So she paced outside in the corridor, passing the teleportationarea, thinking she’d made a mistake, thinking she was doingthe right thing, thinking she wanted Saille.
After thirty-five minutes, she was called back into the room.
“We agree to your experiment,” T’Hawthorn announced. “We have informed the rest of the FirstFamilies.” Which meant Saille, too. She’d felt nothing from him in her bond.
Dufleur and the committee hammered out the details of the experiment, with input from the Ship. The date and time— tomorrow after MiddayBell—and the procedure. When the Ship would take D’Willow off life support, the quarter sept-hour Dufleur would have to attempt to eradicate the disease, when FirstLevel Healers T’Heather and Lark Holly would arrive to examineD’Willow, what they would do if the experiment was a success. Or if it failed.
They left, and the Residence was silent, even though their voices and arguments seemed to buzz in her head long after they were gone.
She tried all evening to reach Saille, first through their narrowedlink, then by scry. Arbusca gently told Dufleur that Saille was spending the night in the Willow HouseHeart.
So she had to stop calling. That was a sacred commitment she couldn’t violate.
Fairyfoot offered to teleport to T’Willow’s and check on Saille, but Dufleur resisted temptation. She knew with a heavy heart that he wouldn’t come to her tonight. Wouldn’t ask her to love in the mossy conservatory.
Midevening she took a mild-sleeping tisane and went to bed.
By tomorrow night it will be all over, Fairyfoot said, smug in her conviction that everything would turn out all right.
By tomorrow night Dufleur’s life would be changed entirely by success or failure.
To distract herself, Dufleur helped her mother supervise the Winterberrys and the Clovers refurbish the new house in the morning.
Then she prepared herself as if for a great ritual.
Nuada’s Sword in Landing Park wasn’t far from D’WinterberryResidence. Just a couple of blocks. Since the Residence didn’t border the park itself, it wasn’t in quite such a desirable location, and the neighborhood had declined since the Residencewas built. Even her new property a few blocks away on a different side of Landing Park was considered more upscale.
All these thoughts crowded her head and kept her outwardly calm as she walked to the Ship. It was a cold day, but her new coat, hat, and gloves were bespelled for warmth, and she’d put a little weathershield around her face. Fairyfoot had been hunting and had decided to go to the ship just before the experiment began.Dufleur wanted to look around once more so she appeared completely in control. She was in control.
Saille caught up with her in the anteroom to the cryonics chamber.
Thirty-one
Saille’s hands curved over her shoulders. His face was sterner than she’d ever seen it, lips compressed, a cold chill in his eyes. “Don’t do this.”
“Is that an order?”
He gave her a tiny shake. “I don’t give my HeartMate orders.Don’t do this. You will ruin a Family.”
“Mine has already been ruined—”
“Yes, by that woman in there. Would you return life and Flair and power to her?”
“I would vindicate my name—and my father’s. I would prove our work is valuable and should be legal.” She spat out, her voice rising. This was not the place to argue so, but she couldn’t control her anger anymore. She poked a finger in his chest. “You, a GreatLord, can practice your Flair openly, are valued for it—”
“That wasn’t always so. I told you I understand how you feel.”
“How can you? Look at you, noble and admired and with a home of your own and a loving Family.” She pulled away, rubbed her hands over her face. “And how low I am to resent you so, becauseyour circumstances have changed.”
“Your circumstances have changed, too. You have gilt from your work, are garnering fame from your art. You can have my Residence and my Family, the warmth and comfort of them, too.”
“It is not the same!” She whirled at him, knowing her face was in ugly lines. Her whole being felt ugly. “Not being able to use my natural talents and Flair openly is eating me alive.” She flung out a hand. “Sooner or later my unfriends or enemies or even well-meaning but frightened people will discover what I am doing. The Ship could report my violations to SupremeJudge Elder, and I could be banished from Druida for the rest of my life.” She shook her head. “Maybe that would be for the best. If I was on a country estate. I should simply go away. Find a place and go away.”
“You would leave me?”
“Saille, I never had you. Or you never had me—saw the real me—always ignored what I was doing.”
“Untrue. I know you. I value you.”
She laughed, and it sounded as bitter as any of her mother’s. “Look at us, fighting. Feel the tension between us.” She waved a hand between them. “I knew this connection was foolish. Wouldn’t work.” That she’d be too selfish and demand more than he could give. That she’d ruin any sort of relationship. Now it had happened, and at least the end had come and she didn’t have to anticipate failure every minute.
Her anger was gone, shot out like fireworks in the previous moments. Hurting her. Hurting her. “I’m not good for you.”
“I will go away with you,” he said. “We have several country estates. Choose one.”
She stared. Managed to keep another ugly laugh short insteadof a long peal. “You would do that for your Family. Your Family first. Then me.”
He strode to her and cupped her face in his palms. His eyes were blue and steady. “I would do it for you. For us. You had only to ask.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He swallowed. His face went impassive. “I know. You don’t believe me. More, you don’t believe in yourself. Which is why you never accepted the HeartBond.” One side of his mouth twisted. “Which is one of the reasons you have to prove yourselfwith this action that will have bad consequences for us all.”
“It will restore our Family reputation. It will get the laws against experimenting with time repealed.”
“Will it?”
Perspiration cooled on her skin. Did that mean he would speak against her? She had just enough sense not to voice that thought. And realized that he’d narrowed the link between them enough that he didn’t hear/feel that doubt. She’d already hurt him too much.
He strode to the door leading to the cryogenics room, pressed a hand to plate. The door opened. “Go. Do what you feel you must do.”
All the anticipation and excitement of the moment, the triumphat proving an enemy wrong had vanished. She hesitated. Perhaps she should abort this experiment. Take Saille up on his offer to leave Druida. Believe in him.
The Ship chronometer pinged. “The artificial life support on GreatLady D’Willow has been removed.”
Dufleur met Saille’s cool gaze. “I want it all,” she said. “I want the Thyme Residence to live in Druida again. I want a good name. I want to experiment with time here.” She licked her lips. “I want you.”
He said nothing. So she walked through the door with a sinkingsensation in her stomach that she had just lost the most importantthing in her life.
The door slid shut behind her. Closing him out. Closing her in with machines and tubes that once held and cherished life but now only housed one spiteful old woman. An enemy once of great power. She told herself that Saille was wrong. Reviving his MotherDam would not harm his Family. He was too much the GreatLord for that. He was too well loved by them all.
“Ship, you assure me that I can use Flair in this chamber.”
“I have monitored the cryonics room, and Captain Elder and I have modified the fields surrounding the chamber so that native Celtan psi power is accessible and that his innate Null powers that suppress your Flair do not encroach upon the room.”
“Thank you.” Keeping her step brisk, she went to one of the largest cylinders. To accommodate the bulk of old D’W
illow. The transparent top had cleared of all mist, showing a heavy, old woman with self-indulgent lines carved in her face.
No, this woman had already lost her Family. Her overreachinghubris in believing she would never be denied anything had already cost her everything.
And all these thoughts and rationalizations and justifications were mind games for Dufleur, staving off the deep hurt imbuing her down to blood and bone. With an underlying panic and despair.If she let it, a fine trembling would overtake her body.
She had to set all emotion aside and do what she’d planned. Clear her father’s name. Restore her right to use her own Flair openly.
Triumph over an enemy.
So she shut emotion away so she could think and act. She was much better at that anyway.
After a deep breath, she pressed the key to slide open the top of the capsule and placed her hands on the woman’s flesh. She was alive, and so was the virus.
Dufleur gathered the motes of the Celtan Time Wind around her, sent them into each virus nucleus. Then she shifted into the Time Wind and brought the cells with her, sped forward two minutes, accelerating time and the virus’s processes, then jumped back a full five minutes.
The virus died.
She leaned heavily on the cryonics tube, letting it support her. Even now there was no joy. At the success of her experiment.At the knowledge she could duplicate it. Even though she believed she could form an equation to have time follow her steps and make a device that Healers could use.
She could save lives. And she was sure that this process could be duplicated with other viri. She’d cleared the Thyme name; her father’s reputation and her own were now shown to be brilliant and honorable.
And it was all hollow.
Somehow, in the last few weeks, she’d become more than Dufleur ThymeHeir, the researcher of time, whose work was more important to her than anything else.
She’d become the loving HeartMate of Saille T’Willow. And nothing was more important than loving him, and being loved by him. Why had she discovered that so late?
The door opened, and she whirled. He’d come back!
No. FirstLevel Healers GreatLord T’Heather and Lark Holly walked in.
T’Heather quickened his stride. “You’re done? Ahead of schedule?”
Dufleur tottered to a nearby built-in bench. “I began as agreed, when the Ship removed Willow’s life support.”
“Open the tube,” T’Heather commanded, and Dufleur watched dully as the top of the cylinder slid away. He placed a hand on Willow’s chest. “She lives.” He frowned, glanced at Dufleur. “The virus is dead.”
Lark Holly walked over to Dufleur, put her hands under Dufleur’s chin, and forced Dufleur to meet her eyes. Dufleur felt a surge of energy as Lark transferred some of her own strength to her. Lark had been her physician after the attack, and there was a bond between them. “You are very low on energy and need rest. I will call a glider to take you home.” Lark rubbed Dufleur’s shoulder, then went to join T’Heather and revive Willow to full consciousness.
Home, where was home? She had none. Not Winterberry Residence,which was readying itself for the new Family of Meyar, his son, daughter-in-law, and Son’sSon. Not D’Thyme Residence,which existed as a kernel. Not the house that had once belongedto a murderer.
Not Willow Residence.
Saille didn’t want her now.
With snorting breaths and sputters and a series of groans, the former D’Willow awoke. It took nearly a half septhour before she was helped to a sitting position by the Healers. At that, Dufleur looked away. The Healers might be used to nudity in all kinds of patients, but Dufleur wasn’t. Great Flair demanded great energy, and sometimes people overate to compensate.
After a bout of coughing, Willow said, “I am back. I knew I would be revived. And here are old T’Heather and his Daughter’s Daughter, not appearing a day older. How much time has passed?”
“Five months, one eightday, five days, twelve and a half septhours exactly,” Dufleur said automatically.
“Who’s that?”
“Dufleur Thyme, she who destroyed the virus in your body with a manipulation of time,” T’Heather said.
Willow coughed again. “Interesting. I didn’t know I’d left any of old Thyme’s notes when Agave and I paid him that last visit.”
That propelled Dufleur to her feet. “My Saille was right. It was you. You were my father’s silent partner.”
“And a poor partner he was, too. He didn’t get the job done, did he? So I demanded he give his notes to Agave, who was showing more signs of success.”
Dufleur stared, pulse racing, horror creeping over her. “You were there when Agave and my father fought.”
“I had the passwords to Thyme Residence, so Agave and I could get the notes.”
“It was you all along.”
“I paid your father good gilt for his worthless work.”
“I think you should keep quiet now, D’Willow, for your own sake,” T’Heather said grimly.
“All because of you. You brought Agave into our home, demandedmy father’s studies.” Oh, yes, she could see the whole scenario now, and it sickened her. “Agave and my father fought, and the lab exploded. Then you blamed my father for the explosion.Vilified his name. What have I done?” She wrapped her arms around herself. Her knees gave out, and she fell again to the bench. She’d been wrong all along. Saille had been right. This woman wasn’t worth saving.
This woman would always cause problems, with her determinationto get her own way, her selfishness, her hubris.
T’Heather and Lark stepped back from the tube. “The virus is gone, but the effects it had on your health are not.”
Willow commanded, “A robe if you please!”
“We didn’t bring one,” Lark said. “You should be able to Summon one from T’Willow Residence.”
“I am D’Willow.”
“No,” Dufleur said. This much at least she could do to protectthe Willows from this tyrant. “T’Willow is Head of the Household now. Your Daughter’sSon. I think the best way to determinewho retains the title is . . . is to Test each with T’Ash’s Testing Stones. That will show who has the best Flair.” She had no doubt Saille, her Saille, would triumph.
Triumph. The word tasted like ashes in her mouth, dry, dusty, dead.
“In my medical opinion, the strain of being D’Willow, Head of a FirstFamilies GreatHouse, would be too hard on your health,” T’Heather said briskly.
“No!” Willow shouted. She put a hand over her chest. Her color had been high, but now grayed. “No robe. What a miserableplace this is. What lack of foresight you all had.” She breathed so heavily Dufleur could easily hear her.
“Calm, GreatMistrys Willow,” Lark said coolly, using the titlefor a lesser member of a FirstFamily.
“No! I am D’Willow. I will remain D’Willow.”
“I don’t think so.” Dufleur stood, shaking, from anger, from grief, from disgust, from horror. All mixed together. “It’s obviousyou have little Flair.” One of her Saille’s secrets. His MotherDamhad lost her powers. When? The consequences of her practicing her craft without Flair staggered Dufleur. That was some of the business Saille had been pursuing, and Dufleur hadn’t given him the comfort he needed, when he’d always given her tenderness.
Yes, she felt sick. A wave of nausea had her folding on herself. Lark Holly was with her. “Steady.” Her tone, as well as her arm around Lark’s shoulders, was warm. At her touch, the sickness subsided.
“What have I done?” whispered Dufleur.
“Followed your craft.”
Willow screeched. “It’s this Ship! This cursed Ship has stolen my Flair!”
“D’Willow,” T’Heather said.
She batted his hand on her arm aside.
With a muttered oath, T’Heather produced a voluminous robe and shoved it at her.
“I will sue this Ship. I will ruin—”
“That’s enough.” SupremeJudge Ailim Elder swept in,
lookingstern, scanning the room with one glance, blinking.
Dufleur knew the telempath sensed T’Heather’s frustration, Lark’s concern for Dufleur, Dufleur’s sickness of the heart.
The SupremeJudge put both hands in the large opposite sleeves of her purple judge’s robe. "GreatMistrys Willow, this Ship is a curious, rational, and methodological being. It can measure an individual’s Flair almost as precisely as T’Ash’s Testing Stones. And of course it keeps records. It will have a reading of your Flair when it contracted with you to use the cryogenics tube.”
Willow gasped, flushed once more, and donned the robe.
“Furthermore, T’Willow and I had a conversation a while ago about your hiding the HeartMates of his Family from them, which, in my judicial opinion, is an abuse of Flair.”
“What?” said Lark, appearing fascinated.
“I must go,” whispered Dufleur, wondering how she could fix this mess. It appeared as if Ailim Elder might mend it legally, but morally Dufleur still had the responsibility of helpingSaille and his Family deal with the angry GreatMistrys Willow.
She could do it. Face an unhappy FirstFamily that had sufferedfrom her actions.
She would do it.
As soon as she recovered her strength. She wobbled to the door with Lark’s help, ignoring T’Heather’s rumbling admonishmentsto the former D’Willow.
“We have a glider waiting to take you to T’Winterberry Residence,” SupremeJudge Elder said kindly.
“Thank you.”
The judge glanced at T’Heather and Willow. “I think we’ve given her enough to think about. I’ll accompany you out.”
Moving slowly, regret in every step, Dufleur left the Ship, defeated.
The glider was new, with Meyar T’Winterberry’s arms tinted on the side. Fairyfoot waited inside, whiskers and tail twitching in irritation. I was too late. Ship started the experiment before We agreed and then would not let Me inside. I should have been there. I am Time Cat now. We were right, We were right. We were right!
But as soon as the door shut behind her, Dufleur let the sobs come, fumbled in her pursenal for softleaves.
Fairyfoot purred and curled on her lap. Why do you hurt?
Heart Dance Page 32
