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Tinne was not in good shape the next morning. Barely competent
enough to handle the beginning class. Tab said nothing, but watched with a keen eye. When NoonBell came, after the last morning students left, the older man walked over, the roll of a seaman in his stride. He handed Tinne one of the mugs he carried. Tinne smelled the nasty Restore herbal drink but said nothing and drank half of it down.
“Didn't sleep well,” Tab said.
Tinne reached for a towel and wiped his forehead. He'd been hot all morning. Hot all last night, too. Nightmare landscapes of deathduels had haunted him. “No.”
Tab sipped his own drink. The scent of rich cocoa, whitemousse, and a sprinkle of cinnamon came to Tinne's nose.
“Got scries in the message cache for you.” Tab scratched his chin. “Healers, T'Heather and D'Sea. Want a follow-up meetin'.”
Tinne flinched. “Lord and Lady, no!”
“Nope,” Tab agreed. “Don't want ya lookin' like somethin' Ilexa pounced and played with when ya' see those folks again. Told them ya'd see 'em tomorra.”
“Thanks.”
“So ya gotta look better tomorra.”
Sinking into his balance, Tinne said, “I will.”
“Good. Messages from the Turquoise House and Mitchella D'Blackthorn. Somethin' about actors.” Tab sipped again, snorted a laugh. “Many messages from that young House. Take a long lunch an' see what's goin' on.”
“All right.” Tinne flung his head back and poured the last of his drink down his gullet, hoping to avoid the bitter dregs. They stuck to the back of his tongue. Tab offered his mug and with a wry smile, Tinne took it, let the rich flavor banish the Restore herbs. Someone should be able to make a better-tasting energy drink than that. Maybe Lahsin . . .
Everything clicked into place. He'd had surges of Flair last night that had thrown his teleportation off. Felt the heat of Passage like the fever during his Passage deathduels.
Experienced his deathduels again.
Passage! Lahsin's first true fugue had come.
Blood drained from his head. He
reached
for the bond between them. The strand pulsed sluggishly. She was alive. He couldn't tell more.
Tab plucked his mug from Tinne's hand and eyed him sharply.
He couldn't speak of this, not even to Tab. “I need to go.”
Jerking a head at the door, Tab said, “Go.”
Tinne headed for the office teleportation pad. Tab grabbed his arm in an iron grip. “No. Ordered a glider for ya' from T'Holly. Belated New Year's gift, your father said.”
“Huh. Don't want a glider.”
Tab's eyebrows rose. “You will use the glider. I don't want you expending your Flair so much that you can't work well.”
More heatâembarrassmentâflooded him. “Yes, sir.”
Releasing him, Tab drank the rest of his cocoa, waved to the door. “Go. Be back by MidAfternoonBell, lookin' better.”
“Yes, sir.” Walking fast, but trying to look casual, Tinne went to the closet where his coat hung, put it on, nodded again at Tab, and strode out the door.
Winced again.
Outside there was a flashy two-seated glider in Holly green with silver trim. It had gathered a small crowd.
Furthermore, one of his distant cuzes who worked in T'Holly Residence grinned at him. T'Holly had provided a driver. Tinne could
not
take this vehicle to FirstGrove. He tried a smile at his cuz, and the man didn't seem to see anything wrong. Tinne lifted the door and climbed in. “The Turquoise House.”
“Sure, Tinne.”
“I have some business there, and”âhe swallowed and liedâ“want a rest.”
“Can see that,” his cuz said cheerfully.
Tinne didn't grind his teeth, but wanted to. “You can play with the glider until half septhour before MidAfternoonBell.” The force of the acceleration slammed him back into the cushiony seat.
“Huzzah!”
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The whoosh of the glider hadn't faded before Tinne ran into the
Turquoise House to the teleportation room. Adrenaline had washed away some of the weariness.
“Tinne, I have been scwying all morning!”
“House, in the future you are only allowed one scry in the morning and one scry in the afternoon to my business unless a person tells you it's an emergency.”
Subdued, the House said, “Yeth, Tinne.”
He knew that tone. “Sorry to hurt your feelings.” He envisioned the overgrown door nearest to the Healing pool. The image broke up. He was too distracted. “What do you need?”
“Authorization for more actors to read. Scheduling adviceâ” the House used Mitchella's clipped, irritated voice.
“Done. Schedule as you please.”
“Yes, Tinne.”
One breath in, visualize the door to the estate. The stalks around the door were brown and brittle. Second breath in. The doorway itself was deep enough to have shadows, cold in the winter, light slanted
so
at this time of day.
And three, and he was there. No problems this time.
He pressed the latch and the door swung open easily.
Lahsin!
he yelled mentally.
Twenty
Tinne? Lahsin's mental voice sounded startled, as tired as he felt.
But it had a quality he couldn't name, a comfort that he noticed but brushed aside for more important matters.
Loping through the bare hedgerows that were still dense enough to block sight, he ran to the Healing pool. She was there, soaking in her favorite spot, a paleness under her peachy skin that he didn't like seeing.
“What's wrong?” she asked.
He stopped short. What to say? It was illegal to tell her they were HeartMates, and he didn't want to, anyway.
Would she have called for him? For her HeartMate? Or for Tinne himself? Could he have missed such a call?
She hadn't
touched
him as a HeartMate. He'd have felt that. There had been no erotic dreams. He'd never had erotic dreams of Lahsin. Had feathered against her mind, her
self
, during his own Passages, but had never experienced those legendary dreams.
He wanted her to tell him about her Passage without prompting and was surprised at how much he wanted her confidences.
He looked at her, pretty face turning from child to woman, pretty body with high round breasts lifted by the water, hips curving from a small waist. Beautiful eyes, dark, dark green. No wonder he'd been aroused by her hands the night before. Best shove those thoughts away right
now
so he wouldn't be in the same state when he undressed.
Meeting her eyes, he grimaced. How much to tell her? “Bad night. Still haven't recovered. G'Uncle Tab who runs the Green Knight told me to take a coupla septhours off.” Was that statement vulnerable enough for her? He'd spilled his guts last night and didn't want to do so again. He shucked his clothes, and the cold stone under his feet curling his toes was enough to stop any incipient arousal. Then he dove into the pool.
The water, as always, glided over his skin like silkeen, both soothing his aches and stimulating the blood flow. The other HealingHall pools of Celta had
nothing
on this one. Maybe he'd tell his sister-in-law, Lark, of it. He trusted her, and she was a FirstLevel Healer. Not that she could enter, but some Healer probably should know. Then he surrendered to the movement of his arms and legs, the water around him, breathing.
When the rough edges inside him had eased, snicking into a good whole, he moved to a warmer part of the pool to soak. It was just a meter along the curve from Lahsin's preferred spot, on the same underwater bench. “Do you mind?” he asked.
“No,” she said, matching his gaze, a good sign. Her eyes were clear. She didn't look at his body, but he'd seen her peek when he stripped. He'd be physically attractive to her, HeartMates were.
“Heat is great here, no wonder you like this spot,” he murmured as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. A thought occurred to him, and he sat straighter and stared at her. “Have you been warm enough at night? Do the places you've stayed have heat?”
“Warm enough,” she muttered. “Yes.” She glanced away, then back at him. Her shoulders shifted. Ah! She
would
reveal a confidence. Good. Good because she needed to let him get closer. Because it was sad that she was afraid of men. No, because she needed to learn how to defend herself, and he couldn't teach her if he couldn't touch her to correct her stance, her form.
Her smile was a slight curve of the lips. “Did you read any of the stories in the newssheets about me?”
He frowned. He knew a lot about her. Most instinctively from the link strengthening between them. He sensed she was nervous, not from his proximity, but because she worried about his image of her. Also good. “I read a little.” He shrugged.
“Then you know that I'm going through my Second Passage.”
“You mentioned that yesterday. Yes.” His heart gave a hard thump in his chest. “Going through. Present tense.”
She gave a short nod, didn't look away. “I've had surges before, but last night was the first real fever dream . . .” Now she lowered her gaze, sank down into the water.
“Cave of the Dark Goddess. I shouldn't have left you.”
Her head swung back, surprise in her eyes. She stared. “Maybe some Nobles
do
follow their precious code of honor.”
The statement wasn't exactly an unqualified endorsement of him. He flicked away momentary hurt. Any progress she made trusting men was good. “So you had a dreamquest last night?”
“Yes.” A line knit between her brows. “But I need to know more about Passage.” She looked away. “The Yews didn't prepare me.” Bitterness laced her voice. “I asked BalmHeal Residence to access its ResidenceLibrary for me this morning, but it's not speaking to me, only creaking and slamming doors.”
She turned to look in the shadows, and Tinne followed her gaze. The dog was lying there, watching them both warily. “Dogs, of course, do not have Passages.”
There was a loud sniff, and the dog rose to his feet and pointed his nose toward some thick bushes. Ilexa jumped a hedge.
Cats do not have Passages, either.
Lip lifted in a sneer, she ran around the end of the pool to settle herself on Tinne's clothes on the bench.
But Fams can experience Passages with Our Person.
Slanting her gaze at Tinne, she said,
I was with Tinne
.
Tinne grimaced a smile. “I'll tell you what I can, but Passage is different for the Hollys than other Families.” He studied her again. She was young, innocent in many ways. This next little bit wouldn't reassure her. Fligger.
He focused his gaze beyond her to the bare grape arbor across the way. “Hollys have deathduels during Passage.”
Her delicate arching brows dipped. “Deathduels.” Her dark green gaze steadied on his again. “Is that like it sounds?”
“Pretty much.” He shifted. “The heat of Passage overcomes us, and we don't think. We go looking for trouble.”
“And the death part . . .”
One of the old scars he'd gotten during his Second Passage at seventeen suddenly ached. He rubbed his shoulder. “That's real. Downwind taverns and the gang wars was my Second Passage. Ilexa nearly died.”
“That's how you got your scars!” Her gaze flew away. “Sorry, that was rude.”
“No, it was true,” he corrected. “We Hollys don't worry much about scars. A lot of them came from Second Passage and the war with gangs Downwind.” But some didn't. He touched his side where he'd lost a kidney, his chest where he'd nearly lost his life. “But later we feuded with the Hawthorns. Street duels.”
Her mouth hung open a little.
The spot over his left middle rib throbbed, and he ignored it. He didn't want to think of those particular scars. Falling, falling, falling through space. The rough landing, cracked ribs, blood, bruises. The trek from the north to home in Druida.
He glanced at her again and realized his silence had been too long, she was studying him. Dammit, he
was
rubbing his ribs.
“What about Third Passage? You
have
had that, right?”
“Yes, recently.” His laugh was half amused. “I can access my full Flair. Not many wanted to fight with me during Third Passage.” He'd keep this short. During Third Passage he'd touched her once, maybe long enough for her to recollect if he nudged her memory. “One small incident with thieves inside the city.”
He pushed off the wall to zoom to the other side of the pool, pulled himself out.
“I didn't bring new ointment. I need to make more,” she said.
He didn't tell her that Tab's favorite herbalist had recognized the recipe and already delivered jars of the stuff. Tinne knew about pride and favors, everyone born of the FirstFamilies learned about pride and favors before grovestudy. “That's all right. Just as well, I have classes to teach this afternoon. All of them, probably.” With a Word he dried himself, and a couplet took care of clothing himself.
He turned and thought he caught her staring at his butt. “Have you been repeating that phrase I gave you?”
She nodded.
“You think you can handle my touch?”
Mouth set, she nodded again.
“Good. I'll be back later this evening for
your
first lesson in self-defense. Which attack do you want to learn to handle the mostâ from the front, side, or back?”
She went pale, swallowed, and said, “Back.”
He quieted his tones, sending Flair in them to reach her across the water. “Can you deal with that position?”