She stopped smiling when she picked up the paper. It wasn’t sketching paper, and it wasn’t new. It was a bit crumpled and dirty, as if it had been carried a long way, and the word on the front of it…
She could read a little and do her numbers enough to make sure she wasn’t cheated at the market, and she was getting better at reading now that she could read printed books that had stories—something else Mam had forbidden her to have—but handwriting was still a struggle for her.
She went back to the lamp, turning the paper to see the writing better.
A chill went through her as she sounded out the word.
Belladonna.
Her hands shook as she turned the paper over. It had been folded to form a packet that would keep the message private, closed with red wax that had been pressed with an ornate, official-looking seal.
It could be nothing more than a message Sebastian had been asked to deliver. But something inside her knew it wasn’t an innocent message.
Dread shuddered through her as she pried up the wax seal and unfolded the paper.
The handwriting inside was neat and precise, probably done by someone who made a living writing out important documents.
She stumbled over some of the words, but the message was clear enough.
“No,” she moaned. “Oh, no.”
She didn’t think, didn’t knock. She simply rushed into the bathroom. Finding it empty, she crossed the room and flung open the other door.
Stripped for his bath, Teaser yelped when he saw her. Then he dove for the bed, grabbed a pillow, and held it in front of him.
“I’m naked!” he shouted. “You can’t be in here when I’m naked.”
Thrown by the near-panic in his voice, she stared at him. “For pity’s sake. You’re an incubus. You like being naked in front of women.”
“You’re not a woman. You’re Sebastian’s lady. Go away.”
Sebastian. She stepped into the room and held out the paper. “That wizard left a message for Belladonna. Read it.” She took a step toward him.
He skipped back a step. “If the message is for Belladonna, I shouldn’t be reading it. Neither should you.”
“Teaser! The wizards are saying Sebastian killed the woman who died here a few weeks ago. They’re going to hurt him.”
“What?”
“Read it!”
He took the paper, backed up until he reached the oil lamp he’d lit, then read. As he read, the pillow slipped from his grasp, forgotten.
“Daylight,” he whispered. “They’re summoning the strongest Landscapers to come to Wizard City to administer Heart’s Justice, but they’ll perform Wizards’ Justice if they receive no response to the summons.” He frowned, then shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. They must know the school was attacked. How do they expect any—” He stopped. Stared at the paper. “It’s her. The wizards have never been able to find Belladonna, so they’re threatening Sebastian to get her to come to them.”
“We have to do something,” Lynnea cried. “Sebastian didn’t kill that woman. You know he didn’t.”
Teaser looked at her, his eyes bleak. “What are we supposed to do? Sebastian has been gone for hours. Went off with the wizard on a couple of demon cycles. They’ve probably already crossed over to the landscape that holds Wizard City. No way to catch up with them even if we knew where to find the bridge. And nobody knows how to find Belladonna. She comes to a landscape when she feels like it.”
“Nadia will know how to find her, and I know how to find Nadia.” She snatched the paper out of his hand and headed out the door.
“Wait!” Teaser leaped, closing the distance between them, and grabbed her arm. “Don’t you understand? This is what those maggot-filled bastards want. They want someone to find Belladonna. And once she’s in reach of the Wizards’ Council, they’ll kill her and Sebastian.”
Lynnea tried to shake him off. “I have to do something. I won’t let them hurt Sebastian. I won’t.”
Teaser started to argue, then just shook his head. “All right. She has to be told about this, so we have to find Belladonna. But taking a few minutes won’t matter at this point.”
“But—”
“Listen, will you? We both need a quick wash and fresh clothes. If we have to talk to anyone in the daylight landscapes besides Sebastian’s auntie, it’s best to look respectable.”
She swallowed hard to push her heart out of her throat. “We?”
Teaser looked uneasy, but he shrugged. “I’ll go with you.”
“Why?”
He released her arm and stepped back. “Because we’re family.”
Dalton walked out of the Wizards’ Hall, then stopped and stared blindly at the courtyard and gardens in front of him.
He’d expected a reprimand for failing to protect Wizard Koltak from the stranger’s attack. But this?
Stripped of his command and captain’s rank. Exiled from Wizard City. Not because he had failed to protect Koltak but because he’d stopped Koltak from harming a man who was bound and defenseless.
A man who believed he had been betrayed.
You’re making a mistake, Koltak! the stranger had shouted as they rode back to Wizard City. The Eater of the World is out there! Belladonna’s the only hope you have of saving Ephemera!
The stranger’s fate was in the hands of the wizards now. He couldn’t help the man, wasn’t even sure if he could help himself at this point. He had to get his wife and children out of the city before tomorrow’s sunset, along with whatever household goods they could take with them in the big merchant wagon that had belonged to Aldys’s father.
But where were they supposed to go? And who could he ask about other landscapes whose answer he could trust?
As if pulled by an invisible string, Dalton’s head turned in the direction of the detention rooms.
There was one person who might know.
A quick glance around the courtyard. Addison was standing by the wrought-iron gate that led to the street. No sign of Guy or Henley. They must have gone back to the barracks.
Dalton headed for that part of the courtyard, walking past the locked doors and shuttered windows of the detention rooms until he came to the last one. When he’d left the prisoner there, he’d noticed a fist-sized piece of window glass had been broken out of the farthest window. Maybe the last person who had been detained in that room had broken the glass in a futile effort to escape. Or maybe he’d been desperate to hear something besides the silence of his own heart. Whatever the reason, the opening was there, and Dalton thanked the Guides of the Heart for this chance to talk to the man.
He leaned against the wall, close to that corner of the shuttered window. “Psst. Can you hear me?” He kept his voice low to avoid being overheard by anyone who might pass by. If another guard saw him, he could say he was keeping watch on the prisoner. But if a wizard noticed him, he had no doubt he’d be occupying another of those locked rooms and would never see his wife and children again.
A shuffling sound. The thump of someone collapsing against the wall.
“What do you want?” The voice sounded rough, exhausted.
What did he want? To go back to that moment when the stranger had stumbled off the bridge. To have a chance to follow the gut feeling he’d had when he’d seen Koltak step off the bridge.
“If I could do it over, I would have let you escape and go back to wherever you came from.”
“Why?”
“When Koltak stepped off the bridge, everything felt wrong. He felt wrong. You didn’t.” And you didn’t use the lightning to harm my men. You could have. Any wizard here would have. “What you said to Koltak about the Eater of the World. Is it true?”
Silence. Then, “It’s true.”
Not much time. Someone could come along at any moment. “I’ve been exiled from the city. I have to get my family to another landscape. Is there any place I can take them where they’ll be safe?”
“Why are you asking me?”
/> “I don’t think you would harm the innocent. Whatever wrong I did you by following orders, my family is innocent.”
A long silence. “Heart’s hope lies within Belladonna. Her landscapes…the only safe places. Resonating bridge…might get you…to one of them. But if the wizards destroy her…no hope at all. For anyone.”
He had to go. He’d already lingered too long. But…“I’m sorry for the part I played in this.”
Another silence.
As Dalton stepped away from the window, he heard, “Travel lightly.”
Addison was still waiting for him when he reached the gate.
“Best not to linger here, Cap’n,” Addison said. “This place has got a bad feel to it today. More than usual.”
“I’m not your captain,” Dalton said as he opened the gate and walked out. “I’ve been exiled.”
“I’m sorry for the trouble of it, but I can’t say I’m sorry you’ll be going.” Addison shook his head and sighed. “Maybe this is just the Guardians’ way of telling you it’s time to go.”
Maybe, Dalton thought. But deep down in his heart, he didn’t think his exile had anything to do with the Light.
Sebastian shuffled back to the wobbly table and chair, the only pieces of furniture in the room. No candle or oil lamp. The slats in the closed shutters let in a little daylight, but this room would hold a bleak darkness once the sun went down.
Bracing his hands on the table, he lowered himself into the chair and waited until he felt fairly steady before reaching for the canteen of water—and wondered if the guard captain had provided the water as a kindness. He took a mouthful of water, then closed the canteen and set it aside. Shutting his eyes, he sat very still, waiting for the pain in his head to subside again to a dull throb.
Daylight, he hurt! But despite the lump on his head and the shallow cut from the first blow that had soaked part of his hair with blood, he didn’t think he was badly injured. Hurt, certainly, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him that couldn’t be put right with a headache powder and some sleep.
Except for the feeling of rough fingers lightly scratching inside his head. Except for the whispering voices that were close enough for him to hear but too far away for him to make out what they were saying—voices that seemed to creep closer whenever his mind lost focus.
Could wizards do that? Creep into a mind? Was that the way they determined whether someone was truly innocent? Not by the questions that were asked for the sake of formality, but by this intrusion?
He wouldn’t be able to keep them out forever. His body craved sleep—and sleep would leave him vulnerable to the voices. The light scratching would become a torment soon. But he could choose now what those voices would find when they finally breached his mind and what would stay hidden in the core of his heart.
He should have insisted on having an hour to consider Koltak’s request/command/plea. He should have given himself that hour to consider the good and bad of leaving the Den to come to Wizard City. If he had, he would have realized what had troubled him about Koltak’s journey to the Den.
Koltak had wanted him as bait for a trap but hadn’t really wanted to find him, because Koltak had never wanted to be around him. Ephemera had responded to that heart conflict by making the journey difficult.
That was what had troubled him—the fact that Koltak had spent days trying to find the Den. But the words “to save Ephemera” had swept away the thought before it could form, before it could become solid enough to resist being influenced.
Sebastian opened his eyes and stared at the wall. Was that what Koltak had done? Influenced his decision with the plea to save the world? But he hadn’t felt this scratching, this sense of intrusion.
Maybe that was why the council had chosen Koltak. Maybe there was enough similarity in resonance between a father and son, despite their animosity, that he wouldn’t sense the intrusion. When Koltak talked about saving the world, the words had rung true.
Liar. Deceiver. Raper of truth.
If Ephemera truly gave each person what the heart deserved, Koltak would receive the reward of his ambitions—and the reward would be bitter.
Now wasn’t the time to think about Koltak. While he could, he had to take what was most precious to him and hide it away, deep inside his heart…where the wizards would never find her.
He didn’t dare let her name echo in his mind, but he pictured her—the blue eyes, the wavy brown hair, the expressive face that looked the most innocent when she was trying to learn how to be naughty. How she looked wearing that catsuit. How she felt when he made love with her.
His rabbit, who was changing a little more every day into a tigress.
For a moment he could feel her resonating inside him. Then he tucked away all his memories, all his feelings for her.
Glorianna wouldn’t come for him. He didn’t want her to come for him. There was too much at stake to throw it away trying to save one man.
So the wizards would kill him.
But even as he died, he would keep what he cherished the most away from them.
Chapter Twenty-three
Standing at the edge of the woods behind Sebastian’s cottage, Lynnea tried to clear her mind and heart of everything that wasn’t good, wasn’t positive. To travel lightly. Now, more than ever, it was important for her to travel lightly. Despite being in a different landscape, Nadia’s house wasn’t far from here, but to get there she needed positive thoughts. A gentle heart. They were going to cross the bridge that was on this path in the woods. They were going to find Nadia, find Glorianna, find some way to free Sebastian from those wizards.
And if Teaser didn’t stop taking forever to light the candle in the lantern he’d brought with him, she was going to find a large branch—or uproot a small tree—and give him a whack for every minute she’d stood there waiting.
No, no, no. She couldn’t think that way. It might be an honest feeling, but it wouldn’t help them cross the bridge.
Travel lightly. Travel lightly. Travel—
Finally! “Ready?” she asked.
“Guess so.”
But he was still crouched, staring at the lit candle. Not moving.
Bristling with impatience, certain that every minute they delayed might change her life in ways she didn’t want to imagine, she opened her mouth to yell at him. Then she took a good look at his face.
“Are you afraid to cross the bridge?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Teaser mumbled. “Some.” He shot to his feet. “All right, I’m afraid.”
He was. Had been, she suddenly realized, ever since he’d said he’d go with her. “But you’ve been to daylight landscapes when you’ve…” She trailed off, not feeling enough like a tigress to talk about things Teaser did with women, even if she did those same things with Sebastian. “And you’ve met Nadia.”
“This is different.” Teaser shifted from one foot to the other, looking at the ground, at the trees, anywhere but at her. “What if I can’t cross over to a landscape held by Sebastian’s auntie? What if my crossing with you shifts something when we reach the bridge and we end up someplace different, someplace…bad?”
“This is a stationary bridge that crosses only between the Den and Aurora. Nadia told me so.” Had made a point of telling her before she and Sebastian left Nadia’s house.
“Even stationary bridges don’t always take you where you want to go,” Teaser argued. “Not if you don’t resonate with that landscape.”
“You don’t have to come with me,” Lynnea said gently. “The bridge isn’t that far down the path. I’ll be safe enough.”
He shook his head. “You can’t go alone.”
She felt like she had tried to squeeze through an opening and had gotten stuck. He wouldn’t let her go alone, and he was afraid to come with her. She’d never crossed any bridges—at least, none that she remembered—until Ewan had left her on the side of the road instead of taking her to the Landscapers’ School. But she knew a stationary b
ridge went to only a few specific landscapes, so even if you didn’t end up in the landscape you wanted, you could usually get back to where you started. The resonating bridges, on the other hand, held the possibility of crossing over to anywhere, and only the secret places in your heart knew where you would end up. And even if you turned right around and crossed the bridge again, it wasn’t likely that you’d return to the landscape you’d just left.
Even though she knew the bridge in the woods crossed only to Nadia’s home village from this side and to the Den from the other side, she couldn’t deny that Teaser had a reason to worry.
But they couldn’t just stay there.
“Why are you coming with me?” she asked.
“Because you can’t go alone.”
Obviously that thought was set in stone. “And?”
“Because, if we’re family, I should help Sebastian.”
“And?”
He sighed. “Because it’s the right thing to do?”
“Yes. Because it’s the right thing to do.” Picking up the yarn bag, which now held a change of clothes, a few coins, and the letter to Belladonna, she held out her other hand. “I don’t think Ephemera will stop us from doing the right thing.”
He slung his pack over his shoulder, picked up the lantern, then took hold of her hand in a grip that made her wince. “I’m ready.”
We need to find Nadia, Lynnea thought as they hurried down the path. We need to find Glorianna. We need to save Sebastian. Nadia is the first step of the journey. We’re going to Nadia’s house. Travel lightly, travel lightly. We’re going to Nadia’s house and—
“Daylight!” Teaser ducked his head to protect his eyes from the dappled sunlight.
“We did it!” Lynnea looked back. There had to be a marker somewhere, something solid and stable enough to hold the magic of a bridge, but she didn’t see anything. Still, she couldn’t deny they’d left the Den. The daylight was proof of that.
Tugging her hand free of Teaser’s grip, she rubbed feeling back into her fingers while she waited for him to blow out the candle in the lantern. Then she followed the path, moving at a brisk pace.