He slapped back. “He’s the first one you brought home.”
“We’re not home.”
“Think again, Glorianna. The man was sitting at a table with your cousin. Your mother and brother were nearby. This place belongs to family. If that’s not bringing him home, then what is?”
She didn’t have an answer to that. Wasn’t sure he was entitled to an answer. Wasn’t even sure…
No, she was sure about that. Michael was an attractive man, and judging by his kisses, would be a pleasing sex partner. Then there was that blend of the wistful, stray puppy look he sometimes got in his eyes combined with a practicality born of being self-sufficient that intrigued her. He wanted love, wanted to love.
And he had the answer, already knew what might be done to stop the Eater of the World. But he wasn’t going to tell her. Watching Michael walk into the dining room with Sebastian, she felt it in the currents of power as clearly as if he’d said the words. More to the point, he didn’t want to tell her. Not here, where her family was a constant reminder of the hearts that might be hurt by what he offered. It would have to be on his ground.
She wanted to see him on his own ground. Here he had been a stranger stumbling over the unfamiliar. Who was Michael the Magician in the landscapes he tended? She wanted to know who he was, wanted to know if she could walk in his landscapes. yes yes yes.
She watched him stop and cock his head. A hint of a smile curved his mouth, as if he were listening to an excited child telling him something wonderful.
The wild child. Wasn’t that what he called Ephemera? yes yes yes.
Ephemera’s currents of power washed through her, resonated with her.
Michael’s eyes widened as they met hers.
Not resonating just with her. He was there in the currents, with her—and she heard the feel of his heart as music.
The romance of him tugged at her, swirled around her.
“Have you heard anything I’ve said?” Lee asked, sounding exasperated.
“What? No, I wasn’t listening.” Ignoring his sputtered grumble, she walked over to the table where the others were filling plates and choosing seats. She pulled out a chair opposite Sebastian and Michael—and noted that Lee chose a seat that didn’t put him beside Michael or her.
She filled a plate to avoid comments about her not eating, then waited until everyone had settled in their places. She looked at each of them in turn—Nadia and Jeb, Lynnea and Sebastian, Yoshani, Teaser, Lee, Michael. She didn’t think anyone but the Magician was going to like what she was about to say, but she hoped some of them would support the decision.
“We need to find a way to reach Michael’s landscapes,” she said.
“He has a way,” Lee said. “Bridge between Aurora and Darling’s Harbor will get him back to Elandar. A ship will get him to his own landscapes.”
“I’d like something that didn’t take as much time since I’ll be going with him.”
Lee jumped up. “Has the thought of getting sex made you completely crazy?”
“Lee.” Nadia’s voice cracked through the room like a whiplash.
“I, too, must protest,” Yoshani said. “That comment was uncalled for—and unjust.”
Teaser looked around the table. “Why can’t they have sex here?”
Sebastian growled.
“Oh,” Teaser said. “Yeah, being crisped by wizards’ lightning would spoil the fun.”
Protests and grumbles rolled around the table in a wave. Glorianna didn’t hear any of them. She kept her eyes on Lee’s.
The Warrior of Light must drink from the Dark Cup.
He’d been with her when Caitlin said those words. He’d felt the response of Ephemera’s currents to those words.
He knows, Glorianna thought. Sex is just the excuse he’s using to try and push Michael away from all of us.
“Life’s journey, Bridge,” she said.
“I know.” He sat down and pressed his palms against his forehead. “I know.”
She felt the weight of Nadia’s stare and turned her head to meet her mother’s dark eyes.
“I think you have some explaining to do, daughter,” Nadia said quietly.
Glorianna hesitated, then nodded. “Privately.”
“Very well.” Nadia swept her eyes over all of them, lingering just a moment longer on Sebastian and Lee, as if warning them to behave. “Michael. You visit villages, yes? What are their names?”
He didn’t turn his head, but his eyes shifted in Sebastian’s direction before he answered. “Kendall, which is a seaport. Dunberry, but that’s not a safe place anymore.”
“Why not?” Nadia asked. “It is yours, is it not?”
“Was mine, but something happened there. The song changed, and now it’s not safe to enter the village.”
Sebastian swore quietly.
Ignoring that for the moment, Glorianna concentrated on Michael. “Why didn’t you do something to change the song back to what it was?”
“Two boys disappeared and a young woman was murdered. They’re looking for someone to blame. I can’t go back.”
“They’re your people,” Nadia said. “That landscape is your responsibility.”
“The Eater of the World must have touched that landscape and poisoned the hearts of those people,” Glorianna said. “You have to fix it.”
“I can’t go back to the village,” Michael said with strained patience.
“Tch.”
Glorianna glanced at her mother and saw Nadia’s lips twitch as they both realized they’d made the same sound of annoyance.
“If nothing else, you’ll need to go with him to Dunberry and show him what’s to be done,” Nadia said.
“Agreed,” Glorianna replied. “But it was a place called Foggy Downs that the Magician asked me to see.”
Sebastian swore again.
She saw Michael wince and shift his weight as if he’d like to put some distance between himself and her cousin but didn’t quite dare.
“It takes a couple of days to get from Dunberry to Foggy Downs,” Michael said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Sebastian said, staring at the plate in front of him. “Not from the waterhorses’ landscape.”
Glorianna sat back. “So what aren’t the two of you telling the rest of us?” When they didn’t answer, she added, “I can send a command through the currents of power so that every time it rains you end up stepping in a puddle and getting your feet soaked.”
Sebastian gave her a puzzled—and sulky—look. Michael huffed out a breath and said, “Ah, now, Glorianna. That’s an unkind bit of ill-wishing.”
“You can do that?” Teaser asked, looking at Michael.
“I’ve never done that particular thing,” Michael muttered. Then added reluctantly, “Well, not often anyway.”
“The point is, gentlemen, we understand each other,” Glorianna said. Then she waited.
“There’s a bridge outside of Dunberry,” Michael said. “Most times if you cross it, you’ll keep going up the road to Kendall. But sometimes when you cross the bridge, there is no road, just open country, and soon enough a pretty black horse will come trotting up to greet you. There have been enough fools who have thrown a leg over one of those pretty horses. A few have gotten no more than a dunking and found their way home. Most end up drowned. Some are never found or seen again.”
“Koltak mentioned those places,” Sebastian said. “Dunberry. Foggy Downs.”
“Koltak?” Michael asked. “He was someone from here who crossed over to Elandar?”
“My father. Wizard Koltak.” Sebastian spat out the words as if they were bitter gristle. “When he crossed over from Wizard City, intending to find me in the Den, he ended up in the waterhorses’ landscape instead. A few weeks before that, when I had gone to Wizard City to report the murders in the Den, I ended up in the waterhorses’ landscape too, when I crossed a bridge to get away from that thrice-cursed city. I walked a few hours before meeting a waterhorse that was willing to g
ive me a ride without tricks.”
“The Eater had killed one of them,” Glorianna said. “It was scared.”
Sebastian nodded. “Didn’t take that long to reach the border and cross over to the Den. But Koltak wandered through that landscape for days trying to find the Den, and ended up going to Dunberry and Foggy Downs.”
Michael nodded. “Would have taken him some time to go from one place to the other, even on horseback.”
“The point is, he was able to reach both from the waterhorses’ landscape.”
“Are there waterhorses around Foggy Downs?” Glorianna asked Michael.
“Sometimes,” he said. He looked at Sebastian. “You’re thinking going through the waterhorses’ landscape would be a shortcut to Dunberry and Foggy Downs?”
“Maybe,” Sebastian replied. “I just know Koltak ended up in those places while he was looking for the Den.”
“The Eater of the World is out there in Elandar,” Lee said, bracing his hands on either side of his plate. “We know that. Creating the bridge between Aurora and Darling’s Harbor was risky enough since that provides a way in to both your landscapes.” He tipped his head to indicate Nadia and Glorianna. “Creating a bridge between—”
“A resonating bridge,” Glorianna said, interrupting him. “In the waterhorses’ landscape. And you could create a couple of one-shot bridges Michael could carry with him that would get him back—”
“Here,” Sebastian said, interrupting her. “That would get him back to the Den.”
“A wise choice,” Yoshani said. “I agree.”
“All right,” Glorianna said. “One-shot bridges that would get Michael back to the Den if I need to return to my island.”
Lee didn’t look happy, but he nodded.
Jeb pulled out a pocket watch and studied the time. “Still the shank of the evening in Aurora. Barely past dinnertime.”
“In that case, let’s enjoy the food Philo provided,” Nadia said.
Meeting adjourned, Glorianna thought as she picked at her food. Discussion ended. She would need to pack tonight, would need to consider what to carry.
Tomorrow she would begin another stage of her journey.
She tried not to wonder if she would ever return home.
Chapter Twenty-six
Michael stared at the sand and stone that scarred the rolling green land. “That isn’t right. That doesn’t belong here. Did that…Eater…do this?”
“No,” Glorianna said, her voice as dry as the sand. “I did.” She swung off the demon cycle, then shrugged out of her pack and set it on the ground before moving closer to the sand.
“Why?” Michael asked. Either she didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him, so he swung off the demon cycle he was riding and shrugged out of his pack too. Since he had his full pack with all his gear, he didn’t see any reason to be clanking and clanging while he tried to talk to the woman.
“Careful,” Sebastian warned.
Not sure if the warning was meant as a caution about approaching the sand or Glorianna, Michael took care as he got closer to both.
“So,” Michael said. “Is this like the sandbox?”
“No, this is a desert.” She studied the sand and stones, then nodded as if satisfied.
“So if someone steps onto the sand…”
“They cross over to that landscape.”
Wasn’t much of a landscape, Michael thought as he took a step closer. Some stones and sand and…Was that the remains of a horse’s head?
“So you step over the stones and end up in a desert. Then you step back over to this…” Part of the world, he finished silently as it occurred to him that he was looking at a piece of the world far away from anything he knew.
“The stones form the border here in the waterhorses’ landscape,” Glorianna said. “They don’t exist in the desert landscape.”
Michael frowned. “Then how do you know where to cross over to get back here?”
“You don’t get back here, Magician. That was the point of altering the landscape.”
He stared at her.
Glorianna huffed out a breath. “The Eater had formed an access point for the death rollers in the pond that existed here. I closed it once after Sebastian told me about the waterhorse being killed, but a dark heart passed this place often enough to allow the Eater to restore the access point. So I altered the landscape, changing the pond and the surrounding land to desert and stone. Even if the Eater manages to keep the access point open from Its landscape, the death rollers will cross over into a desert where they can’t survive.” She turned back toward the demon cycles.
Michael looked at Sebastian and Lee, then at Glorianna. “Did none of you think to post a sign?”
She spun back to face him and threw her hands up. “To say what? ‘Dangerous landscape, do not cross over’?”
“Why not?”
“For one thing,” Lee said, “would anyone in your part of the world understand what that meant? Or pay attention even if they did?”
Lee had a point. If a man landed himself in this part of Elandar and was dumb enough to ride a waterhorse, he was dumb enough to ignore a sign and end up in a desert with no food or water—and no way back.
“For another,” Glorianna said, “waterhorses can’t read, so there’s no point posting a sign for them, and it’s unlikely anyone will get this far into their landscape without encountering one of them.”
As if her words were a signal, four waterhorses came over a low rise and headed toward them. Their black coats shone in the morning sunlight and their manes lifted with the air stirred by their movement. Trotting in unison, they were gorgeous, and even though he knew better, he felt a keen desire to ride one.
They stopped. No words were spoken, but Michael heard the message just the same. Come with us. We’ll give you a better ride. And we’re prettier.
He glanced at the demon cycles. One of them was licking its lips as it stared at the waterhorses.
“No,” Glorianna said.
He wasn’t sure who the “no” was meant for, but all the demons—horse and cycle—were suddenly doing the equivalent of scratching an elbow and trying to look innocent.
“You four,” Gloriana said, pointing to the waterhorses. “Would you go into that?” She pointed at the sand.
They shook their heads.
“See?” she said to Michael. “They know better. Are you saying humans are dumber than waterhorses?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw four black heads bob up and down.
Sebastian and Lee started coughing. Glorianna’s face turned red with the effort not to laugh. He stared at the ground, not wanting to be the one who had to explain to demons that he wasn’t laughing at them. Of course, he couldn’t say he was laughing with them either.
“Where is the closest place to find humans?” Glorianna asked.
The four waterhorses looked at Sebastian.
“Besides the Den,” she added.
They turned and trotted back up the rise in the direction they had come from.
Glorianna hurried over to her pack and slipped into the straps before swinging a leg over her demon cycle. She and Lee headed after the waterhorses. Michael was a little slower since he needed a few moments longer to get his pack settled. When he was ready, he looked at Sebastian, who just looked back at him.
“Magician, I think it’s time you educated the people in your landscapes about the nature of Ephemera.”
Michael looked at the sand and stone that scarred the rolling green, then looked at Sebastian. “Won’t that be fun?”
The smile came first. Then the laughter. He didn’t mind the laughter. It was a sympathetic sound.
Glorianna and Lee studied the bridge that crossed a stream. There was something nearby she didn’t like. Something that made her edgy, uneasy. But not here. That, too, made her uneasy. Unless she discovered another landscape that belonged to her on the other side of that bridge, she shouldn’t have felt any resonance or dissona
nce. Except she had been aware of the currents flowing through the White Isle until Caitlin broke the connection between their two landscapes. And Michael…
She suddenly had an image of walking through a garden—her garden?—and hearing the clear notes of his whistle drifting through the air, calling her home.
Why would that image make her heart ache?
“Looks like I don’t have to make a resonating bridge after all,” Lee said, rubbing his chin. “That’s a stationary bridge. Crosses over to one—maybe two—other landscapes. I can tell that much from the resonance of it.”
“So my landscapes aren’t as closed off as I’d thought,” Glorianna said.
“Going out isn’t the same as coming back in,” Lee pointed out.
“Koltak got in. And the Eater must have used the waterhorses’ landscape as Its entry to Elandar.”
“You don’t know that, Glorianna.” He sounded annoyed, but she wondered if he privately agreed with her. “Other Landscapers could have had landscapes in Elandar. The Eater could have gotten here through one of the gardens at the school.”
She heard the clank and clatter of the pots and pans hung on Michael’s pack before she saw him and Sebastian. They dismounted, but this time Michael didn’t shrug off the pack.
“You said the feel of Dunberry turned dark,” she said when Michael got close enough.
He nodded. “Two boys have gone missing, and a young woman was brutally murdered.”
“After the Eater disappeared into the landscapes, two females were murdered in the Den,” Sebastian said. “A succubus and a human. Those killings were brutal.”
“Is there a pond or river close to where those boys were last seen?” Glorianna asked.
“Pond,” Michael replied.
She watched his expression harden as he began putting the pieces together.
“The Eater of the World was hunting in Dunberry,” she said quietly.
“It brought those death roller things into that pond?” He sounded outraged.