Free Heart Secret by Robin D. Owens

own entity, and not a human male. “My HouseHeart chamber needs maintenance. I asked Artemisia to help. I want this done before the Healers’ project.”
    â€œWhich is why you aren’t ready today.” Garrett slipped the coin into his pocket. His lust had subsided. Good. He could still smell the woman in the room, though.
    TQ said, “Correct. I had considered requesting your help, too.”
    Fascination blazed through Garrett. He nearly trembled with it. He’d never been in a HouseHeart, the most important place of a sentient House. The HouseHeart reflected the Family. But the Turquoise House had no Family, so Garrett himself might be able to infuse a bit of himself into the long-lived being. That would be a satisfying goal in itself, a tiny legacy of himself in stretching infinity.
    After his loss of Dinni, he’d discovered that he’d needed to make a mark on the world. Something more than just surviving the disease. This could be a true contribution.
    â€œYou are reconsidering your offer?” His throat was hot with desire to learn, to see, to discover.
    â€œYou do not treat Artemisia well, though she is your HeartMate. Humans are very odd.”
    â€œHeartMate and HeartBonding is odd.”
    â€œI have seen HeartBonded people.”
    Garrett wondered if the House had actually had a HeartMate couple exchange the bond sexually within its walls. How much could the House sense? Garrett’s mind veered to an image of a naked Artemisia screaming her passion. Shut that down!
    â€œWhy do you treat Artemisia as you do?”
    â€œMy business.”
    â€œHow am I to help my people, help
you
during this time, if I don’t understand you? How am I to learn?”
    The plea socked Garrett’s gut.
    Dammit, now he couldn’t speak because his throat had tightened. He coughed. “We’re private here?”
    â€œArtemisia is making arrangements to get her pillow.” There was a slight pause as if TQ’s attention focused elsewhere. The House wasn’t omnipresent, then. “I do not think that her pillow will survive the decontamination processes. When the pillow arrives I will measure it in all ways. If the object does not last, I will replace it with an exact copy.”
    â€œThings aren’t always interchangeable. The pillow you provide, no matter how it seems like a match, won’t be
her
pillow.”
    The air around him pressed against him, TQ’s attention sharp. “Did you lose someone dear and irreplaceable? A woman?”
    Garrett didn’t answer.
    Silence throbbed. Garrett shook off the rough mood and went over to the window that looked out on the rear grassyard. Beautifully landscaped, of course. One or more of TQ’s residents had been a gardener. Smooth green turf, colorful flowers shifting in the slight breeze before bushes staggered in front of small trees, then tall trees, keeping the yard private. All of the feral cats he knew, and others he didn’t, snoozed in the sun.
    The yard looked too manicured, as were the formal gardens and fountain of the inner courtyard of MidClass Lodge where he lived. He preferred a natural tangle of plant life like he’d found on his travels outside cities.
    â€œThe records of the Gael City HealingHall state a young woman with a baby asked you to accompany the driver of the quarantine vehicle to the isolation clinic in the mountains.”
    He jerked, remembering. Dinni had begged. Her husband had been one of the men to find the infected fish and had died. Her baby had been sick. She’d looked fine except for sorrow and worry.
    Garrett’s throat closed. He couldn’t answer, pretend this didn’t matter.
    â€œ
Her
records at that HealingHall state that she had told the Healers she would scry a friend—an old lover—who she was sure would help with the driving, and that you grew up together.”
    There wasn’t even a sturdy chair he could sit on, only