the purple leather desk set and writestick. Garrett would be lucky to ever find those, the objects that started this whole thing.
Too bad because he knew Laev T’Hawthorn cherished the things.
Pawnshops, perhaps, but not as likely as other stores. Less busy places and those not frequented by the FirstFamilies, or maybe nobles at all. Lesser nobility ... like she’d been before she’d determinedly married up. Tricked Laev into marrying her. Yep, still judging a dead woman, even when he’d admonished himself not to. Had to work on that.
But it seemed she continued to make trouble even after her death.
If she actually sold items ... and would she? Garrett thought so. An angry woman would do that. Dump minor items in the pigsty, sell better pieces, give away others to her relatives and, if the Residence was to be believed, her lovers.
They entered a square a few blocks away from CityCenter and he parked the glider in one of the usually-open spaces for such a vehicle. Only the rich could afford a glider.
Garrett liked the public carrier system, but no doubt the glider got him here faster, and before minor shops closed.
Respectable. Wouldn’t Nivea Hawthorn want that? A respectable shop that would pay her good gilt. Perhaps a store she’d usually sneer at?
Oh, yes, the more Garrett tried to get in her head, the less he liked her.
So he left and shielded the glider, and smiled as Calico hopped around, squealing with delight at being somewhere new.
The third store he and Calico entered, she stilled in his arms, and he felt the prickle of her interest.
Something is HERE! Some Hawthorn thing! She leapt from his arms, went over to the wide shelf of the left front window, stretched tall and pawed at a small object.
No one objected since no one stood behind the counter. Bells attached to the door had rung when they’d entered, but he and the cat still had the shop to themselves.
The object clinked to the floor, and, sure enough, when Garrett moved over to pick the piece up, he found a ring. Since he couldn’t examine it well in the dim light, he flicked a small burst of temporary light into existence, studied the ring and the papyrus that described the heirloom. There did appear to be some sort of etched symbol, perhaps the listed dragonfly, engraved on the inside back of the ring.
Glancing down at the cat, he said, “You’re sure this a Hawthorn piece?”
It smells-hears-feels like Hawthorn! I will show You! Her mind brushed against his and widened, and his own Flair spiraled out to meet hers, and he felt as she did. Sensed as she did, the smell-sound-vibration-feel of the ring that spoke to her of ... reverberations of rich time-centuries of T’Hawthorn Residence.
Her focus sharpened until she projected the mental-emotional resonances of the Hawthorns themselves.
See, smell, feel, listen? she ended, full of satisfaction.
Yeah, he responded to her mentally, but when his blurred vision cleared, he found he’d braced himself with a hand on the wall to stay upright.
This particular Familiar Companion Flair felt a little too alien for him to use, but he honed in on the feeling of the Hawthorn item. Cool, not radiating huge emotions. The original faint sense of pleasure when the young girl had received it.
Garrett pondered the basic feeling-sense he’d gotten from Calico that she designated as Hawthorn.
Clean and cold and edgy.
Risk.
That brought him up short. Risk. Not ambition or greed or anything else, but risk, the basic characteristic of the Hawthorn Family. If they hadn’t been one of the highest, wealthiest, most powerful Families on Celta, they’d be adventurers.
But that’s what got them to Celta, wasn’t it? The Earthan ancestors of the Hawthorns had risked everything to come to a new planet ... had plunked down a lot of gilt to finance the starships, and be encased in a cryonics tube for the voyage. Sure sounded risky to Garrett.
Risk might be a hallmark of the Hawthorns, but not for Garrett. He’d be risk-adverse, despite his profession. But he’d rarely been in danger ... on the job.
Surviving the Iasc plague was a different story. One he never wanted to revisit. So shove it out of his mind and focus on the now ... Of Calico giving a tiny mew so he’d let her out of the door.
It’s Black! she caroled in Garrett’s mind. He’s here to play with Me! Then a very, small private whisper along with a detailed image. This is where You should translocate the Very