Belladonna

Crying softly, the Eater of the World wrapped the tatters of Its shirt around Its wounded arm.

  There had been bushes of ripe berries. Succulent. Sweet. It hadn’t wanted many, just a few. Just a taste of something good.

  But the humans had found the berries too, and their minds had been too clotted with greed and viciousness to hear anything else. They trampled each other and tore at each other in order to get to the berries. They stabbed at each other and stoned each other as they fought to stuff handfuls of the ripe fruit in their mouths. They destroyed the bushes and mashed half the berries underfoot in their efforts to have as much as they could—more than anyone else.

  And when It had tried to move among them and get Its own small share of the berries, they had turned on It, attacked It, ripped at Its clothes, and driven It away.

  They had hurt It. And there was no one—no one—in this landscape who had the kind of heart that would have taken It in to tend the wounds and look after It.

  Well, there were hearts in this landscape that were able to feel kindness and compassion, even if only a little, but those feelings just withered without…

  World? It whimpered. World? Where is the Light?

  “Come on, wild child, you can do this,” Michael said as he set the basket on the sand in the box. “You brought Caitlin’s hair to Aurora to help her, remember? This is the same thing. We just want you to take this basket to Belladonna. Just leave it where she’ll find it. It’s important. You can do this. We know you can.” Michael looked over his shoulder and made a circling “say something” gesture.

  “If you could do this, it would mean a lot to the people who love her,” Sebastian said. He didn’t sound confident, even though this had been his idea, but at least the Justice Maker wasn’t trying to fool the world with false heartiness.

  Stepping back, Michael tucked himself under the umbrella Sebastian held and gave the other man a minute to unfurl the power of the incubus. Then he pulled out his whistle and began to play.

  There was a basket on the ground by the fountain, and a resonance flowing through the currents of this old garden.

  She moved cautiously toward the basket, expecting some kind of trap, obscenely angry that anything would dare enter her lair. But there was nothing in the basket except a bowl, a spoon, and a jar of…soup.

  Something prickled the edges of her memory, a painful tingle like a limb waking up. And that resonance. She felt it hook into the scar in her chest, felt it dig in and set. And from that hook the thinnest thread of Light flowed out to someplace beyond her landscapes. She should pull it out. Would pull it out. Except the thread flowed with that resonance.

  She looked at the jar of food—and her belly growled, so she poured some of the soup into the bowl, then sealed up the jar before she picked up the spoon and took a taste.

  The sound of chattering birds coming from the room beside the kitchen. Two boys at the table. Her brother Lee and…

  So watchful, so wary, so wanting to belong. She felt a connection between his heart and hers, knew this now-stranger would resonate through her life.

  Sebastian.

  Watching him eat the soup her mother had made. Watching him savor the taste of it, the sensuality of soup and bread eaten at a table where love was served along with the food.

  Lee. Sebastian. Nadia.

  She flung the bowl away from her. Tried to fling the memory with it. But the memory was more tenacious, had already hooked into the scarred part of her.

  “Mother.”

  Nadia wasn’t here. Couldn’t be here. Nor Lee. Nor Sebastian. But the basket…

  She heard it then. The music that matched the resonance of a boy who had sunk a hook into her heart so many years ago. Too late now. Too late. She had managed to tear that resonance out of her heart once before, but she couldn’t do it again. Not again.

  In that moment, suspended between the Dark she could feel and that resonance called Sebastian that made her yearn for something, another resonance rippled through her. The faintest whisper, the merest tug.

  A promise.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The next morning, Michael stepped outside and looked at the two men waiting for him.

  “You here already?” he asked.

  Teaser grinned. “You are a lollygagger, a layabout, and a…What was the other word?” He raised his eyebrows at Sebastian.

  “I think Michael gets the idea,” Sebastian said. “We’ve been here long enough for the ladies to have made an assessment of people’s gardening skills.” He handed Michael a rake. “They have taken the sensible men and are working in the walled garden. We—”

  “The garden idiots,” Teaser said gleefully.

  “—get to rake the leaves around the house and do the weeding in the flower beds where our efforts will cause the least harm,” Sebastian finished. “Unsupervised.”

  Michael looked at the two incubi, who looked extraordinarily pleased about this arrangement. And he was beginning to understand the gleam in Sebastian’s eyes. “Well, I guess that tells us our place in the pecking order, doesn’t it?”

  “You do some luck-wishing for us this morning, Magician?” Sebastian asked.

  “Maybe a little.” Michael grinned. “Maybe just a little.”

  She shivered in the chilly air. Because being cold and unhappy made her vengeful, the deserts within her landscape baked under a merciless sun, and the surviving bonelovers couldn’t cross the burning sand. The river in the death rollers’ landscape got so hot fish cooked in the water—and even the death rollers were driven out of the water by the heat. But fog shrouded the plateau where the Wizards’ Hall stood, and fog filled the corridors, brushing against the Dark Guides’ skins like damp, clingy fingers. And rain, tasting like bitter tears, poured down on the rest of Wizard City.

  She walked beneath the merciless sun, walked along the banks of that simmering river, walked through the fog and the bitter rain. Her heart poured out Dark purity, and Ephemera manifested everything that came from that heart.

  And all the dark things that had once wanted nothing more than to chew up the Light and spit it out now huddled in their mounds, in their caves, in their houses—and shivered in fear.

  “They went home,” Michael muttered as he made his way down to the sandbox. “They all went home. Lady of Light, my thanks for small favors.” And it was a small favor, since they were all coming back tomorrow to finish the work.

  He stepped into the part of the box that held the gravel, set a little clutch of violets on the sand, then sat down on the bench.

  Those women were ferocious when they set their minds to a task. It scared him a little to see how well Caitlin Marie fit in with Nadia and Lynnea. And Aunt Brighid, whom he’d always thought of as a formidable woman, didn’t seem intimidating at all compared with those two.

  “They mean well. It’s a small comfort to my aching body, but they mean well.” He took out his whistle and sighed. “Just you and me tonight, wild child. Sebastian is done in, so I sent him on home.” And part of that decision was the growing doubt that their efforts were making any difference. “If you could take that little clutch of flowers to the same place you took the basket, I’ll play a little while and then we’ll all get some rest.”

  He waited. Felt nothing.

  “Wild child?”

  Ephemera finally answered his call, but the world wasn’t happy. He couldn’t prove it, but he suspected that the Dark currents in all parts of the world were a little swollen, and little bits of unhappiness were occurring to a lot of people—a lost brooch, a broken dish, a missing toy. Each thing wasn’t more than an extra drop of unhappiness, but all those extra drops eventually could change the tone of a family or a village.

  “You can do this, wild child. I know you can.”

  Gone. A flurry of notes that sounded in his mind like a child blaming him for some unhappiness, and Ephemera was gone.

  He could think of one reason why the world would be unhappy with him. “Did something ha
ppen when you took the basket?”

  No response. He couldn’t even do that much.

  The violets looked sad in the waning light. A lover’s token, rejected before it was received.

  Since he was playing for no one but himself, he played the music he called “Glorianna’s Light.” Then he played the music of love. The music that remembered the touch of her hand, the feel of her lips, the wonder of being inside her.

  Tears slipped down his face, and his heart ached with the remembering, but he kept playing.

  And never noticed when the little clutch of violets disappeared.

  She picked up the little clutch of violets and felt the resonances that had names, faces, memories. Pretty little flowers with savage hooks that dug in and dug in until she wept from the pain of remembering those names, those faces. Screamed out the agony of wanting to touch those names, those faces.

  Don’t belong there. Not anymore.

  But the hooks dug in, dug in, dug in. And from the thin threads that were anchored in another landscape, Light flowed.

  World? It whispered. World? Is there Light?

  Chapter Thirty-six

  World? It whispered. World? Is there Light?

  Ephemera flowed through the currents of the Island in the Mist. It did not listen to the Eater of the World. Would not listen. But the question, flowing from the currents in the forbidden part of itself, brought it back to the sandbox where the Music played with it every day.

  A heart wish had flowed out of the forbidden place. Her heart wish. But the Music did not answer, did not ask the world to send the proper answer. The Music was still learning to be Guide. Maybe the Music did not know?

  She had been the last one at the school who had talked to it, had played with it and helped it shape itself. Who had understood how to be Guide to the World. Unlike the others before her, when the Dark Ones had come, she had listened to it when it tried to save her. It had found Light, and she had followed.

  It had found Light. And she had followed.

  A break in the trees where a person could stand and see the moon shining over the lake. And there was the resonance called Sebastian painting a dark-haired woman who wore a gown that looked as substantial as moonbeams.

  “This is where you belong,” he said. “This is where you should be.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can,” the lover said as his arms wrapped protectively around her. “I traveled a long way to find the treasure in my heart. Don’t ask me to let it go.”

  She felt him fade away, but the resonance that was Sebastian was still there, as strong as memories, as full of promise as a sunrise. And then…

  Mist. And music. The bright notes of the whistle made her smile, and the drum heated her blood until her heart pounded with the rhythm.

  The music dimmed, as if someone had shut a door, and she stood outside in the mist. His arms closed around her, pulling her back against the warmth of his chest.

  She heard the drum in the beat of his heart, knew the bright notes of the whistle would be in his voice, in his laugh.

  “I can hear the music,” she said. “I can hear the music inside you.”

  The music flowed over her skin, sang in her blood, rang in the scarred hollow of her chest. She swallowed and tasted tears—and didn’t know if they were her own or someone else’s.

  Better to sleep. Just sleep. The music was a good dream. She could follow that dream and slip away forever.

  Except the Light was pouring out of the music, feeding the starved currents of this landscape. Waking the predators.

  She rolled onto her side and forced gummy eyes open to look in the direction of the fountain.

  Then she scrambled to her feet and stumbled toward the fountain and the patch of ground glowing with Light.

  “No,” she moaned when she saw the heart’s hope growing out of the sand. “Oh, no.”

  The size of the plant was stunning enough, but it was the flowers that made the heart ache in wonder. They ranged from white as pure as hope to the deep red of passion.

  The Warrior of Light must drink from the Dark Cup. She remembered that now—remembered what she had done. The Warrior of Light must drink from the Dark Cup, and turn away from the Light forever. But the Light rang in her now. Rang, sang, pulled with the need to put two halves back together to make a whole.

  Here here here, Ephemera called. This way.

  She looked around. Her old garden. At the school. The one she had escaped from when the Dark Guides had tried to seal her in. Ephemera had come to her that day, too.

  Heart’s wish! This way!

  “Pushy little world,” she muttered.

  She felt the change inside her. Had felt it starting when the resonances and memories set their hooks into her savaged heart. A tiny flicker of Light that held a promise. And music.

  Just a step would take her between here and there. But…where? She was no longer sure who she was or where she truly belonged.

  She stared at the heart’s hope—and remembered two men in a dream.

  “Take it back,” she said firmly. “Take the heart’s hope back where you found it.”

  Heart’s wish. Ephemera sounded wistful.

  “When the heart’s hope is back where it belongs, I’ll go where you need me to go.”

  Yes yes yes!

  The heart’s hope disappeared, leaving only a square of sand in a nimbus of Light.

  Something tugged at her from the access point Ephemera had created. Pulled at her.

  She had a sudden image of a stretchy band pulled to its fullest. A big ball of Light was at one end; she was at the other. When the band snapped back…

  “Guardians and Guides, this is going to hurt.”

  She hesitated. Pain in staying, pain in going.

  But something made her hesitate.

  In Ephemera, there were few secrets of the heart. And even that heart couldn’t remain hidden now. Not from her.

  She walked back to the ragged blanket she had found somewhere, then pressed her fingers against the ground beneath one corner.

  Ephemera, hear me.

  Assured that the world would obey, she walked back to the square of sand and took the step between here and there.

  Light!

  Barely more than a flicker now, but reason enough to race ahead of whatever else might want to destroy that flicker.

  Then It hesitated. There had been a place in the landscape that had been so Dark it had not quite existed with the rest of the school. Her lair.

  But It did not feel that Dark anymore, and when It approached, It discovered the walls had been torn down, the fountain shattered. Nothing there now but an empty, broken place.

  Changing back to human form, It approached the only thing of interest that had been left behind: a ragged blanket. Crouching, It fingered the material. Scratchy but warm—and more than It had now.

  It started to grab the blanket, then froze as It felt the resonance beneath the material.

  It lifted the corner—and stared for a long time. Then It scooped up the prize and the blanket, and hurried back to the walled garden It had made into a lair. There, It carefully unwrapped the prize and stared at it some more.

  What had been in Belladonna’s heart when she had commanded the world to do this? Had this been left as a punishment—or a gift?

  Didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had left behind a flicker that could feed the Light.

  After selecting the most protected spot in Its garden, the Eater of the World planted the tiny heart’s hope.

  They stood outside Shaney’s Tavern, the music pouring out of the open doors behind them. He wrapped his arms around her and held her against his chest.

  “Stay with me,” he said. “My heart’s hope lies with you, Glorianna Belladonna. Stay—”

  A scuffling sound in his bedroom broke the dream. He lay awake, alert. Then he almost drowned in the sound that flooded through him.

  “Magician?”

  A rou
gh, rusty voice. He barely heard it above the jagged pieces of song trying to fit together. Crashing. Screaming. Dark tones and Light. A song of terrible beauty grating against so much hope.

  He pushed himself up on one elbow and stared at the shadowy figure standing at the foot of his bed. “Glorianna?”

  “I heard the music. I heard the music in your heart.”

  Then she swooned, and he leaped out of bed to catch her, to hold her as he sank to his knees. Even in the moonlight coming in the window, she looked dirty and bruised and half starved. And she was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.

  “You’ll be all right, darling,” he said, rocking her. “You’re home now. You’ll be all right.”

  She stirred a little.

  “Glorianna? Come on now, darling. Don’t be doing this to me.”

  “Don’t tell Lee,” she mumbled.

  “What?” He stopped rocking and looked down at her.

  “He gets upset when I faint. Don’t tell him.”

  He laughed—and then he cried. Then he picked her up and tucked her into bed with him. And hoped he wasn’t dreaming.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Sebastian burst into the kitchen, jolting Michael’s groggy wakefulness.

  Despite waking up again and again to reassure himself that he hadn’t been dreaming, he hadn’t wanted to sleep a minute longer this morning. On the other hand, he wanted to sleep for a week.

  “What happened?” Sebastian asked, his voice as tense as his body. “The heart’s hope is gone. Glorianna’s Light is gone!”

  “Not gone, exactly,” Michael said, trying to get his eyes to focus. “Just transplanted, in a manner of speaking. Want some koffee?”

  “Not if you’re making it.”

  “Fine, then. Do it yourself.” Which, all things considered, was a better idea.

  Wishing he’d had a little more time to prepare for this, he leaned against the kitchen table and scrubbed his hands over his face. Once Sebastian got the koffee started, he said, “It’s good you’re here today.”