Act One: Safe Travels: For Whom the Heart Stone Burns, #1

Act One: Safe Travels

For Whom the Heart Stone Burns

By

Kari Gregg

Copyright 2015 Kari Gregg

Cover by Lou Harper

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Becket built his life around unbelief in the magic Theo, his uncle and guardian, had devoted his all to…until Theo vanished. Grief-stricken, Becket followed Theo’s clues, sending him through a stone grid to Ket. With no magical ability, Becket must find Theo in a land where dragons roam the lowlands and magic evolved in men and women who aren’t apex predators and have settled in high aeries to survive.

Locating his uncle, however, is the easy part. Becket is a bibelot – non-magical. And Theo is recovering from a wild magic storm that hit his expedition to the lowlands. He can’t control his power.

They can’t go home.

Elders will permit a second expedition and Theo’s sole hope of obtaining frequency stone to stabilize his magic, but only if he allows seers to scry Becket’s sentinel first. Too bad the protector scried for Becket is Theo’s rival in this strange otherworld, another caster named Kellan Fik. And Kellan knows Theo and Becket aren’t what they seem.

Handfasting his enemy may be Becket’s best and only chance.

Dedication

For my chair sisters – Rock on, ladies. Rock on.

With mortar and pestle, grind together two parts rosemary and one part patchouli while focusing on a journey free of obstacles. Form the herbs into clay and flatten into an amulet. Holding jade in your dominant hand, infuse the stone with your will and intent for safe and successful travels. Press the charged stone into your amulet and place it between two purple candles. While lighting the candles, repeat:

Bless’d by the light of Lady Moon,

I’ll reach my destination soon.

This trip shall safe and happy be

for all concerned, including me.

Chapter One

Becket wiped weariness from his eyes, smearing God only knew how much dust and cobwebs over his sweaty face before he reached for the packing tape to assemble another box. An army of sturdy wooden crates waited downstairs. He’d filled huge ones with Theo’s collection of amber bottles containing tinctures with labels in his uncle’s neat flowing script and dated the summer before he disappeared. Another crate held Granny Douglas’s china. Still more protected pictures and paintings that had hung on the walls on the first floor. Becket had discovered the packing crates in the barn behind the house, dozens of them. Who knew where Theo had found them or why he’d dragged them to the house in Lancaster. Becket had used them for the items he’d haul to a storage locker. Cardboard, he’d saved for stuff in Theo’s cramped and cluttered workroom.

The crap he never wanted to see again.

Candles. Stones. Amulets. Bunches of crumbling sage, dill, and angelica. Dried herbs and trinkets spilled from every corner and nook, piled atop stacks of worn leather books. Hung from both windows and the door’s lintel.

Where did you go this time, Theo? What ugly mess did you land in?

Familiar tension bunched Becket’s shoulders.

What the fuck happened?

Blowing out a long breath, Becket let it go. Again. Instead of giving in to grief and maddening unanswered questions, he set the box he’d taped together on a clear spot atop Theo’s worktable. Because Theo was dead. Didn’t matter where his body had been buried or what might have brought his uncle to that unhappy end. Becket was still alone. He grabbed files, books, and the scattered detritus of Theo’s life and stuffed them into the box, already anticipating what dragging this shit to the burn barrel would do to his back. Theo would’ve been pissed, but at least the bonfire would be personally satisfying to Becket. If the son of a bitch hadn’t wanted Becket burning his magic crap, he should’ve stuck around. Instead, the flake had died on him.

Maybe he hadn’t worked through his anger yet, but the fire was still a good idea. Cathartic. Becket frowned at the mountains of stuff still to go through in Theo’s inner sanctum, where he felt the presence of his uncle most, even not quite a year after the man had vanished.

He’d hoped his uncle would turn up for months. Of course, he had. Theo was… Well, Theo was Theo, and his uncle had been so obnoxious the last couple of years, Becket had made the drive from Maryland to the boxy little house in Pennsylvania less and less frequently. He regretted that now. If he’d been around more… Becket frowned and stuffed a stack of loose papers into the box. No, what-ifs had made him crazy enough. He was done with that. The harsh truth was nothing he could have done would’ve mattered. If Becket had still slept in the bedroom down the hall, preserved since he’d turned eighteen and gotten the hell out, Theo would be just as gone. If anything, moving out had helped. Instead of shouting, he and Theo had learned to talk to each other. Sort of.

Still, he’d hoped. Theo had disappeared before. In high school, Becket had grown accustomed to envelopes with a crisp twenty or two inside, taped to the milk in the fridge. On the envelope, he’d invariably find:

B ~ Following a lead on a frequency stone. Back in a few days.

or,

B—Invited to Elsie’s for Beltane. See ya next week, kiddo!

Taped. To. The milk.

He’d asked Theo once, why duct-tape notes to dairy products?

Theo had grinned his most infuriating smile and saluted Becket’s habitual glass of milk with a bottle of Coke. Because you are far too responsible to neglect your bones.

So when Theo had vanished last fall, Becket hadn’t been unduly alarmed at first. Theo took off sometimes, and once Becket moved out, there was no milk to which to affix explanatory notes. Except Theo hadn’t returned. Not this time. With Theo’s history of wandering, the cops hadn’t been willing to take a missing person report until Becket drove to Lancaster and found Theo’s wallet and cell phone on Theo’s worktable. Not that the police could do anything. What leads were there to follow? Theo’s jeep was parked in the garage. Barring the automated bill payments Becket had set up years ago and regular royalty deposits from the occult books his uncle had authored, there’d been no movement in Theo’s bank accounts, nor credit card charges. Nothing was missing in the house, no signs of forced entry. No threatening emails or mysterious texts, either.

Theo had just… vanished.

Becket had been optimistically convinced Theo would show up one day, though. His uncle, who had been younger than Becket was now when Becket’s parents had died, would appear at Becket’s Maryland apartment and flash his incorrigible smile. He’d spin another tale about chasing stupid stones and… and… and… and Becket would brain him with a 2x4, probably. Theo would be as aggravating, as flaky, and as devoted in his weird way to Becket as ever. And he’d be alive.

He hadn’t given up that fantasy until the anniversary of the car wreck. Theo knew how hard that day was for Becket. Theo was a selfish asshole occasionally and a lousy guardian frequently, but he had never failed Becket when it counted, not on that day.

Until last week.

When Becket had finished grieving—as much for the uncle he now accepted must be dead as for his lost parents—he’d asked Sadie to shuffle his appointments to other massage therapists and made this final drive to Lancaster. Fortunately, Theo had put Becket’s name on the household accounts the first time he’d screwed up paying the electric bill while he was on one of his adventures; closing up the house wasn’t as difficult as it could’ve been. Theo had even added Becket’s name to the deed of the house two years ago. Never mentioned that to Becket and boy, hadn’t that caused a few interesting moments with the cops? They’d eventually stopped looking at Becket as a suspect, though, and Theo’s odd foresight had made settling his estate considerably more convenient.

All Becket had to do was pack up the house.

Too bad that had turned into an emotional minefield. Everything haunted Becket. Theo’s clothes, still smelling faintly of burnt sage and the horrible peppermint tea he drank. His uncle’s favorite mug, the one Becket had given him their first winter solstice together. The photos of a much younger Theo arm in arm and grinning with Becket’s dad… Had Becket ever thanked Theo for displaying those snapshots? For sharing stories of his parents that had kept those memories alive for Becket?

He closed his eyes while the hurt ebbed and flowed.

Theo had been a pain in the ass. They’d fought bitterly and Becket was man enough to admit part of that was his fault. He’d been twelve when the accident had orphaned him, but he’d known better. Had been raised better. He’d been an angry little shit to Theo, who at the age of twenty had never once shied from instant parenthood, though walking away would’ve been easier. Becket had rewarded that with six years of solid misery before heading to college. Theo might’ve been relieved if Becket