Belladonna

  But Yoshani had been right. Sebastian’s anger when Lee had spewed out the things that had been said at that meeting in Sanctuary had been a cleansing fire reflecting his own feelings, and they had burned each other’s tempers down to a smoldering opinion that the surviving Landscapers and Bridges had as much understanding of the danger they were all facing as what came out of a horse’s ass, and—

  He stumbled against Sebastian again and, this time, got a semi-friendly curse and shove.

  Something pulled at the Bridge’s power in him, wanting him to answer, wanting him to…what?

  He grabbed Sebastian’s shoulder for balance.

  “Daylight, Lee! You didn’t drink that much.”

  “No, I didn’t.” And he hadn’t felt more than a little sloppy and tired until they’d crossed the border between the Den and Aurora. The closer they got to the spot where the path that started behind Sebastian’s cottage branched and headed for his cottage or Nadia’s house, the more he felt like he was being bounced and rolled and couldn’t get a solid sense of where he was.

  Then Sebastian was holding his shoulders in a bruising grip.

  “Are you sick?” Sebastian asked, giving him a shake that wasn’t the least bit helpful. “Lee, what’s wrong?”

  Good question. It was like everything was just a little out of focus, a little off balance. But still familiar, except…

  “It’s not me; it’s Ephemera.” Lee turned and headed up the path, stumbling because this connection to Ephemera was producing a fever-dream sense of the world around him, as if he were almost seeing some other place while his feet were hitting the solid reality of Aurora.

  Sebastian walked beside him, swearing sincerely and creatively while keeping a supporting hand on his shoulder. Then they reached the boulder that marked the branch in the path. Lee stopped, throwing an arm to the side to block Sebastian.

  “Guardians and Guides,” Sebastian said. “Is that hair?”

  A long tail of light brown hair tied with a blue ribbon lay next to the boulder.

  They approached cautiously. Lee crouched to get a closer look, then held his hand above the hair.

  “Careful,” Sebastian said, his voice sharp.

  “Don’t be a collie,” Lee replied absently, waving off Sebastian’s caution while he focused on the hair. Finally he stood up and shook his head. “This is strange.”

  “These days, strange is not good.”

  “I don’t think there is any harm in this,” Lee said, rubbing the back of his neck. Damn it, he was getting the kind of headache that was going to climb up his neck and threaten to crack his skull. And he needed to think. “Besides, the magic in the hair is fading.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The ground is firming up. Or my sense of it is coming back into focus.”

  Sebastian pointed at the hair. “That’s what was making you act so drunk?”

  Lee nodded.

  “We should burn it.”

  Lee shook his head. “Not yet. I’d like Mother and Glorianna to see it first. Maybe I reacted so oddly to it because my ‘translation’ of the magic wasn’t correct. Sometimes a Bridge touches a place with opposing needs. The two landscapes will not resonate with each other enough for a bridge to be created that will connect them. But someone in those landscapes is sending out a heart wish that is so strong that I’m picking it up as a need to create a connection, but I can’t pick up a sense of place.”

  “What do you usually do when that happens?”

  “Create a resonating bridge.” Lee picked up the tail of hair. Nothing but a little tingle now. Enough that he would probably recognize the resonance of the person’s heart. He looked at the paths, then at the hair. “Three choices,” Lee said. “Three chances?”

  Sebastian studied the paths and swore softly. “For good or ill, this was aimed at someone in the family.”

  “Yes. So let’s see what Mother can tell us about it.”

  Having decided that much, Lee headed down the path that would lead to his mother’s house. Sebastian fell into step beside him.

  “Does Ephemera usually bring you tokens like that?” Sebastian asked.

  “No. So there’s no point in the incubi asking me to send lovelocks to whomever they’re currently entertaining as dream lovers.” Lee glanced at his cousin and decided that whatever Sebastian was chewing over probably didn’t concern the incubi. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “Yeah,” Sebastian said after a moment. “What does ‘don’t be a collie’ mean?”

  Lee just grinned.

  Glorianna opened the kitchen door of Nadia’s house enough to poke her head inside. “Anyone flying around in here?”

  “No,” Nadia replied. “The birds are all in their room.”

  Glorianna pushed the door open and entered the kitchen. “Yoshani came with me. Something happened that…”

  Nerves. Tension. Eyes full of questions as her entire family turned away from whatever was on the kitchen table and looked at her. And something else in the room—a resonance that made her breath catch.

  As Yoshani came in behind her, his greeting silenced before it began, she looked at Lee. He hesitated, then shifted to one side, giving her a look at the table.

  Guardians and Guides. She could feel the air around her as she took the few steps that brought her to the kitchen table, could feel the currents of power that made Ephemera an ever-changing world. For a few heartbeats, the entire world consisted of a tail of light brown hair lying on a towel spread over the table. “Where did you get that?”

  “Found it near the boulder where the path branches,” Lee replied.

  Glorianna set her hands on the towel, her fingers not quite touching the hair. The same resonance as the hair that had been wrapped around the two plants. This came from the sorceress who lived in Raven’s Hill. But…how?

  She heard voices murmuring around her, asking questions or, in Sebastian’s case, demanding answers. Heard Yoshani answering. But it was all sound, like the rustle of leaves or rock hitting rock. Right now, the only messages she could hear came from a distant heart.

  So much pain in that heart, so much longing, so much need. And anger in the hands that had sawed through the hair. But there was also strength in that heart.

  How did this get here? Those women on the island didn’t come from this part of Ephemera. So what does this girl want so badly that her need caused Ephemera to bring shorn hair from wherever it had been dropped to a place where it would be found by someone in my family?

  “Do any of you know where Elandar is, or where to find a village called Raven’s Hill?” she asked, finally looking up at the people around her.

  Head shakes from everyone.

  “I can ask around the Den,” Sebastian said.

  “One of Mother’s landscapes is a village on the coast,” Lee said. “I could go there, ask around.”

  As he spoke, Glorianna could have sworn a shadow fell across the table even though no one had moved.

  “No,” she said, taking a step back from the table. “We need to stay close right now—and we need to find this Raven’s Hill.”

  “When I return to my part of Sanctuary, I will ask the scholars if they have any knowledge of Elandar or the White Isle,” Yoshani said. “They may even have a map that would show its location.”

  Glorianna nodded, although she wasn’t sure what use a map would be—unless she discovered that she or Nadia already had a landscape in that part of the world. Even then, it wasn’t as if they would have to travel to get there. Any place that resonated with their hearts was no farther away than the step between here and there.

  Lynnea touched the edge of the towel. “Do we really need to find the place?” She squirmed when they all looked at her, but her blue eyes met Glorianna’s green ones. “It just seems this is really about finding the person.”

  “Agreed,” Glorianna said. And about finding her before the Eater of the World does.

  “So this is about a he
art wish, isn’t it?” Lynnea glanced at Nadia, who tipped her head in a way that indicated she wasn’t ready to comment yet. “I read a story last week about a girl who doesn’t know who she really is, and the people in the village where she lives don’t like her because she’s different. Her journey is full of hardships, but in the end, s-she finds her own people. She f-finds the place where she belongs.”

  Glorianna’s heart felt a tender tug and ache as she watched Sebastian wrap his arms around Lynnea, loving and protective.

  “You shouldn’t read stories that upset you,” he said, kissing Lynnea’s forehead.

  “No, it was a lovely story.” Sheltered in Sebastian’s arms, Lynnea looked at Glorianna. “I think this girl doesn’t know who she is. They called her a sor—” She looked at Yoshani.

  “Sorceress,” he said.

  Lynnea nodded. “Sorceress. So the people in her landscape have already decided that she’s a bad person instead of seeing who she really is.”

  Like me, Glorianna thought, remembering the way the Landscapers and Bridges who had reached Sanctuary had looked at her.

  “If she’s a Landscaper and her heart wish is to find her own kind…,” Lee said.

  “Ephemera opened an access point, but she didn’t recognize it as a way to cross over to another landscape,” Glorianna said, finishing the thought.

  “So this time, Ephemera took what the girl had discarded and brought it to us,” Nadia said softly.

  “She can’t find you in order to fulfill her heart wish,” Lynnea said, “but you can find her.”

  Can we? Glorianna wondered. Another Landscaper. Someone who didn’t know that she, Glorianna, had been considered a rogue all these years. Someone who had access to another part of the world.

  A part now under attack by the Eater of the World.

  A different understanding of the world. A different base of knowledge. Maybe even a clue about how to fit the shattered pieces of their world back together. Assuming it would be safe someday to put those shattered pieces back together.

  “Mother, I’ll need your kitchen shears,” Glorianna said.

  While Nadia fetched the shears, Glorianna untied the blue ribbon and divided the tail of hair into two pieces. “Since Lee and I are the ones who would recognize this resonance, I think we should both have a piece of hair.”

  “I don’t feel anything now,” Lee said. “Bringing it to the house seems to have fulfilled the need.”

  She wasn’t feeling anything from the hair either now, but Ephemera had brought it here, as the world had brought her the bowl-shaped stone and silver cuff bracelet.

  Nadia brought the shears. Glorianna cut the blue ribbon into four pieces.

  When the two tails of hair were secured at the top, Lynnea said, “We should braid it. It will stay neater that way if you or Lee have to carry it.”

  Glorianna held up the tails and looked at Lynnea and Nadia, then rolled her eyes to indicate the four men who were doing the awkward-male foot shuffle.

  “Why don’t the four of you go out and get some air,” Nadia said. “I’ve got a stew simmering that will be ready soon. Lynnea and Glorianna can help me finish the meal, and then we’ll all enjoy some pleasant company.”

  There was a noticeable lack of movement. Finally Lee said, “You want us to leave the kitchen?”

  “Yes, dear,” Nadia replied. “I want all of you to leave the kitchen.”

  Sebastian hovered near Lynnea, whose teary moment had long passed.

  “You’ll be all right?” he asked, brushing his lips against Lynnea’s temple.

  “Don’t be such a collie, Sebastian,” Lee said as he walked out of the kitchen.

  Glorianna snickered. She couldn’t help it. And it wasn’t helping any that Lynnea was turning red with the effort not to laugh and Nadia, who was displaying an admirable amount of control, just stared at the hair instead of braiding it.

  “That’s the second time he’s said that to me,” Sebastian said, giving the three women a sour look as he followed Jeb and Yoshani out of the kitchen.

  Glorianna glanced over her shoulder. “You don’t think Lee will actually tell Sebastian what that means, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Nadia said, swiftly braiding the two hanks of hair and tying them off with the other two pieces of ribbon. “Jeb will.”

  She laughed. “He’s fitting in just fine, isn’t he?

  Nadia looked out the window and smiled. “Yes, he is.”

  “So what does that mean?” Sebastian demanded as soon as the four men were standing around outside.

  Lee winced. He should have known better than to say it twice. “It’s just a saying.”

  “A saying usually has a meaning,” Yoshani said.

  I guess being a holy man isn’t the same as being helpful, Lee thought.

  Sebastian gave Lee a narrow-eyed glare, then swung around and looked at Jeb.

  Jeb scratched his head and shrugged. “Haven’t heard the saying before, myself, but a collie is a herding dog. Protects a flock of sheep and keeps them from straying.”

  Sebastian swung back around to face Lee. “You’re comparing me to a dog?”

  “Protective,” Lee said. “I just meant you’re being a little too protective.”

  “Don’t go ragging on the boy, Lee,” Jeb said, giving Sebastian’s shoulder a friendly pat. “He’s just practicing to be a good daddy is all.”

  Lee watched all the color drain out of Sebastian’s face.

  “Daddy?” Sebastian said, his voice coming close to a squeak. “Daddy? Is she…? Did we…? How?”

  “I thought he was an incubus,” Yoshani said.

  “He says he is,” Jeb replied.

  “Shouldn’t he know how babies are made?”

  “You would think so.”

  It’s the drink, Lee thought. It’s the whiskey I had in the Den that’s making me feel like I’m nine years old again and Mother has tossed us both outside because we were being a pain in the ass. But knowing that didn’t stop him from looking at Sebastian and saying in the same tone he’d used when he was nine, “Daddy. Daddy, daddy, daddy.”

  Sebastian didn’t come up swinging. He just got paler.

  Then Jeb said, “You know, the day Sebastian becomes a daddy, you become an uncle.”

  And Lee felt the blood drain right out of his head.

  Jeb bobbed his head once, indicating approval. “Thought that would do it.” He looked at Yoshani. “Have you seen Nadia’s personal gardens? I just finished making a bench for her.”

  “I would be delighted to see other examples of your handiwork,” Yoshani said, smiling.

  “What do you think is going on out there?” Glorianna said, taking a quick peek out the kitchen window before setting the dishes on the table, which Lynnea had just cleaned off. “Jeb and Yoshani look amused, and Sebastian and Lee look like they’ve been sucker punched.”

  “Lee shouldn’t tease Sebastian,” Lynnea said. “He’s still getting used to being a Justice Maker.”

  “Instead of being a troublemaker?” Glorianna asked too innocently.

  Nadia turned away from the counter where she was rolling out the biscuits. “One of you girls might want to mention that if everyone behaves for the rest of this visit, I won’t ask why Lee had been in the Den drinking enough that Sebastian had to bring him home. And let’s have a little more help getting the meal on the table and a little less mirth.”

  As soon as Nadia had turned back to her biscuits, Glorianna grinned at Lynnea. It didn’t matter that they were all committed to saving Ephemera from the Eater of the World. When it came to home and family, some things didn’t change.

  Chapter Ten

  The closer he got to Kendall’s docks, the more uneasy Michael felt. It was as if he were walking through ankle-deep tar, and every footstep was an effort. But the streets were as clean as they ever were in this part of the seaport, and that feeling had nothing to do with the physical world around him. This was something else, something dif
ferent, something…evil.

  And worse, the music that represented Kendall’s docks sounded wrong.

  He shuddered. The rattle of the pans on the outside of his pack sounded too loud, drew too much attention. He stopped walking and looked around, as if he needed to get his bearings.

  He’d had this same feeling when he walked through the fog that had smothered Foggy Downs.

  Michael tipped his head, even though the music he was listening to wasn’t a physical sound. Yes, he recognized it now—the sly riffs of temptation, the trills of fear, the harsh rumble of despair. Whatever had touched this part of Kendall had been the same thing that had poisoned Foggy Downs. And Dunberry. He’d managed to turn Foggy Downs back to the rhythm and beat of his own tune. Maybe he could do the same here. He couldn’t afford to lose the Kendall docks as a safe place where he could blend in. And, damn it, he couldn’t afford to lose this particular port since he depended on the generosity of the ships’ captains to make the traveling easier.

  Hurrying now, he moved through the streets until he reached the Port of Call, a tavern that was cleaner than most, didn’t water the drinks as much, and had a proprietor, Big Davey, who usually was willing to trade an evening of music for a bit of supper and a cot for the night.

  But conversations sputtered into silence when he walked through the door. Hard-eyed men, toughened by a life spent at sea, studied him with a wariness and distrust that made him wonder if he would be able to back out the door without getting into a fight. He wasn’t a stranger to fights—and had a few scars from broken bottles and shivs to prove it—so he knew when to hold his ground and when to back away.