Heart Fire (Celta Book 13) (14 page)

The House
glowed
, a vibrant, shiny turquoise. It was a modified U shape with small angled corners instead of sharp ones. On either side of the U were additional room-blocks that appeared to extend from front to back.

Then the glider door lifted and cool spring air flowed around her. The morning had alternated sunny and cloudy, rather like her life at the moment.

Before she exited the vehicle, she said, “GreatCircle Temple glider, please wait, and disregard any orders by my Fam, Felonerb RatKiller, unless I confirm them.” She sure could have used the vehicle yesterday.

“Yes, Priestess,” the automatic voice of the glider responded.

The black-tinted wooden door opened and she walked into the entryway of the House.

“Greetyou, FirstLevel Priestess Tiana Mugwort! I am pleased to meet you. I like your sister, Artemisia, and your brother-in-law very much and am glad you are here,” the House said.

Good thing she was accustomed to talking to a Residence . . . another blessing she needed to keep in mind. Lower Nobles such as her Family didn’t often live in sentient Houses, but she had for years, and perhaps that was why the Turquoise House was being so generous.

“Thank you, Turquoise House. I am pleased to be here,” she said, and it wasn’t even a fib. She glanced around the entryway, which held built-in closets and plush cushions on enclosed benches set against the pale gold walls, along with a couple of wardrobes.

“Please call me TQ. I am large and beautiful; please tour me and choose your rooms. I would recommend the MasterSuite or the MistrysSuite that is attached . . . I have a lot of space for an office and a den and a library and a mainspace or
two
or a playroom . . .”

“You overwhelm me.” Tiana’s breath had caught at the very idea of having all that space—a whole
House
—to herself. Mind boggling enough that she didn’t realize for a few seconds that her Fam was nowhere in sight.

“Felonerb!” she called, and her voice echoed in emptiness and a trace of panic surged through her. She’d never lived alone. She gasped.

“Your heart rate has increased,” TQ said. “What is wrong?”

“I–I–”

“Felonerb, your FamWoman needs you!” TQ sent the demand through the House. Tiana thought she heard windows rattle. She sank onto the bench. “I’ve never lived alone.”

“You have me,” TQ pointed out.

“Yes.”

Felonerb shot through the corridor doorway at the far side of the room and skidded in front of her, then leapt to the bench, her lap, her shoulder.
You have ME, too. This is a WONDERFUL place.

“What rooms would you like?” TQ asked.

“Ah, a bedroom.”

We have a bedroom and another room at home
, Felonerb said.
And two rooms at GreatCircle Temple, too! My FamWoman got a promotion the day she got Me, too. It was a WONDERFUL day.

Tiana yelped and rubbed her temples.

“What is wrong?” TQ asked.

“I have an incipient migraine,” she mumbled.

“I have a fully stocked medical closet,” TQ said with pride. “Come, look at my rooms. Most are empty of furnishings since I changed my mind about redecorating after your sister and her HeartMate left last year. I decided to repurpose my chambers, move inner walls and the like.”

“Oh.” Tiana rose, stretched long and hard to release tension. This time Felonerb stayed close and began sniffing around the baseboards.

“But we will be able to choose what you like and make the rooms what you want!” TQ said.

“Sounds great.” Now she did some strong, rhythmic breathing. These last two days were shredding her calm in more ways than one. “But I don’t know how long I’ll be here.”

“I do not know how long it takes to build a cathedral, do you?” TQ asked.

“No.” She managed a smile. “Another question I didn’t ask.” She thought a little. “Though the Chief Ministers of the Intersection of Hope might have said in their talk with the newssheets this morning.”

“I will review that as you look around!”

“You can do that?”

“Oh, yes. I have combination scry-viz panels in most of my rooms. Here you are at the main corridor; the old MasterSuite and MistrysSuite is to your right. To your left are areas that can be mainspaces or the library or the playroom or a den or—”

“I understand. Where is the medical cabinet?”

“In the MistrysSuite waterfall room. You should look at it first, perhaps.”

“That sounds good.”

I know where it is! I will show you!
Felonerb angled into the corridor and to the right.

S
he listened to both TQ and Felonerb as she walked through the House and checked out the rooms. Some were obviously guest bedrooms; others could be anything.

“I am very pleased with my new MasterSuite and MistrysSuite. They compose one of my short wings with views of the courtyard and the south side gardens,” TQ said.

Standing in the MasterSuite—a bedroom with a sitting room on one side and a waterfall room that was as large as her bedroom in BalmHeal Residence, then a dressing room—she decided it simply was too large for her, especially since there was probably another whole set of rooms like it.

“This is made for a couple,” she said.

“Yes,” replied TQ. “But you are very welcome to have it. You will be comfortable here.”

Felonerb hopped onto the one piece of furniture, a massive bed, kneaded it, grinned.
We are a couple.

“It’s made for a human couple. And, so far, you’ve liked to sleep in your own space.” She wasn’t sure whether she wanted that to be different or not.

Easier to come and go without waking you.
He tried to appear innocent.

“That expression doesn’t work on you, Felonerb. I will never mind if you come and go as you please.”

TQ made a noise that sounded like a human snort. “All of my outside walls can accommodate a Fam door of several sizes. I have learned the art. Though currently I have small cat doors.” There was a
swish
and Felonerb sped from the bed through the door in the wall into the gardens.

“The medicine cabinet is in the MistrysSuite waterfall room. You enter the MistrysSuite through the dressing room.” Now it sounded uncertain . . . so far TQ had a wide range of expression, and Tiana abruptly recalled that an actor had read for the House when it was younger and given it his voice.

Her turn to ask, “What’s wrong?”

“I anticipated that you would like the MasterSuite. The MistrysSuite doesn’t have even a bed.”

“No worries,” she managed. Her headache began to pound in earnest. “A bedroom and sitting room will be fine with me.”

“You need a private waterfall room, too. I have found that my ladies prefer this.”

“All right.” After going through the masculine dressing room to the bare MistrysSuite dressing room and finding herself in a beautiful waterfall room staring at a huge tub, the large waterfall enclosure of beige marble with threads of brown, she agreed that a private waterfall room was necessary. Against one wall stood a built-in cabinet of many drawers. The piece looked a lot like a cabinet in BalmHeal Residence that her mother and sister used. She swallowed and headed straight to the drawer that might hold her migraine herbs. “My sister set this up?”

“Yes, and stocked it. I do not have a stillroom, but I could make one! Would you like a stillroom?”

“Thank you, no.” She drew out the drawer and there was a small dissolvable envelope that contained her migraine herbs, and she said a quiet blessing. “Thank you,
so
much, Turquoise House. With this, I should be able to make it through the day.” And all the night that she would be working on a ritual for the Intersection of Hope.

“There is a full no-time in your—the MistrysSuite—sitting room, and a beverage one in your bedroom. I believe those herbs go into a mixture that I have in both no-times.”

“Wonderful.” She moved from the waterfall room to the bedroom, saw one of the panels of the room open and the no-time extrude, that door opening, too. Moving fast, she grabbed the hot mixture in a tall pale-blue mug, dumped the herbs in, said the spell she knew, and sent Flair to the whole thing. She added a blessing and a prayer and barely waited until it was cool enough to drink.

Then the migraine receded, which was good, because when the catfight erupted, she was ready.

Yowls, cat screeches. She jogged through the suites back to the corridor and the south door. The minute she opened it a ball of spitting cats rolled in, Felonerb and a long-haired gray. “Stop!”

They didn’t listen. Too bad her cup was empty.

But she’d gotten her second wind and snapped her fingers above the combatants and drew water from the humid atmosphere to spray down on the cats.

With a shriek Felonerb jumped to her shoulder, arched, and growled,
You are a common Cat. You are not a Fam!

The gray cat hunkered down and hissed, his nose bloody.

“Easy,” Tiana soothed, sending waves of calm toward them, wondering if such Flair would work.

With a low, rumbling growl the cat inched back toward the open door, ears flat, eyes darting as if watching every centimeter for threat.

“Turquoise House, is this cat one of your ferals?” Tiana asked.

“Yes, Tiana. I have five who live on my grounds and whom I feed.” The House’s voice hardened and echoed through the corridor. “Felonerb RatKiller, I am
not
pleased with you. I consider my land neutral territory for all animals.”

Felonerb hissed loudly in her ear.

“Stop that,” Tiana said. “We are guests here and we will abide by the Turquoise House’s rules.” She paused. “Unless you’d like to return home while I stay here. Or, I could ask the Licorices who live in CityCenter to put us up. Of course, you wouldn’t be the primary
indoor House
Fam.”

Grumble-growls sounded in his throat. The other cat reached the threshold of the door and bolted.

Felonerb sat up straight. She felt something wet soak through her tunic. Blood. Great. She was going through clothes at an alarming rate and only hoped that the Whirlwind Spell had included a little protection.

I will accept moving to your other friend’s Residence, T’Hawthorn Residence.

“Because you know you can intimidate—so far—the Hawthorn FamCats?” Tiana asked. “I don’t think so. T’Hawthorn Residence is far in Noble Country, and the reason we are here at all is that I need to be available if the Chief Ministers have questions. So your choices are here or at the Licorices’. And I want you to respect the cats who are not Fams.”

Felonerb jumped off her shoulder in the direction of the main part of the House. Tiana turned to watch as he sashayed, tail up.
I am going to find My OWN room.

“Just as I thought,” Tiana said quietly. “You really don’t want a companion, just a warm home.”

That seemed to electrify Felonerb. All his hair stood out and he literally hopped in a half circle, spattering droplets of blood in an arc, and raced toward Tiana. That he didn’t teleport meant that he was running low on his Flair, too.
Nooo!
he wailed. He jumped straight at her and she caught him. He snuggled in, even as he nipped her arm.
You are MY FamWoman.

She wondered how long playing the guilt card would last, probably just once, though it wouldn’t have worked at all if she hadn’t felt exactly the way she said.

A long-suffering sigh.
I will stay here and in a closet near you.

“Perhaps a connecting room,” TQ said.

“Yesss,” Felonerb verbalized.

“Family is very important,” TQ continued. A creak came. “And speaking of homes. I would like a good, solid home for my feral cats in the far corner of the yard. The winter was hard on them. But it must be designed so they will accept each other.”

Swish!
The floor where Felonerb had been showed no blood. TQ continued, “Maybe we can find someone to plan and model it for me?”

Tiana petted Felonerb. “If it helps territorial disputes, I’m all for it.”

Flair hummed in the air as TQ muttered, “Perhaps a multilevel structure with exit and entrance holes.”

Ramps, too
, Felonerb said.
Some of those cats can’t teleport.

“Ramps,” TQ said. “You’ll help me with this, Tiana? If you will look out the MasterSuite sitting room, I will show you where I want my ferals’ house.”

“All right.” Still holding Felonerb, she went to the back window and stared at the far corner of the property, delineated by a nice wooden fence with artistic holes for Fam—no, just animal—entrances and exits.

“You will help?” asked TQ.

“Of course.”

A long creak that sounded as if he were considering something, and then TQ said, “You asked a question earlier about the length of time you might spend with me. I have reviewed a bit of the press conference of the Intersection of Hope Chief Ministers and the High Priest and High Priestess and the architect.”

Tiana pulled herself away from watching the cats outside move in some status patterns. “Yes, what did the FirstLevel Architect say?”

“He could not say exactly for raising such a large structure, but the range he gave was from three to seven months.”

“Seven months!” So long living alone, away from her Family.

“I have reviewed the materials I have on Earthan cathedrals. Most took many years, at least a decade to build, one or two a century. Of course that is Earthan centuries, which are shorter than ours because we have longer hours and days due to our planet’s rotation around the sun.” A pause, and TQ’s voice came back rougher. “I was unaware that Antenn was contemplating such a project.”

“You know him?”

“He was one of my first tenants,” TQ said proudly, then added in a softer tone, “Though he was only with me for a short time.”

“Oh.”

“I never decorated for him, though. Mitchella was the one who had all the ideas and has mostly designed me through the years.”

“Antenn’s mother, GrandLady D’Blackthorn.”

“Yes. Now which rooms do you want?”

“Ah, I
would
like a small suite. Perhaps a guest suite with bedroom, sitting room, and waterfall room.” An image came to her mind. “In my sitting room, I’d like a desk set against a window that looks out to the gardens.”

“Perhaps you would like the northeast corner suite? There are rooms that face the back grassyard and the flower beds on the north side of the House and my hedgerow and trees?”

“I’ll look.”

The end of the hallway showed a polished wooden pointed-arch door. She opened it, and the soothing dimness of the light appealed to her more than the brightness of the MasterSuite, or the MistrysSuite with the large windows on all sides, and the main one facing the front courtyard.

This room was larger than she needed, nearly as large as the MasterSuite at the opposite end of the House. “Open the north wall paneling,” TQ said, and Tiana gasped as the narrow slats of the wall folded back to reveal a simple sunroom with long sections of glass angling downward, then curving at the top and forming a straight wall.

“Oh.”

“Is that good or bad?” TQ asked.

“It is wonderful.”

Felonerb jumped from her arms and began to sniff around the room, rubbing his nose now and then on the glass, leaving smears that had Tiana wincing.

TQ said, “I had the room made from a porch. The porch on the opposite side of the House is used for storage of food and items for the feral cats.”

“Yesss,” hissed Felonerb, grinning and staring at a couple of the cats peering at him from low bushes.
And I am the only Cat here in THIS room! Mine, mine, mine . . .

Before he could finish the possessive claim of six “mines,” Tiana said, “Ours.”

“I’m glad you like it,” TQ said. He hesitated. “BalmHeal Residence has boasted of his conservatory.”

“Yes, the conservatory is large and very . . . intricate, lacy iron and glass. I like this room much better. Is the glass armored?”

“Yes, and I have the very latest in spellshields!”

Tiana wasn’t surprised, now. This House-becoming-a-Residence was a real gem. “I’m honored that you have accepted me as an occupant.”

We will be wonderful occupants
, Felonerb said.
WHERE IS MY ROOM?
he shouted telepathically.

“I will remind you, cat, that I can hear your mental voice quite well. No need to shout,” TQ said. “You may have the room next door to this sitting room. It is large for a Fam companion’s den . . .”

I am a SPECIAL Fam.

“So all cats believe,” TQ said. “But I think I might have a wall inserted and make you a very cozy room
just
for you.”