Encryption of the Heart (Love, Tech, & Magic #1)

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

The first day of any new job is stressful. More so when you have the added excitement of moving to a brand-new city on top of it. Which is exactly what Olline Tavos decided to do. And she was excited, stressed and nervous to where she thought she may throw up, of course, but mostly excited.

The hardest part of the relocation was moving all her plants to her new apartment. Well, it wasn’t the hardest thing, but it was the thing she could control and therefore fixated on.

She had been so worried about the trauma of the move for her flowers that four hours before she was due at the Police and Securities Department in the Government Plaza, she was wide awake and tending to her ferns while still in her pajamas. But her plants didn’t mind the faded turquoise shirt—it had been her mother’s—or the boy-short underwear.

Olline hadn’t unpacked most of her other belongings yet, just a few clothing essentials, and, of course, all her greenery. The new job and relocation had been so fast, there had been no time to unpack properly, even with her anxiety keeping her from sleeping.

Accepting the position almost immediately had definitely not been an impulse decision born from embarrassment and betrayal. Who would even think that?

Olline hummed as she gently brushed her hand over the fronds of her ferns. Squinting out her window—what a novelty!—she switched the ferns with her giant split leaf monstera, allowing the ferns to have the indirect light instead. Natural light, like from the large bay windows in her new apartment, was something Olline never had before. She misted the monstera leaves, marveling at the view she now had. She was high over the residential sector of the city, with a nearly unobstructed view of the businesses and government center downtown. The vista was mesmerizing. The aerial vehicles whizzed by below, the twinkling city lights reflected from the miles and miles of steel and glass making up the mega-sky towers surrounding her, with the occasional blip of light as a drone sped by.

She could spend a lifetime right in front of this window and never tire of the view.

Yes, moving to the other side of Audamar, out of her home city-state of Cyneburg to get a fresh start, was precisely the thing she needed. She would take no questions on that at this time, thank you very much!

Pleased with the ferns and monstera, Olline moved next to her collection of pothos and philodendron vines. Their big leaves of emerald and lime green, or jade and moss, were still curled, as if comforting themselves after the ordeal of transit. She moved the plants to have their vines frame the entryways into the wide living room with its tall, arched ceiling. But the vines didn’t seem to have the strength or will to grow in the direction she wanted. With a sympathetic tut, Olline put her fingers into the soft soil. She touched the thrumming heat deep in her chest where her magic lived and let the ethereal tendrils of her power find all the roots—from the small fragile hairlike roots to the thicker branches—and spark health and vitality into the struggling plants. Warmth bloomed in her, and she sighed blithely. Savoring the contented connection she felt with her plants, she allowed her mind to wander.

Olline used her magic all the time for work, but she had always loved using her earth abilities to make things grow. It was frivolous, of course. There was no point to plants in the city-states if they weren’t explicitly for food or oxygen production. But that was what Olline loved most about it.

She loved the bright green of a new leaf just before it unfurled, and watching it turn to jade as it matured. She loved encouraging exotic blooms to climb her walls to hide the grime and stains of the other people who had once called her apartment home. All the orchids and vines, the leafy ferns and gem-colored succulents she kept, would have died within hours outside of special hothouses. Unless you had water or earth magic—like Olline Tavos.

For the first time in a decade, Olline wasn’t answering to anyone but herself. Free of a corporate culture that sneered at her for embracing her earth magic for more than advancing the metals in the hardware they worked with. Far away from crushes— coworkers that faked being interested in her only to steal her work, share it with their actual lover, and then get her fired for confronting them over it.

The big leaves of the vines shuddered. Olline opened her eyes and stepped back. Putting her hands on her hips, Olline smiled. The vines clung to the walls happily now, twisting up over the arched entryways. Leaves unfurled in delight. She admired her work for a moment longer before heading into her bedroom, where she kept her most prized blooms—her hybrid orchids.

Her bedroom was the smallest of the five rooms, but she liked the coziness of it. Especially with the two dozen orchids she had transported. Each was a special creation all her own. Some had two toned blooms of baby blue and soft pink. Others, a soft antique peach with lavender spots. A few of her orchids were a pearlescent, shimmering white, while others were a midnight blue with magenta veins. Olline crafted each orchid by hand, using her magic to coax permanent colors into the blooms impossible to achieve otherwise. She kept the furnishings of her room—from her many cozy blankets to her chair and desk—a soft heather grey; her orchids as bright as neon with the contrast.

She lightly stroked the stiff emerald leaves. Yet the normal joy she felt when her plants quivered in response to her touch had waned. Memories tickled in the back of her mind around why she and her orchids were here instead of back in Cyneburg.

Olline sighed, her shoulders drooping. She had shown her crush— coworker her plant-based hobby once, and he hadn’t . . . reacted how she would have liked. She had showed him things she was most proud of, and then he shared it with the woman he was actually sleeping with, and they laughed at Olline behind her back. All while he had been telling Olline she was, instead, the special one.

With a shudder, she let the smooth leaf of the deep amethyst orchid she was tending to slip through her fingers. Obviously, the need to flee— move had been her fault. She’d been too na?ve, had trusted the wrong person to be vulnerable around. She would just keep herself too busy with this new contract to do something silly, like try to make friends.

Workaholism would be her cure for loneliness. It was the perfect plan.

Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and forced a bright smile. “It’s the past, Olline,” she reminded herself. “Cut away the dead leaves so new growth can come in and all that.” With a nod, the words settled in her heart a bit more firmly, like roots gripping the soil to anchor her in place. “No one can take advantage of your trust when you work for yourself. No one can make fun of your passion if you’re too busy with work to bring anyone home. Ever.” With a happy sigh, she ran her nose over the silky petals of her orchid. “Besides, I can’t be alone when I have you ladies, right?”

The stems of her orchids straightened slightly, the blooms moving up and down, nodding in agreement. With a grin, Olline meandered to the kitchen, where she kept all her miniature, gem-colored succulents and cacti. Olline didn’t cook much, which afforded her ample room to put the plump little succulents in jars others would have used for food storage into almost every ounce of space. Leaving the counter island in the center of the kitchen free for her second most prized possession: her coffee maker.

Her holo-tablet was next to the vintage coffee maker where she had left it the night before. As she fussed with the settings to make certain her next cup of coffee was perfect, Olline couldn’t resist reading over her offer letter and contract once more.

Her title wasn’t fancy, which was a bit of a bummer, but oh well. She didn’t have anyone but her dad and half-brothers to brag to anyway. An “independent contractor for data analysis and storage with the Police and Securities Department” was, categorically, a very unsexy title. At least she could make her own hardware without having to be monitored like most casters who created magitech. Another perk of working with the government rather than a private corporation, in Antal or Cyneburg.

Antal had opportunities that the corporatocracy of Cyneburg didn’t, though. Antal had a more traditional governing system with Under Senators, Senators, and a Governor to oversee them. All elected by the people and not chosen by some rich board of directors to represent a business entity. They were chosen by people, for people.

Olline found that rather novel.

Or, in theory, that was how it was supposed to be. She had read the comments the news feeds in Cyneburg had made regarding their trade partner. According to the snide comments made by the news feeds in Cyneburg, the governing body of Antal was supposedly set up to be a thinly disguised front for organized crime. But she wanted to give the system a chance, to see it in action for herself.

Plus, the government of Antal was offering a stupid amount of money for someone just like her.

As a humani caster, she was free to move to any city she liked without her magic suffering, cut off from its place of origin. While that restriction limited others—like seersha and seerani casters—Olline was as powerful anywhere she went. And with her expertise in metal and ore manipulation? They scooped her up for this position alarmingly fast.

It was impossible for her, even now, to stifle her excited grin as she looked at the starting salary, all for a six-month long trial contract with the potential of extension. Of course, there had been a lot of scary language in the agreement about what would happen should she be in breach of contract, or abscond with the signing bonus before delivering on the promised hardware and software. But Cyneburg took contracts so seriously that people had been killed for violating them. Thus, making “potential incarceration” seem relatively benign in comparison.

Once she was positive that the old coffee maker wouldn’t fuck up her next cup of real coffee—Olline could always tell the difference between cultivated beans and those artificially grown thanks to her magic—she pushed away from the kitchen island.

Olline glanced over her shoulder at the digital clock. She still had hours before she needed to be anywhere, but she figured now was as good a time as any to get ready. It gave her plenty of time to perfect her new look.

That had been the second hardest thing about leaving Cyneburg. Saying goodbye to her father while trying to explain the reason for her “drastic” change in appearance.

Once upon a time, she had bought in completely to the corporate culture. Especially for her first job. Looking back, it hadn’t really made sense. When you had seersha working in the same department, you couldn’t really adhere to a standard “look” no matter what the shareholders wanted.

Seersha were such a visually bright and uniquely wonderful race of people that Olline often believed that humani were more likely to alter their appearances in comparison. Humani often tried to compete with the seersha, whose eyes and hair could be any color in the world. Some seersha had horns like her half-brothers, or long pointed ears, or both. Their skin tones were far more varied than a humani’s. Olline wasn’t self-conscious of her looks, but she often envied the seersha—and seerani, the product of seersha and humani parents. Like the flowering plants she cultivated, their uniqueness was a splash of color in a world dominated by steel and glass.

But with her father’s reaction to her new style, Olline could have sworn she had shown up with horns instead of new piercings, a haircut, and a neck tattoo. She had needed the change after Achan, her not-quite ex. She had needed the control. And given she was her own boss now, she figured, well, why not? Why not do something just for her, just this once?

Oddly, her father hadn’t cared as much about the thorny rose tattooed in crisp black and grey on the side of her neck. He’d merely frowned at the vertical iron bar pierced through her eyebrow, an addition to her already pierced ears. No, he cared the most about her hair.

“Why would you dye it, Olline? You have—had your mother’s hair,” Zachery Tavos had moaned. His voice still echoed in her mind, even as she styled her hair that early morning.

She reminded her father she technically still did. She had merely cut her long, smoky black hair to accommodate a tidy Mohawk with the rest tied in a bun at the base of her skull. If she chose, she could easily remove the deep, moss green highlights. Besides, there was so much more to her that was distinctly her mother’s that she didn’t think her hair altered things that much.

The freckles, the color of rich soil, across her nose and cheeks, were the same smattering that her mother had. Even their bronze-touched rosy skin tone was the same. The only thing Olline had that was her own, that didn’t belong to anyone else, was her clear, unnaturally bright emerald eyes. The color signaled her caster ability as clearly as the tattoo on her neck. But her hair—hair identical to her mother’s—was still there, just with, as she explained to her father, a twist.

Olline thought the changes made her look edgier, less innocent, braver even. Less like the woman who was only worth loving if she had something someone else could profit from.

Thanks Achan.

That part, she hadn’t explained to her father. She didn’t want his pity. Besides, it was done now, and Olline liked the change.

“New growth,” she murmured, a reminder to herself as she carefully styled her Mohawk between the thin braids on the side of her head leading to the bun at the back. The braids showed off the green best, and that was, arguably, Olline’s favorite thing about the style. That, and it suited the clothes she enjoyed wearing far better than the stuffy corporate black and grey she had worn daily for the past decade.

She wiggled into her favorite pair of tight, faded, low-slung jeans. Pulled on a pastel teal and pink crop top with cartoon palm-trees and an over-exaggerated sunset. Slipped into the oversized, slouchy white jacket that felt like a hug each time she put it on. Then, and only then, did Olline grab her bag, slide on her massive headphones, wave goodbye to the feathery purple passion plant by her front door, and head out—two hours before she was due in the office.

Whoopsie.