a flight of stairs.

His eyes twinkled at her. “You're not such a Common woman, Trif Clover.”

Since she only wanted to wipe her sweaty palms on her tunic, she sincerely doubted that.

They reached a door with the glyph of GreatLady on it, and Trif drew in a shaky breath as Tinne knocked. “Mamá, your new student, Trif Holly, is here.”

D'Holly herself opened her door and gestured them into the sitting room. “Please come in.”

Trif had seen D'Holly a year before at Straif Blackthorn's Residence Empowering Ritual, but the woman before her looked twice as old and fragile. Through the shock, Trif kept a smile on her face and bobbed the best curtsy she could with Greyku balanced on her shoulder. She warily entered the sitting room.

“I have duties. I'll leave you.” Tinne bowed to them, then lifted his mother's thin fingers to his lips and kissed them with real love.

D'Holly shut the door behind him and turned to Trif, who'd been listening to the music wafting through the room with horror. It was hers, all right, one of her improvisations. Oooh, hear that sour note! And that line of melody had gone straight to an inglorious dead end. She could have tweaked it just a bit a few bars earlier and had a real tune.

“Trif Clover?” D'Holly asked.

“Yes.” Her trous were wide-legged enough not to show her trembling knees.

“I like your music.”

Trif winced. “I don't know how you can!”

The GreatLady's eyes lit and she chuckled. “A little raw perhaps, but such an interesting style.”

Trif figured that meant “not good enough.”

I am here too,
announced Greyku, unlatching her claws and leaping down.

“So you are, FamCat,” D'Holly acknowledged. “It's a pleasure to meet you too….” She raised her brows at Trif.

“My kitten's name is Greyku.”

“Greetyou, Greyku.”

Greyku sat in front of D'Holly, tail curled around her paws.
I have heard of you from My friends, FamCats Meserv and Phyl
.

A flash of pain crossed D'Holly's face, but her voice remained cool and steady. “Ah, the Fams of my son and daughter-in-law.”

Surely, D'Holly wasn't supposed to call Holm and Lark her son and daughter-in-law! Hadn't the GreatLady broken her Vow of Honor to accept Lark into the Family? Trif didn't know where to look, so she focused on the small, elegant figure of Greyku.

Meserv and Phyl send their love,
Greyku said matter-of-factly.

D'Holly smile was soft. “Thank you.”

Greyku lifted a paw and studied her tiny pink pads.
Holm and Lark Apple will be in Druida within the next eightday. T'Heather called them to consult with Healer Lark
.

D'Holly's hand reached out for the solid back of a nearby comfortchair and she sank into it. “Thank you for telling me this,” she said, tones husky.

No one said anything, and Trif was painfully aware of the last rattling note of her tin whistle on the music sphere.

Another minute passed; then D'Holly coughed into a softleaf and looked at Trif. “From my own Apprentice days, I do recall that the first thing I did was audition for my teacher.”

Trif jerked a nod, raised the instrument case in her death grip.

Gaze sharpening, D'Holly said, “Let's see what you have there.”

Trif walked over to a table and opened the case. Made especially for her by her father, it contained enough room for her wooden panpipes in a separate bag, her tin whistle, and her silver flute.

D'Holly joined her at the table; her hand drifted over the fine-grained wood of the top of the box, opened the smaller bag to see the panpipes. “Excellent workmanship. And so are the instruments. Did you make the panpipes yourself?”

Trif flushed. “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “The design and where to find the raw material and everything came to me in a dream.”

“Don't be so anxious, child, that is often the way. And I don't bite.”

But the woman could dash Trif 's soaring hope into crystal splinters too small to see but painful in the heart.

“Let's start with this one.” D'Holly's fingers hovered over the silver flute, as if feeling the Flair it so often contained. She tilted her head in question.

Trif nodded and D'Holly picked it up. Trif couldn't tell what the Lady felt from her flute, D'Holly was too experienced a musician for that, but knew it had affected the woman in some way.

D'Holly ran her hands up and down the instrument. “Truly, a wonderful flute. Well seasoned with Flair. You have a superior instrument here.” Her gaze went past Trif to a collection of her own instruments hanging in a wall case behind a shieldspell. “I haven't played my own flute since…I haven't played my flute for a long time.” Her voice was soft and her eyes liquid.

All the nerves Trif had felt about the audition faded. In this moment, her own needs were far less important than this melancholy woman's. It didn't matter how Trif performed. It only mattered that she could use her music to comfort. Gently, she took the flute from D'Holly and with great ceremony, led the woman to a soft twoseat. Greyku stopped her exploration of the room to hop onto D'Holly's lap and curl there.

Trif gauged the best spot in the room acoustically and moved to it, finding the carpet worn. Then she lifted her flute to her lips, summoned her Flair and hoped it wouldn't spike, and thought of her good friend Lark Apple, who was married to this woman's son. How well could D'Holly know Lark? Not very well.

So Trif would tell her of Lark. How Lark loved Holm and he cherished her. How joyful their lives were. And she'd start with compositions of D'Holly herself. As she opened with “Holm and Lark's Wedding Theme,” D'Holly closed her eyes and leaned against the back of the sofa.

Trif forgot all about the great composer and played for the woman. The music swept her away, she pictured Lark as she'd last seen her, high in the air, solar-sailing with an orange tabby cat—Holm's cat—strapped into a bag on her chest. Trif incorporated the beauty of the flight and the softness of the wind into her tune. Lark landed, laughing, and was enveloped by Holm, who swept his HeartMate off her feet and whirled her around, then dipped her in a passionate kiss.

Desire, longing twined through the melody, then the true love of HeartMates, and Trif was no longer playing for D'Holly, but for herself. Once more, she was drawn to the tune that had haunted her since the night she'd created it in the Maypole, as if she'd known her HeartMate was there, listening, and she called him. Just as T'Willow's HeartGift radiated attraction for his woman.

Finally, the last note faded.

D'Holly opened her eyes and smiled softly at Trif. “Wonderful. You have definite talent.” With a final pat, she set Greyku aside, then rose with more energy and vivacity she'd shown so far. “I think we will do very well together. It's past time I had an Apprentice, though you hardly qualify.”

Trif 's mind spun, her lips felt numb. Her hand holding the flute fell to her side. She'd forgotten she was auditioning before the premiere composer of Celta. “Huh?”

Greyku hopped down from the twoseat and bounced over to strop Trif 's legs, purring loudly.
We are getting what We deserve. Good. We are getting MORE
. She sat on Trif 's feet, sending off waves of smugness.

The GreatLady shuffled a few papyruses on her desk, moved some music flexistrips around, and held up a sparkling orange sphere. “Yes, I thought I had a recording sphere on. We'll have to work a little on that last song of yours. Obviously a HeartMate call. Not often done anymore, so I'll set you to studying the form and listening to those which were known to be successful.” She set the orb carefully on a velvet pad.

Flicking her tail against Trif 's leg, Greyku said,
She will show us how to get FamMan.

Interesting notion.

D'Holly touched the rim of a small scrybowl. “D'Holly to NobleCouncil Clerk.”

“Here,” said a supercilious male voice.

“Greetyou,” said D'Holly. “Please note that I have taken a student. Between Apprentice and Journeywoman status, to be under my tutelage for, um”—she tapped her fingers on her cheek—“four years. Ensure she receives the appropriate NobleGilt for expenses. She'll be bound to the usual public performance schedule to earn it.”