Belladonna

  Since the Eater of the World was caged again, and it was safe once more to connect landscapes, Lee had done his duty as Bridge and created a stationary bridge that connected the Island in the Mist to Sanctuary. From Sanctuary, another stationary bridge connected to Aurora, the Den, and Darling’s Harbor, giving him easy access to his family and the places Glorianna would have wanted him to be able to visit.

  Not that he ever used the bridge that led to Sanctuary. It was within sight of the house—and within sight of the bed of turned earth that held the piece of granite and the heart’s hope that was his heart’s symbol for home.

  Putting the bridge there, where he would be reminded of what Glorianna had given him every time he used it, was a piece of calculated cruelty on Lee’s part—payback for a broken arm and a lost sister. He understood that well enough.

  So he did his duty to the world and played his tunes while his heart froze in a winter that would never end.

  There was no Light.

  At first, It had felt gleeful that the surviving currents of Light within the school had been so diminished that they were little more than starved threads, easily snuffed out. It had reveled in the despair and anger that had flowed from the surviving humans in Wizard City, as well as gulping down the fear that had flowed from the Dark Guides.

  But the glee had faded with the Light’s currents. It found no pleasure in the dark landscapes. It took no satisfaction from the knowledge that the True Enemy was trapped within Its landscapes. It had come to realize that It, too, was trapped. With her.

  So It felt no glee, no pleasure, no satisfaction. The feelings that fed, and were fed by, the Light were snuffed out almost before they could form.

  But It did know fear. It crossed the rust-colored sand of the bonelovers’ landscape and found mounds of half-dissolved carcasses. It discovered death rollers impaled on the branches of thorn trees, hanging in the sun like some obscene, rotting fruit. And It watched humans, gathered in hunting parties for safety, grimly butchering one of those death rollers before the meat spoiled.

  When It rested, images crept into Its mind. Nasty dreams about Its fluid, natural form becoming stiff as leather; no longer able to flow beneath the skin of the world; just barely able to hump over the surface, defenseless and exposed. Or It would get stuck in the transformation between one shape and the other, stuck between a land creature and a sea creature, unable to live in either landscape, gasping to survive. Or It would change into the middle-aged gentleman, but the body would divide at the waist, becoming the gentleman and one of the female prey. Sometimes the gentleman had a knife, sometimes claws. Either way It would rip and tear Its prey, screaming in pain because It ripped and tore into Itself.

  This was Its purpose. This was why the Dark Guides long ago had shaped It from the darkest desires of the human heart and brought It into the world: to destroy the Light. But…

  It didn’t like the Dark. Not this much Dark, where there was no hope of a successful hunt, where the human hearts were already so dulled by despair they couldn’t hear It—and didn’t care when they did.

  The Light was gone. It should be happy. But happy belonged to the Light, so the feeling withered before it bloomed.

  It didn’t like this landscape. And It was afraid of the thing that walked in the Dark because she could sense Its wishes as swiftly as It could make the wish—and destroyed the manifestation of that wish the moment after It realized It had gotten what It had asked for.

  No, It didn’t like this much Dark. This wasn’t what It wanted. This place was too cold, too barren, too bitter. Too lonely.

  World? It whispered. Ephemera? Where is the Light?

  Its only answer was Belladonna’s cruel, mocking laughter.

  The Eater of the World craved Light. Wasn’t that delicious?

  She could feel those tiny threads inside It. A flaw on the part of the Dark Guides who had brought It into being so long ago. It enjoyed snuffing out the feelings that came from the Light, but It also needed those feelings for Itself.

  The Eater of the World was a flawed creation. Unlike her, who walked pure and undiminished in the Dark.

  And if her chest ached so fiercely at times that she wondered why there was no deep, violent scar carved in her flesh, well, that didn’t matter because she no longer remembered what she had lost.

  You won’t find the answer to whatever pains your heart at the bottom of a bottle, Michael, Shaney had said.

  You’re not doing yourself or the world any good, Magician, Kenneday had said. Go somewhere your heart can find peace.

  Michael sat on a stone bench and watched the koi in their pond. Find peace. Well, there was no better place to find it than Sanctuary, was there?

  It always came as a jolt to realize he had known her for no more than a double handful of days. Oh, he dreamed of her for longer than that, but he hadn’t known the woman for more than that short span of time.

  So much had happened in those too few days.

  My heart’s hope lies with Belladonna. Her darkness is my fate.

  Too few days. But he would spend the rest of his life living in her shadow.

  “It has been quite some time since you visited here,” Yoshani said, sitting down on the bench.

  “Haven’t been in tune with the place, have I?” Michael replied, not caring about the bitterness that flowed through his words.

  “Perhaps you haven’t wanted to be in tune with the place,” Yoshani said gently. “Perhaps now you are starting to heal.” He paused, then added, “They understand, Michael. It hurt them—hurt all of us—but we had known Glorianna would stand against the Eater of the World and, most likely, not survive.”

  “They don’t understand—and they haven’t forgiven.” Michael turned his head and looked at Yoshani. “Nadia has forgiven, as much as she can, but not Lee. Not Sebastian. What happened to Glorianna was no clean death, no peaceful ending. She cast out all the things that belong to the Light—joy and kindness, compassion and love. Hope. She wears a coat of misery, makes a bed out of despair, and drinks sorrow. And the forces of darkness must sit at the table she has made from the bones of their kin and weep bitter tears over the banquet she has set before them.”

  A long pause. Then Yoshani said, “Those words do not come from the story about the Warrior of Light.” He smiled when Michael narrowed his eyes. “You left the box of books with Caitlin Marie. She showed me the story. Your words tell me you have given that dark place, and the woman who walks there, much thought.”

  “So what if I have?” He hadn’t dreamed about her once since she disappeared into that dark place. Some mornings he woke up weeping because he didn’t even have that much of her anymore.

  “There is something I have wondered.”

  Yoshani fixed his gaze on the koi pond. That avoidance of meeting another person’s eyes caught Michael’s attention as nothing else could.

  “What happened to the Light?” Yoshani asked softly. “In the story, it is dispersed through the world. But I have also heard about the dark landscape that was created when the Dark was cast out of Lighthaven. So I wondered what happened to the other half of Glorianna’s heart. Was her Light dispersed through her landscapes or is it—”

  Michael sprang to his feet and took a few steps before realizing he had moved.

  He’d asked Ephemera to keep the Light safe. Hadn’t he? He couldn’t remember. He had accepted the tragic ending of the Warrior of Light. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that it was just a story? And stories could be changed.

  Wild child? he called, hardly daring to breathe. Wild child? Do you know how to find Glorianna’s Light? yes yes yes

  Faint notes carried on the air. A song he thought he would never hear again—the bright part of the music that was Glorianna Belladonna.

  Happiness flowed in the currents around him. As if Ephemera had been waiting for him to ask the question. Or discover for himself where it had put the Light half of Glorianna’s heart.

  Fool. The world
had been waiting for him to ask the question.

  “I have to go back to the Island in the Mist.” He spun around to face Yoshani. If he was wrong, he wanted someone with him because the despair would crush him. If he was right, he wanted to share the joy. “Come with me?”

  The bridge that led to the Island in the Mist was on one of the little islands that dotted Sanctuary’s small lake. It was separate from the other little islands and not easily accessible, but flat stepping stones rose above the lake’s surface as he and Yoshani approached the shore, giving them a slippery path.

  Michael trembled as he crossed over to the Island in the Mist. Not to the walled garden this time, but to the part of the island that would have been his home with Glorianna. The part that would have nurtured their life together.

  The music rang in the air, calling him.

  He ran, knowing exactly where to look, with Yoshani right behind him.

  Had it been there all these months, waiting for him to find it? He hadn’t heard a single note of this when he was in the walled garden. Hadn’t suspected it was here.

  He skidded to a stop in front of a bed near the house. His heart’s hope plant looked brittle. Dead. But there was one little patch of new, green leaves. And one tiny bud struggling to bloom.

  Beside his little plant was a glory of Light. A heart’s hope bigger than any he’d seen and covered with buds.

  “Michael?” Yoshani asked, looking at him, then at the bed, then back again.

  He pointed to the heart’s hope. “Her Light.”

  Yoshani frowned. “Nadia, Lynnea, and Caitlin have all been here to tend the gardens and do the mundane work. Lee was here to make the bridge. Even Sebastian has been here. They said nothing.”

  “They don’t know,” he said softly, as stories and memories and all the things Glorianna had told him about the connection of Dark and Light spun through his mind.

  My heart’s hope lies with Belladonna. Her darkness is my fate.

  The key had been inside him all the time. Had he realized the answer too late, or would he be able to open that locked door?

  “Forgive my doubt, Michael, but how do you know?”

  He gave Yoshani a brilliant smile. “I can hear the music of her heart.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The sand in the box Glorianna had referred to as a playground didn’t change. Hadn’t changed in the handful of days since this idea had taken root. He hadn’t been rewarded with a pebble or a weed or even a tiny patch of bog. Nothing. He had hoped that music could be a bridge between landscapes, could touch what, otherwise, couldn’t be reached. But there had been no indication, not the slightest, that his music was reaching the woman he played for.

  Discouraged, he tucked the whistle in his pocket, then let his hands fall into his lap.

  “I don’t know, wild child,” he said. “Maybe I left it too late, didn’t figure things out fast enough.” It had occurred to him, while he was doing the washing up after dinner last night, that time was a factor. Every day Glorianna Belladonna remained a heart divided was another day she would change a little more, become someone different from the woman he’d known—and the song he remembered would no longer be the song that matched the whole of her heart. Months had already gone by since she’d taken the Eater and Its landscapes out of the world. Who was she now? Did she remember anything about her family, about him?

  He’d played the music that was Glorianna Belladonna. And he’d played the music that was Michael the Magician, hoping the memory of being with him would stir something in the currents of the world.

  The only thing it had stirred up was his longing for her.

  As he sat there, staring at the unchanging sand in the box, his mind drifted, and an image from a story floated up to the surface of memory.

  A door with a hundred locks. A key that came from the heart.

  His breath caught. He sat up straight, his blood pounding in his veins.

  “One lock this time,” he whispered. “And only one key that will open it.” Then he felt a stab of sorrow so fierce that he bent over, pressing his forehead to his knees to try to ease the pain of it.

  Only one would open that lock. And he wasn’t the right key.

  “Well, look who’s here.”

  It wasn’t the warmest welcome, Michael thought as he stepped into Philo’s courtyard, but at least Teaser wasn’t hurling threats at him—or stones.

  “Michael!” Lynnea hurried over. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen you. Where have you been? Have you eaten? You haven’t eaten, have you? Sit down right there, and I’ll bring you something. Teaser, you keep him company.”

  “You don’t have to be fussing over me,” Michael protested. “I just…Is Sebastian around?”

  “You’re nothing but skin and bones,” Lynnea said.

  A little worse for wear, maybe, but hardly skin and bones.

  “You will sit, and you will eat.”

  She suddenly sounded like a younger version of his aunt Brighid, which scared him enough to make him keep quiet and pull out a chair at a table. When she swung into the building to place his order, he looked at Teaser, who shrugged.

  “She’s practicing to be a mommy,” Teaser said, dropping into the opposite chair.

  “She’s pregnant?” That would be good news for the family, wouldn’t it?

  “They’re working on getting her that way.”

  Michael scratched his chin. “They weren’t working on it before?” He couldn’t picture Sebastian abstaining from sex.

  “Nah,” Teaser said. “Before, if it happened, it would have been an accident. Now it’s deliberate. Don’t ask me what the difference is. I’m just an incubus, and from where I’m standing, it looks the same to me.”

  He smiled, finding comfort in the ordinary. And he could admit to himself that that was the reason he’d avoided the Den over these past few months—he hadn’t felt he deserved the comfort he’d found in this landscape, with these people.

  Then he heard the song, before he turned his head and saw the man. A dark song, full of power, threaded with Light.

  “Word has it that you’ve settled into the house on the Island in the Mist,” Sebastian said as he joined them.

  “I have, yes.”

  Lynnea came back and set a plate in front of him piled with roast beef, potatoes, and some kind of casserole. She placed a bowl of melted cheese and a basket of Phallic Delights between Sebastian and Teaser.

  “The man isn’t taking care of himself,” she said, glaring at Sebastian. “Don’t let him leave the table until he eats.”

  “What’s he supposed to do?” Teaser asked, reaching for a Phallic Delight. “Give Michael a bit of a sizzle?”

  Lynnea whacked the incubus on the shoulder and huffed off to a table full of visitors, who cowered at her approach.

  “She tangled with Lee over something this morning and has been a bit pissy ever since,” Sebastian said, swirling a Delight in the melted cheese.

  “Over me, is what you’re not saying.” Michael started to push the plate of food away, then glanced up and saw Lynnea glaring at him, so he picked up a fork and stabbed a piece of potato.

  “Good choice,” Sebastian said. “Anyone who tangles with her today is on his own.”

  The first few bites didn’t go down easily, but as he listened to Teaser and Sebastian talking about the Den, he began to relax and enjoy the meal.

  Lynnea returned, declared herself satisfied that he’d eaten enough, and removed the dishes.

  “Well,” Teaser said, looking from him to Sebastian. “I’ll just take myself off and do…something.”

  When they were alone, Michael could feel those sharp green eyes staring at him, so he lifted his head and met Sebastian, look for look.

  “Threat and promise is what you called me,” Michael said quietly. “I made good on the threat by helping Glorianna cage the Eater of the World—and cage herself in the process. Now I’m asking for your help, Justice Maker, in order
to make good on the promise.”

  “In clear words, Magician,” Sebastian said.

  “I think there’s a way to get her back. And I think you’re the key to doing it.”

  Sebastian stared at him for a long time. Then, softly, “What do you want me to do?”

  “It might not work,” Michael said as he and Sebastian walked over to the sandbox.

  “You said that.”

  “I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

  “You said that too.”

  “I just don’t want you to hope for too much.”

  Sebastian stopped. “Magician. Isn’t that the whole point? To hope?”

  Michael swayed with the force of those words flowing through the currents on the island. “It is. Yes, it is.”

  They stepped into the gravel side of the box and sat down on the bench.

  “What do you want me to do?” Sebastian asked.

  Michael took out his whistle. “I’m not sure how this reaching through the twilight of waking dreams works, but you were able to reach my aunt and the Ladies of Light on the White Isle when you sent that riddle, so I’m thinking you could reach Glorianna in this other landscape.”

  Sebastian looked at the tip of his boot. “I’ve already tried that. It didn’t work.”

  Michael nodded. “And I’ve tried what I could do. I’m thinking neither is enough by itself, but together…All we need is a crack, a way to send a little something to help her remember who she was. She divided her heart and built a wall to keep them separated, but given a chance, they’ll come back together. We’re trying to create just enough of a chink in that wall for her to feel the other half of her heart.”

  It was tempting to play the love inside himself, but while Sebastian unfurled the power of the incubus and moved through the twilight of waking dreams, Michael played the music he heard in the incubus’s heart.