Ephemera 02 Belladonna

Chapter Three

Present

Michael paused outside the door of Shaney's Tavern and fiercely wished he'd already downed a long glass of whiskey.

The music was out of tune here. Off rhythm. Wrong. Not as bad as Dunberry, but...

Dunberry. What had gone wrong there! All right, so he'd done a little ill-wishing the last time he'd passed through, but the ripe bastard had been cheating at cards and deserved to have some bad luck. It wasn't as if he'd prospered from it. He just didn't think it was fair for Torry to lose his stake simply because the boy had had the poor judgment to try to plump up his wedding purse by playing a few hands of cards. And didn't Torry find a small bag of gold a few days later — gold his grandfather had hidden in the barn and forgotten years ago? That bit of luck-bringing had balanced out the ill-wishing, hadn't it?

But the girl Torry was going to marry ... Stabbed to death, wasn't she, and so close to help, that Torry and his friends had heard her scream.

He'd heard about it fast enough when he came into the village. Just as he heard what wasn't quite being said. Not about the girl, Erinn, but about two boys who disappeared a few days before she was killed. Someone had seen them going off with a man who wasn't from Dunberry but was familiar enough to be trusted. What would a man be doing with two young boys that they would need to disappear after he was done with them?

He hadn't been in Dunberry for weeks, but sooner or later someone would put his face or his clothes on that "familiar enough" man, and it wouldn't matter that he'd been in another village when those boys had disappeared. Once the villagers decided he was the man, he wouldn't survive long enough to get a formal hearing.

So he'd snuck away in the wee hours of the morning, putting as much distance between himself and Dunberry as he could before the people began to stir.

He no longer fit the tune of that village. It had turned dark, sharp-edged, sour.

That's how he heard places and people. They were melodies, harmonies, songs that fit together and gave a village a certain texture and sound. When he fit in with a place, he was another melody, another harmony. And he was the drum that settled the rhythm, fixed the beat.

But not in Dunberry. Not anymore.

The bang of a door or a shutter made him jump, which jangled the pots and pans tied to the outside of his heavy backpack. The sounds scraped nerves that were already raw, and his pounding heart was another thumping rhythm he was sure could be heard by ... whatever was out there.

Tucking his walking stick under the arm holding the lantern, he wrapped his fingers around the handle on the tavern's door. Then he twisted around to look at the thick fog that had turned familiar land into some unnatural place that had no beginning or end.

Didn't matter if the music was wrong here. He'd beg or barter whatever he had to in order to get out of that fog for a few hours.

Giving the door a tug, he went inside the tavern, pulling off his brown, shapeless hat as he strode to the bar. The pots and pans clattered with each step. Normally he found it a comforting sound, but when he'd been walking toward the village that lay in the center of Foggy Downs, a lantern in one hand and his walking stick in the other, feeling his way like a blind man ... The ordinary sound had seemed too loud in that gray world, as if he were calling something toward him that he did not want to see.

"Well, look what stumbled out of the forsaken land," Shaney said, bracing his hands on the bar.

"Lady of Light," Michael muttered as he set his hat and lantern on the bar. "I've seen fog roll in thick before, but never as bad as this." Leaning his walking stick against the bar, he shrugged off the straps of the pack, glad to be rid of the weight.

Then he looked around the empty tavern. He could barely make out the tables on the other side of the room since Shaney hadn't lit any of the lamps except around the bar.

"Is everyone laying low until this blows past?" he asked, rubbing his hand over one bristly cheek. If business was slow and the rooms Shaney rented to travelers were empty, maybe he could barter his way to a bath, or at least enough hot water for a good wash and a shave, as well as a bed for the night.

Shaney put two whiskey glasses on the bar, then reached for a bottle. He poured two shots.

Michael looked at the whiskey, craving the fire that would ease the chill in his bones. But he shook his head. "Since I'm hoping for a meal and a bed tonight, whiskey is a little too rich for my pocket just now."

"On the house," Shaney said, sounding as gloomy as the fog. "And you're welcome to a bed and a share of whatever the Missus is making for the evening meal."

"That's generous of you, Shaney," Michael said, knowing he should be grateful but feeling as if the ground had suddenly turned soft under his feet and a wrong step would sink him.

"Well, maybe you'd be willing to play a bit this evening. I could spread the word that you're here."

Picking up a glass of whiskey, Michael took a sip. "I'm flattered you think so highly of my music, but do you really expect people to come out in this for a drink and a few tunes?"

"They'll come to play a few tunes with you."

A chill went through him. The music is wrong here, Michael, my lad. Don't be forgetting that, or what you are, and lower your guard.

He'd been shy of seventeen the first time he'd come to Foggy Downs, and had been on the road and making his own way for almost a year. Over the years since, he'd come to depend on this being a friendly, safe place to stay. If people realized what he was, Foggy Downs would no longer be as safe — or as friendly.

Shaney downed his whiskey, then pulled a rag from under the bar and began polishing the wood. "Do you remember old Bridie?"

Michael rubbed a finger around the rim of his glass. "I remember her. She smoked a pipe, had a laugh that could put sparkle on the sun, and, even at her age, could dance the legs off any man."

"That pipe," Shaney murmured, smiling. "She never ran out of leaf for that pipe. She'd be down to her last smoke, and something or someone would always come along to provide her with a new supply of leaf. People would ask her if she had some lucky piece hidden away because, even when bad things happened, some good would come from it. And she always said currents of luck ran through the world, and a light heart and laughter brought her all the good luck she needed."

A silence fell between them, but it wasn't the easy breathing space it usually was when neither felt like talking.

Finally, Shaney said, "The first time you came to Foggy Downs, Bridie saw you, heard you play. She took my father aside after you'd gone on down the road, and she told him to look after you whenever you came to our village. Said she had a feeling that we'd be putting her to ground by the spring, and even though she didn't think you were ready to give up your wandering to put down roots, you were the best chance Foggy Downs had of having a luck piece once she passed on. So some of us have known what you are — just as we knew what she was."

Michael downed the rest of the whiskey, wishing it would ease the despair growing inside him. He truly didn't want to go out in that fog, but he didn't want to end up being accused of something he didn't do and die at the hands of a mob either. "I guess I'll be on my way then."

Shaney tossed his rag on the bar and gave Michael a look that was equal parts disbelief and annoyance. "Now what part of what I was saying made that pea-sized brain of yours figure we wanted to see the back of you? And what makes you think so little of me that you'd figure I'd ask any man to walk back out in a fog that someone can get lost in when he's still within reach of his own door?"

Michael said nothing, surprised at how much Shaney's annoyance gave his heart a scratchy comfort.

"I can't change what I am," he said softly.

"No one is asking you to." Shaney scrubbed his head with his fingers, then smoothed back his hair and sighed. "Something evil passed through Foggy Downs a few days ago. The whole village had a bad night of it. Children waking up screaming from the nightmares. Babes too young to say what gave them a fright wailing for hours. And the rest of us ... It's a strange feeling to have an old fear come up and grab you by the throat so you come awake with your heart pounding and you don't quite know where you are. 'Twas a hard night, Michael, and the next morning ..." He looked at the fog-shrouded windows.

Michael stared at the windows before turning back to Shaney. "It's been like that for days?"

"First couple of days, folks went about their business as best they could, taking care of only what was needed, sure the fog would burn off to what we're used to having here. The Missus and I even had folks gather here that first night. Had us a grand party, with music and dancing, while we all tried to put aside the bad dreams of the night before. But the fog didn't lift. Hasn't lifted. And I'm thinking this fog is more than fog, and if evil used some kind of ... magic ... to create it, then it's going to take another kind of magic to put things back the way they were."

The two men studied each other. Then Michael pressed his hands on the bar and closed his eyes.

He had no words for what he sensed, what he could feel. But the sound that filled his mind was a grating, creaking, sloshing, oozing, tearing. The sound of poison. The sound of old hurts, painful memories, deeply buried fears.

Then he imagined his music filling Shaney's Tavern, the bright notes of the tin whistle shining in the night like sparkles of sunlight. Certainty shivered through him. His music would shift the balance enough so the people here would be able to heal Foggy Downs. He could reestablish the beat. Fix the rhythm. Restore the balance enough to still belong.

He opened his eyes and looked at Shaney. "You put out the word, and I'll provide the music."

Shaney put out the word, and the people gathered. No one from the outlying farms, to be sure, but the families who lived close enough to the tavern to brave the fog came with a covered dish to pass around and children in tow. So Michael listened to gossip and passed along news from the other villages he'd visited during this circuit of wandering. He ate a bit of everything so no lady would be offended and pretended not to notice the speculative looks a few of the young women were giving him. He was used to those looks. Since he was a healthy, fit man who rarely stayed more than a few days in a place, certain kinds of women often looked at him like a savory dish that was only available a few times a year, which enhanced the appeal, and there were a few young widows who were willing to offer him more than just lodging when he came to their town.

While he looked like a scruffy ne'er-do-well most of the time, he cleaned up well enough when he got the chance, and the smoky blue eyes and brown hair that was always a bit shaggy went with the face that was handsome enough to attract the ladies but not so handsome it made people uneasy

Until they found out what he was.

As the rhythm of the gathering shifted from gossip and food to unspoken hopes and expectations, he fetched his tin whistle, nodded to the other men who had brought instruments, and shooed the children out of the small space that had been cleared for the musicians.

Michael closed his eyes and let himself drift on the feel of the room. Ah. There was that odd sensation he sometimes felt when he was deliberately trying to change the feel of a place. A presence, like a child too shy to come forward where it might be noticed, but too intrigued by the things and people around it to go away. More than that. This wild child, as he thought of it, was intrigued by him. He had the feeling that it could hear the music in his heart in the same way he could hear the music in other hearts, and that's what intrigued it enough to come to a gathering. The reason didn't matter. What mattered was that when he felt the wild child's presence, sometimes he could make things happen that were more than a little luck-bringing or ill-wishing directed at a specific person.

Lifting the tin whistle to his lips, he let the first notes float through the air, soft and bittersweet... and hopeful. Little by little, conversations faded — or maybe he no longer heard them. The fiddler joined him, slow and easy.

There was nothing but the music, and he wasn't playing for the people in the room. Not yet. This song was for the wild child. To catch its interest, its attention. Its heart.

With his eyes still closed, he slipped into the next tune. More energy. Drum added to the fiddle and whistle. A sparkle of notes drifting out into the night, dancing in the fog, glistening with the energy and good spirits of the people like dew glistened on a web when touched by the morning sun.

Yes, he thought as he opened his eyes and watched the dancers, these were good people who welcomed the Light, who deserved the Light.

Musicians came and went, taking their turn for a few songs, then stepping back for someone else. When he was given a shove and told to take his turn on the dance floor, he ignored the bold, silent invitations — especially the one from Doreen, who worked for Shaney and always made him think of the fate of the mouse caught under the cat's paw — and chose a girl who was old enough to be flattered by his asking to be her partner and young enough that she wouldn't expect him to be any other kind of partner.

Not that he didn't want to take hold of a woman and kiss her senseless. The music was hot. The energy was hot. And he wanted with a need that chewed at his bones.

But what he hungered for wasn't here, so he gave himself to the music.

Food was reheated. People drifted to corners farthest away from the music in order to talk. Shaney opened up a few of the upstairs rooms, where children were tucked up in beds, cuddling together like puppies.

He talked. He danced. He ate. He played. And always, he held in his mind and heart the image of the notes sparkling in the night.

As her mind rose to that twilight place that was neither true waking nor sleeping, Glorianna dreamed of music. Folksy, but like nothing she'd heard before. Slightly different sound to the drum and the violin — at least, she thought it was a violin. But it was the bright notes of the whistle that made her smile, that had her feet twitching as if they wanted to dance, 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 a fog as thick as a soft blanket. She wasn't surprised when his arms closed around her, pulling her back against the warmth of his chest. Then ...

She heard the drum in the beat of his heart, heard the long sigh of the violin in his breath. Knew the bright notes of the whistle would be in his voice, in his laugh.

"There is music inside you," she said. "I can hear the music inside you."

His smile, that curving of lips against her cheek, was his only answer.

Hours later, drained in body, mind, and heart, Michael lowered his whistle and looked at the men slumped in the chairs around him.

"Well, lads, looks like we're done here."

One of the men, looked at the people asleep at the tables and grinned. "I'd say we are."

Wanting some fresh air, Michael wove his way through the tables until he reached the tavern door and pushed it open.

"Lady of Light," Shaney whispered behind him. "Look at that."

Oh, he was looking — and he was stunned by what the dawn light revealed. Thick strands and knots of that heavy fog clotted the street, but it was broken up by a thin mist — the kind of mist that softened sunlight and created rainbows.

"You did it, Michael," Shaney said, resting a hand on Michael's shoulders.

"We all did," he replied. He'd never influenced a place so much, so obviously. He wasn't sure what to do about it, what to think about it.

"Wouldn't have happened without you, though. You're a fine musician. The best I've ever seen."

"And you've seen the last of me for the next few hours."

"You've earned your rest and more. If the Missus and I aren't around when you wake, just help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen, and she'll fix you up with a proper meal later."

Michael just nodded and headed for the stairs at the back of the tavern that led up to the rooms Shaney rented. He felt drained, hollowed out. But it was a good feeling that left him looking forward to the pleasure of stretching out on a bed with clean sheets and sleeping through the day.

He didn't see Doreen until he was at the top of the stairs. By then it was too late to fix the tactical error of coming up to his room alone.

"Took you long enough," Doreen said, giving him a smile that was meant to be enticing.

"It's a proven fact that the number of stairs increases in direct proportion to the amount of drink that is consumed or the amount of sleep that was lost," Michael said lightly.

Doreen shrugged, clearly not interested in anything but what she'd planned. "I figured, after playing all that fine music, you'd be wanting a bit of company about now. Private company."

You figured wrong. There was a meanness in Doreen. She hid it well, most of the time, but he heard sharp notes every time he was near her. He didn't like her, and yet despite those sharp notes, she had fit into the music that was Foggy Downs. Right now, however, even if he had wanted her, he wouldn't have done either of them any good. At least he could be honest about that much.

"I thank you for the offer, Doreen, but I'm too tired to be good company — or any kind of company if it comes to that."

Her smile faded. "You think you're better than me, don't you? I know you've pleasured other women, but because I wait tables in a tavern, that puts me beneath men of good reputation."

Michael shivered. He wasn't sure if it was due to fatigue or the other meaning beneath Doreen's words. And maybe he was just too muzzy-headed and tired to hear it clearly, but her tune didn't seem to fit the village anymore. It was too sharp, too ... dark. Wrong.

"But you're not a man of good reputation, are you, Michael? You're nothing but a drifter, a wanderer, a —"

The word she spoke struck him like a blow to the heart.

"What's that you called him?"

Michael jumped, startled by the voice on the stairs behind him. He stepped aside to let Maeve, the village postmistress and owner of Foggy Downs's lending library, pass by.

"Musician?" Maeve said, touching fingers delicately to one ear. "Well, there's no need to be sounding all dramatic about it. Of course he's a musician, girl! Are your ears so stopped up with wax that you couldn't hear him playing all night?"

Doreen's eyes flashed with anger, but she didn't reply.

Smart girl, Michael thought. Maeve might have a thinning head of white hair and a wrinkled face, but there was nothing wrong with her mind or her hearing. And since she was responsible for obtaining the magazines published in the big city that informed young ladies about the latest fashions and young wives about household tips, even the sassiest woman understood the value of being respectful to Maeve.

The postmistress shook her head and let out an exasperated sigh. "Leave the boy in peace, Doreen, and let him get some sleep. Any woman worth her salt knows a man that tired hasn't the wit for romance."

He wasn't sure he appreciated Maeve's way of helping him escape, but he wasn't going to ignore the opportunity.

"Good night, ladies," he said, slipping past both women to reach his room. Once inside, he slid the bolt home as quietly as possible. No point insulting Doreen into doing something foolish by letting her hear him lock the door. But he wouldn't rest easy without the lock, especially since she seemed determined to have him.

He couldn't imagine why. Doreen enjoyed men for what she could get from them, and he didn't have much to offer m terms of providing a woman with material things. Wary of her interest, he'd always found an excuse not to be one of her men — and now it was going to cost him. Even if Shaney and Maeve stood by him, it was still going to cost him sooner or later.

He walked toward the washstand, intending to rinse a bit of the fatigue and grittiness from his face. But he ended up staring in the mirror above the dresser.

He was twenty-eight years old. The last twelve years hadn't been easy. He missed his sister Caitlin and his friend Nathan. Even missed his Aunt Brighid on occasion. Missed the feeling of having a home and roots, even though he hadn't felt like he'd had either when he lived in Raven's Hill. But his continued presence would have made things harder for his family. Brighid had been a Lady of Light and still commanded respect because of that, but Caitlin Marie was whispered to be odd, strange ... unnatural. A young girl who had found the walled garden hidden somewhere on the hill behind the family's cottage. Caitlin would never be offered the things most young women dreamed of — a home, a husband, children — and his heart ached for her.

Until people discovered Caitlin's link to the hidden garden, he had been the one the villagers didn't want around because he had a power no one understood. But everyone knew what it did and what the person who wielded that power was.

A luck-bringer. An ill-wisher.

A Magician.

There was nothing wrong with Maeve's hearing. And there would be nothing anyone could do to curb Doreen's spiteful tongue. It wouldn't matter if Maeve tried to soften the gossip. The damage would be done. By the time the next market day ended, everyone in Foggy Downs would know he was a Magician.

Some would hate him for it, and would blame him for any bit of trouble that came their way. And, in truth, he would deserve some of that blame. But he had heard of Magicians who had been killed in other parts of Elandar because it was so easy to bury them in the blame.

So he would leave Foggy Downs while the people still thought kindly of him. He needed to get back to Raven's Hill anyway, needed to talk to his aunt as soon as he could.

Because of the dreams. Because of her.

That was the real reason he wouldn't have been of any use to Doreen, even if he'd been willing. He didn't want any other woman since he'd begun dreaming about her.

Long black hair. Green eyes. A beautiful face that he had never seen in the flesh. But he could feel the shape of her in his arms, breathe in the scent of her, taste the warmth of her. Hear the music of her heart.

That, more than anything, seduced him. He could hear the music of her heart. And it made him yearn for things he couldn't put into words, except one: home.

Night after night, she filled him with hungers he thought would kill him if he didn't satisfy them soon. And there was always someone or something whispering in his ear, "This is what you've searched for. This is who you've searched for."

Deny it, defy it, reject it during every waking moment. It didn't matter. Somehow he had fallen in love with the woman who haunted his dreams — a woman he'd never met and wasn't certain even existed.

His aunt was the only person he knew whose training might provide him with an answer about the nature of these dreams, so he was going back to Raven's Hill.

Stripping down to his drawers, Michael got into bed and was asleep within minutes. He didn't dream about the woman; he dreamed about his aunt. She stood in front of the family's cottage, holding out two plants.

One was called heart's hope. The other was belladonna.

Chapter Four

It found Its way to the sea. Taking the form of the well-to-do, middle-aged gentleman that had served It so well in other places, It

spent a few days hunting around the docks and alleyways of the seaport. To Its delight, the brutal killings nurtured seeds of distrust and fear that sprang up whenever humans encountered someone who wasn't exactly like themselves. Easy enough to hunt and then feast on the dark feelings shaped by terror — and then be the whisper in the back of the crowd, assuring people that anyone who wasn't them must be evil.

Easy enough. But not as easy as It expected. There was strong bedrock around the docks of this seaport — a heart and will through which Ephemera manifested the emotions and wishes of other human hearts.

But what bedrock, what heart? It had destroyed most of the lesser enemies, the females called Landscapers and the males called Bridges. Through Its creatures, It controlled the school where the enemies had gathered, turning their place into one of Its own landscapes. Now the few Landscapers who had survived were contained in whichever landscapes they had fled to, leaving all the other landscapes in their care vulnerable to Its influence.

But this bedrock did not have the resonance of a lesser enemy. And it didn't feel like the True Enemy, the one called Belladonna. This was something other, something different.

A new kind of Enemy.

It had touched the resonance of this Enemy in two other places in this part of the world. It would recognize that heart now if It found the resonance in another place.

But if It could recognize the Enemy, could the Enemy recognize It, find It?

As that thought took shape and grew stronger, It lost Its pleasure in the hunt. It didn't want to be found until It was ready to be found — until It had destroyed the Place of Light the True Enemy hadn't yet hidden within her landscapes.

It left the seaport and flowed steadily north, a shadow beneath the waves. When It wanted to feed, It changed into the form that belonged to the sea, swelling Its size to be able to hunt whatever creatures were available.

Then It stopped at a fishing village, hungry for more than the flesh It could find in the sea. Slipping into the human minds through the twilight of waking dreams, It found a fear that matched Its sea shape. A diminished fear; a safe fear that produced no more than a delicious shiver. Because the thing that was feared was nothing more than a story now, wasn't believed to be real.

Pleased by the discovery, It followed the fishing boats the next day, causing no more than ripples of uneasiness as It flowed around and beneath the boats. But It also herded schools of fish into the nets, so the uneasiness that might have kept the fishermen away from that spot was drowned by their excitement in hauling in such a good catch.

It watched the fishing boats head back to the village at the end of the day, felt the swell of happiness in the hearts of the men

— and the hope that the catch would be as good tomorrow. The catch would be as good. But not for them. While the hope and happiness of the fishermen and their families fed the currents of Light, the Eater of the World floated in

the water — and waited.

Ten fishing boats went out the next morning. Five returned home.

Fathers, sons, brothers. Dead.

The older men said they should have known something was wrong, with fish practically leaping into the boats to escape some danger hidden in the sea. But no one had imagined something out of the old stories coming to life. No one had considered the terror that would fill a man's heart when he saw tentacles as thick as masts and twice the length rise up out of the water and smash a boat into kindling. No one had considered the anguish of hearing a friend, wrapped in one of those tentacles, screaming as the life was crushed out of him. Or, worse, hearing bones snap before a man was flung into the sea, too injured to stay afloat for long or even swim toward another ship, but too close to the tentacles for anyone to risk trying to save him.

Because every time they had tried to save a man, another ship was lost.

So the survivors sailed back to the village, knowing they were leaving men to die. And the pain of that, the shame of it, smeared their hearts with so much hurt that the darkness of their grief seeped through the bedrock that protected their village, staining everything until a man only had to think of the possibility of bad luck to have it come true.

Chapter Five

Merrill fingered the silver cuff bracelet on her wrist as she stared at the stone that formed a natural, shallow basin. The Sisters

filled the basin with water every morning for the birds. Brighid, their leader until she had abandoned them sixteen years ago, had found the stone and designed this little contemplation corner around it.

But Merrill hadn't come for contemplation this morning. She had come to let her heart speak to the Light as eloquently as it could. She needed help. They all needed help.

Help me find a way to protect the Light. Please, help me find a way.

Pulling the cuff bracelet off her wrist, she placed it in the shallow basin. Since it had been a gift from Brighid, she valued it more than any other possession. Giving it up seemed a sacrifice worthy of the help she sought.

Not that she really believed her prayers or a bracelet would make any difference.

Turning away from the basin before she changed her mind and took back the bracelet, she returned to the terrace that overlooked the gardens behind Lighthaven's sprawling manor. For forty years she had lived in the manor and walked through these gardens. She had been born here on the White Isle, had spent the first years of her life in Atwater, the seaport village that acted as a portal to the rest of the world. The day after her tenth birthday, her father brought her to Lighthaven and left her with the Sisters of Light in the hopes that she would become one of them.

She had lived nowhere else since, had known no other place. She had rarely traveled beyond the boundaries of Lighthaven m all the years that had passed since that girl had stood at the visitors' gate and felt her heart soar at the sound of women's voices raised in a ritual song. She didn't regret the innocence that came from the lack of worldly experience. She wasn't completely ignorant of what lay beyond the shores of this island — the world brushed against the White Isle often enough — but those things had never touched her, leaving her heart a pure vessel for the Light.

Now she wondered if that ignorance would doom everyone and everything she cared about.

"If the gardens give you no peace," said a voice behind her, "do they give you answers?"

Merrill turned to look at her closest friend. Shaela never spoke of her life before coming to Lighthaven, had never once revealed what had driven a girl on the cusp of womanhood to steal a rowboat and try to make her way across the strait that separated the White Isle from Elandar. She had never said what had caused the blindness in her left eye or the slight paralysis of the left side of her face or the lameness in one leg.

There were scars on Shaela's body that the years had faded but couldn't erase completely. And there were scars on her heart that would never fade.

Because of that, there was always a shadow of Dark inside Shaela, but that shadow made her value the Light even more than the Sisters who had never been touched by evil.

"I feel the chill of winter," Merrill said, turning back to look at the garden. "I dread the cold days and long nights that are coming because I can't stop wondering if we'll ever see the spring."

Shaela sighed, an exasperated sound. "You've been chewing on this for over a month. You've been over the old records again and again and found nothing."

"I found the old stories. They support the warning we heard."

"That the Destroyer of Light, the Well of All Evil, has returned? You've been wearing yourself out because a voice — a man's voice — came to you in a dream."

"A warning," Merrill insisted. "And a riddle." She wrapped her arms around herself, adding quietly "And we aren't the only ones who heard the warning."

"Can Brighid be trusted?" Shaela asked just as quietly.

"She was a Sister. Is still a Sister, even though she hasn't lived with us since —" Sorrow welled up in her, as sharp as it had been sixteen years ago when she'd helped Brighid pack a trunk and leave Lighthaven in response to a young boy's desperate plea for help.

"Since her sister, Maureen, sick in mind and heart, walked into the sea," Shaela said.

"Yes."

Brighid had walked in the Light, a shining beacon. But Maureen had been a bit wild, even as a girl. Instead of settling down with her man once she'd become a wife and mother, she got stranger, more twisted — until something inside her finally broke so much that she chose the sea's cradle over her own children, leaving Brighid with the task of raising two children who had in them some Dark blood that gave them unnatural abilities to make things happen.

"Heart's hope lies within belladonna," Merrill said. "That's what the voice said."

"Belladonna is a poison," Shaela replied. "What hope can be found in something rooted in the Dark?"

"I don't know, but I can think of only one way to find out."

Shaela remained silent for a long time. Then she lightly touched Merrill's shoulder. "Writing to Brighid was one thing. But if you go to Raven's Hill, you'll open old hurts and leave fresh wounds."

"I know." The thought of it made her ache. "But if this danger is real, there is no one else I trust enough to ask for this kind of help."

"When are you leaving?"

"There's a ship leaving Atwater tomorrow morning. The captain has agreed to take me to Raven's Hill."

"You haven't the skills to deal with the outside world."

"Two men from the village are coming with me as escorts. They're worldly enough, I think."

Shaela sighed. "I'd better take care of the packing for the both of us. It's not a long journey by sea, but you still won't consider half of what you'll need."

An odd blend of alarm and relief flooded through Merrill. "You don't have to leave the White Isle."

Shaela spoke slowly, as if picking each word with care. "It's best if I make this journey with you. Yes, I think it's best."

Merrill stared at her friend. "You believe the warning, don't you?"

Shaela hesitated. "No, I didn't. I didn't — until you said you were leaving. Then I imagined you traveling by sea, and a sense of foreboding came over me. The Light within you will be a beacon in the dark. If you leave, you must succeed — and you must return or everything will be lost. I can't shake the feeling that something will stop you from returning unless I'm with you."

"Something's coming," Merrill whispered.

"Yes."

"Something that can destroy the White Isle."

"Yes."

She squared her shoulders. "Then let's make this journey — and hope the answer to this riddle is what we need to save the Light."

Chapter Six

Merrill watched the shoreline as the sailors worked to bring the ship within the shelter of Darling's Cove. An odd name for such a practical-minded village of people, but it was said that the man who first settled there adored his beautiful wife. Fearful that water demons would become enamored with her and try to lure her too far into the water whenever she walked along the beach, he never called her by name when they were near the sea, only darling. Always darling.

But it was his darling who, it was said, had an unusual connection to the land and had created the secret place Merrill hoped would have what they needed.

"It's not too late," Shaela said, coming to stand beside Merrill. "We can still turn back, find another way to do this."

"We can't turn back," Merrill replied. "And it is too late — was already too late before we set foot on the ship. We're running out of time. I can feel it. If we don't find what we seek here ..."

What happens then? she wondered. Nothing? Everything? Are we set free by our failure, or are we doomed because we failed to find the answer that would have saved us? And how am I supposed to know the difference?

"I'll be glad to get off the water," Shaela said. "The further south we've come, the more uneasy I feel."

"I know," Merrill whispered. "I feel it too. Like something knows we're out here." Like there's a stain of evil on the water. It's not here, not yet, but it's getting closer. Whenever I enter that still place where the Light within me dwells, all I have to do is think about the sea, and the Light is diminished. Surely that's a warning.

"Getting into port this early in the morning, we'll have the whole day," Shaela said. "If the girl can provide us with what we need quickly enough, we can be sailing home with the evening tide." She slanted a glance at Merrill. "Unless you want to stay overnight."

"We won't be welcomed as guests," Merrill snapped, lashing out in response to the pain held in that truth.

"No," Shaela said quietly, "we won't. We're going to hurt both of them by coming here." She lifted Merrill's left wrist. "Maybe you should have offered the bracelet as a gift instead of leaving it on a rock for a raven to snatch and take back to its nest."

"It felt like the right thing to do," Merrill said, as troubled now by the impulse to leave the bracelet as an offering to ... something ... as she had been at the time she'd done it. But it wouldn't have been an appropriate gift since Brighid had given it to her in the first place. Had Shaela forgotten that? Or did she not realize what the return of a heart-friend's gift meant, that it was a permanent severing of a friendship?

She turned away from Shaela, wishing the task was behind them instead of something yet to be faced.

The ship anchored within easy distance of the cove's southern arm. The northern arm had wharves for merchant ships and fishing vessels; the southern arm grudgingly accommodated visitors. Piers jutted out from the land in such a way that rowed boats sent out from larger ships could discharge their passengers, but the stairs that connected the piers to the land above made use of what nature had provided, and the uneven lengths and heights of the steps were a punishment for anyone with a weak leg.

Shaela said nothing as they climbed the stairs, but it was clear her bad leg wouldn't hold up to the strain if they had to scramble around a hillside with the girl.

Maybe I could suggest she remain behind with Brighid, Merrill thought, slipping an arm companionably through Shaela's — an unspoken apology for being snappish earlier and unobtrusive support as they made their way to the stables where a horse and buggy could be rented for the day.

She hadn't told the ship's captain the reason for this visit to Raven's Hill — or who she was visiting — but any man who sailed out of Atwater knew about Brighid — and why she no longer lived on the White Isle. So Merrill wasn't surprised when the men who had accompanied them as far as the stable didn't offer to go farther.

After paying the stable fee, Merrill climbed into the buggy, collected the reins, and made sure Shaela was comfortably settled before giving the horse the command to move forward. The cottage was no more than a mile outside the village proper, nestled at the bottom of the hill. It was in the center of a modest acreage that could have provided the family with a respectable living if there had been more than a girl and a woman to work the land.

She had visited twice before — once shortly after Brighid had settled into the cottage and again three years ago, when Brighid, on behalf of her niece, had requested that a Lady of Light come to Raven's Hill to test the girl.

It had become clear in that brief meeting that becoming a Lady of Light and living on the White Isle was Caitlin Marie's all-consuming dream and ambition. And it was just as painfully clear that something lived inside the girl that was at odds with that dream and ambition. Something that would not be welcome on the White Isle.

The girl was as tainted as her brother. Some things came through the bloodlines and never could be washed away.

Guardian of Light, cleanse my thoughts of such unkindness. The children cannot be blamed for their nature, and they have never used it for harm. But... I would not want one of their kind on the White Isle.

"We're here," Shaela said when the cottage came into sight.

As the horse's pace brought them closer and closer to success or failure, Merrill thought about those first two visits. Then, the hill looming behind the cottage had struck her as menacing, as if an ill-spoken word was all that was needed to bring the hillside down on the people living in its shadow. Now that same hill struck her as protective, as if it guarded something precious.

Which impression was closer to the truth? Or had the strain of the journey turned her mind to fanciful imaginings?

When they reached the cottage, Shaela climbed down and attached a lead to the horse's bridle, tying the other end to the hitching post. As Merrill secured the reins and set the brake, she caught the movement of a curtain falling back into place. A moment later, the cottage door opened, and Brighid, looking older and more careworn than Merrill had expected, stepped outside to greet them.

"To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?" Brighid asked with cold politeness.

You know why we've come. Merrill searched Brighid's face but found no sign of welcome. And that sharpened her sadness over the necessity of coming here. They had been friends once, sisters in the joyous work of nurturing the Light. Now two children, especially the girl, stood between them.

"We need your help," Merrill said. The girl suddenly appeared in the doorway, her blue eyes bright with hope when she caught sight of them. No, not a girl anymore. Eighteen now, wasn't she? A woman come into her power. Whatever it might be.

Pretending she didn't see the hope, she kept her eyes fixed on Brighid. "We need Caitlin's help."

"For what?" Brighid asked warily.

So. Brighid was going to hold a grudge, wasn't going to bend even now.

"There are two plants we need for a ... prayer ... circle. They do not grow on the White Isle. We thought Caitlin, with her skills, could acquire them for us."

Hope burned away in Caitlin's eyes, replaced by bitterness. "So the Ladies of Light require the help of a sorceress."

"That is not a word to be bandied about," Shaela said sharply.

"Maybe not," Caitlin replied just as sharply, "but I want to hear her say it. She's so good at speaking the truth, let her speak it now."

"I have a name," Merrill said.

Brighid raised a hand, silencing Caitlin before the girl could reply. "What do you want?"

We have no time for a battle of wills. Can't you feel it, Brighid? Evil is already drifting among us.

"Heart's hope — and belladonna," Merrill replied.

The small jerk of Brighid's body gave Merrill hope, but Caitlin's expression showed no sign of yielding.

"Those plants don't grow around here," Caitlin said, as if that ended all possibility.

"But there is a place nearby where unusual plants grow," Merrill insisted. "I could accompany you and help —"

"You aren't welcome there."

"Caitlin Marie!" Brighid turned on her niece. "I understand your disappointments and why a wounded heart makes for a bitter tongue, but that is no reason to forget your manners."

"So they should get whatever they want from me just for the asking?"

Girl and aunt stared at each other, and Merrill had the uneasy feeling they were no longer talking about plants.

Then Brighid sighed and rested a hand against Caitlin's cheek. "No," she said. "You should get the Ladies what they need because I'm asking. And because this is more important than any one person."

Caitlin hesitated, then bobbed her head once in agreement. "For you, then." She disappeared into the cottage. A few moments later, they all heard the back door slam.

"We came at a difficult time," Merrill said soothingly, wondering if she and Shaela were going to stand outside for however long it took Caitlin to retrieve the plants, or if Brighid would stand by her own words and remember her manners.

"Manure has its uses, Merrill, but it never smells sweet," Brighid replied tartly. "Don't spread it here."

So much for stepping around the point of contention that had bruised their friendship. Not broken it, though. She wouldn't believe it was truly broken. Someday Brighid would be free to come back to the White Isle ... and Lighthaven. "The girl doesn't belong on the White Isle. I stand by the decision I made three years ago. She isn't one of us, Brighid. She never will be."

Brighid leaned against the door frame. "A young man from the village called last week. Asked Caitlin to go walking in the moonlight — the first who has ever done that since she's considered 'strange.' He made her an offer."

"Oh." Merrill smiled. A wounded heart and an offer? Yes, that could explain the sharpness of Caitlin's temper. "Well, young women are often afflicted with nerves and quarrel with their lover before the wed —"

"He made her the kind of offer no woman with pride or heart would accept."

"Ah." Merrill's face heated with embarrassment, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Shaela turn away, head down, clearly uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation.

"Your presence here today is salt on a fresh wound," Brighid said, her voice sad and quiet. "You come asking for favors from one you turned away and offer nothing in return."

"There's nothing I can offer. And you know why we've come."

"Yes, I know why. As I said when I answered your letter, I, too, heard the voice in a dream. The words are a riddle, and I have found no answer." Brighid hesitated. "But I think the answer is more than an answer for whoever discovers the meaning of the riddle."

Shaela looked up, alert. "What do you think it is meant to be?"

"A door."

Reaching the spot on the hillside that she had decided years ago was the end of the path, despite the path continuing on up and over the hill, Caitlin closed her eyes and sent out that silent call: I'm here.

When she opened her eyes, the path ended at the walled garden that branded her a sorceress and was her only comfort and friend — the walled garden that didn't exist for anyone except her.

Slipping through the rusty gate that never closed properly, she hugged the two pots she'd brought with her and slowly examined the beds. She didn't know what belladonna looked like, but she was certain she'd know the feel of it.

And there it was, tucked in the corner of the garden that never managed to grow anything well. Beside it was a heart's hope plant she knew hadn't been there a few days ago.

Kneeling in front of the plants, she put the pots aside, then brushed her fingers over the plants' leaves.

Something here. Something strange.

Her fingers brushed leaves, but she had the sensation of a warm hand clasping hers. An accepting hand.

She understands me.

The thought made no sense. Neither was the certainty that she had almost managed to touch someone who wasn't there.

She sat back on her heels and studied the plants. Aunt Brighid had been acting odd, uneasy. As if she'd had a premonition of bad news and was expecting it to be confirmed every time someone came to the door.

Well, bad news did come knocking, didn't it?

"Prayer circle," Caitlin muttered as she pulled a trowel out of her skirt pocket and carefully dug up the heart's hope. "I'll bet it's going to be an interesting prayer circle."

An important one, anyway, she thought as she settled the heart's hope into one of the pots. Merrill wouldn't have come to Raven's Hill unless it was important. She didn't think Aunt Brighid had expected Merrill to show up, but Brighid had understood why Merrill was asking for these particular plants.

Caitlin transplanted the belladonna — and shivered as if she'd suddenly stepped into a deep, cold shadow.

Something important. And I'm part of it.

Following impulse, she loosened her braid of waist-length brown hair. She pulled out two hairs, wrapped one around the base of each stem at the dirt line, then added a little more dirt to hide what she had done.

She wasn't welcome at precious Lighthaven, but she would be part of whatever ceremony the Ladies of Light performed with the plants.

Humming a folk tune that was currently popular in one of her landscapes, Glorianna headed for her walled garden, a basket of gardening tools in one hand and a watering can in the other. When she and her mother, Nadia, had ganged up on her brother Lee to insist that he take one day out of each seven-day for rest and renewal, she hadn't expected him to surrender so quickly — and she hadn't expected the two of them to then turn on her and make the same demand! But, like Lee, she had been working too hard, pushing too hard. That had been understandable when the threat of the Eater of the World finding a way into her landscapes had been so immediate. After all, It had found Its way into two of her dark landscapes. But there had been no sign of It for weeks, and while the danger to Ephemera hadn't lessened, there was less she or Lee could do until they found some sign of where It had gone.

So today was for pleasure and, for her, that pleasure meant tending the earth, not as a Landscaper who was always vigilantly aware of the balance of Light and Dark currents that flowed through her landscapes but as a woman performing the simple chore of looking after her plants and cleaning out the weeds.

Even here on her small island, the autumn day was unseasonably — and delightfully — warm, so she wore an old pair of trousers she had cut off just below the knees and one of Lee's old cotton shirts — with the sleeves cut short — that her mother would have thrown in the rag basket if Glorianna hadn't snuck it out of the family home after deciding it was perfect for warm-weather gardening. Her shoes were worn at the heels and so broken-down that her striped sock poked up through a hole in the toe, and her black hair was bundled up under a battered straw hat whose ribbons fluttered in the light breeze. Nadia called it her urchin attire, but the garden — and Ephemera itself — didn't care if she was fashionably dressed and looked pretty.

No one really cared how she dressed or if she ever looked pretty.

If I ever fall in love, she'd told Lee once, it will be with a man who can see me dressed like this and still think I look beautiful.

Of course, the man would have to overlook the fact that she was a rogue Landscapes and was feared and reviled by all the other Landscapers who protected their world.

"If you want romance, my girl, read a book," she muttered as she unlatched the gate and gave it a bump with her hip to swing it open enough to slip inside. "That's the only place you'll find a man with enough heart to stand by someone who can control Ephemera like you do." Like no other Landscaper, not even her mother, could do.

Then she froze, all thoughts of a pleasant day in the garden and imagined romance forgotten, as the shock of what brushed against her senses caused her to drop the watering can and basket.

"Guardians and Guides," she whispered.

A dissonance in her garden. Something here that didn't belong. Something that didn't resonate with her.

She plucked the short-handled hoe and tines from the basket, wanting something she could use as a weapon. A quick look around convinced her there was nothing out of order in the beds closest to her, so she closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. Her garden covered almost two acres of land, but what it represented was the safety and well-being of thousands of people who lived in the landscapes in her care. She had to find the dissonance and weed out the source before it contaminated everything.

Despite her vigilance, had the Eater of the World found an anchor point in one of her landscapes that connected with this garden? Had It burrowed in somewhere like a dark, malevolent weed, waiting until she got close enough before unleashing one of its nightmarish creatures in hope of destroying her?

Then she felt Ephemera stirring, trying to align itself to the emotions and wishes churning inside her. The world trusted her as it had trusted few others since the time of the first Landscapers, who had been known as Guides of the Heart. It would manifest her emotions, thinking that was what she wanted — even if that meant creating an access point through which the Eater of the World could enter.

She had to regain control of herself. She had to think instead of feel. She had to think for both of them, because that was her purpose; that was why the world had shaped her kind in the first place.

Closing her eyes, she focused on the dissonance, and as the first shock that anything could have invaded her garden wore off, she caught the faintest hint of anxiety — rather like a puppy who had caught a small creature and brought it home but wasn't receiving the expected praise.

Ephemera had done this? Why?

She opened her eyes and strode to that unsettling spot. The placement of the thing, tucked in an empty piece of the garden that connected with Sanctuary, sent a new jolt of uneasiness rushing through her, but she crouched down to study this unasked-for "gift."

This particular spot had been filled with nothing but clover to protect the rich soil. Now, in the center of that clover, was a stone shaped like a natural basin shallow enough to provide birds with a place to drink and bathe. In the basin, just beneath the water, was a silver cuff bracelet with an intricate design of knots that flowed one to the next.

She reached out, resting her hand on the stone so her fingertips dipped into the water.

Turmoil. Ambivalence. Need and denial. Powerful emotions that tugged at her and also pushed her away.

This stone didn't come from a place of darkness but a Place of Light. She could feel the Light's currents singing in the stone and the water. There was some comfort in that, but it didn't explain why Ephemera had plunked down an access point to an unknown landscape that was connected to who knew where.

Focus, Glorianna. This wasn't idly done.

Someone had cried out with a heart wish strong enough to produce this response from the world, but bringing this stone here to her was as far as Ephemera could take that heart wish.

At another time, she would have used that access point to cross over to the unknown landscape. Standing in that place would have given her a better feel for what that part of Ephemera needed. Except ...

This Place of Light resonated with her and yet it didn't. It was tangled up somehow, and the reason for that was outside her experience.

The currents of power that flowed through Ephemera circled around her, anxious, eager.

Sighing, Glorianna rose. "All right. It can stay." For now. "Let's see if we can get through the rest of the day without any more excitement, all right?"

The currents of power drifted away from her, making her think, again, of a puppy who had already done the very thing she just told it not to do. Not a good sign.

So she wasn't surprised when she saw Lee hurrying up to the garden's gate.

"This is supposed to be your rest day," she called as she hurried to meet him.

"I know. Yours too."

He looked pale and troubled — and his suppressed anger was strong enough to produce a shimmer in the island's Dark currents.

"What's wrong?" Glorianna asked. "Is everything all right at home?"

"It's fine. Home is fine." Lee raked a hand through his hair.

"Lee."

"A handful of Landscapers and three Bridges have found their way to Sanctuary. They're ... distraught... and a bit too quick to start casting blame when — "

She raised a hand, silencing him. Not a surprise that the others would find a way to blame her for the Eater of the World's escape and the destruction of the Landscapers' School. No, not a surprise. But it still hurt that any of them thought her capable of such a heinous act.

"If their landscapes have been compromised ..."

"I know, Glorianna. I know!' Lee looked away. "We need to find out how they got to Sanctuary: what bridges were created and where."

"We may have to shut them out of Sanctuary in order to protect the Places of Light."

"I know that, too. But Yoshani thinks it's best to let them rest for a day, let their emotions settle a bit. Then he thinks you should talk to them."

Yoshani was a holy man who came from a Place of Light in a distant landscape. She had stumbled into that landscape when she was fifteen, had used the access point Ephemera had created and crossed over to that distant place. That choice had saved her from the Dark Guides and prevented them from walling her up inside her garden at the school. After she brought the Places of Light together and formed Sanctuary, Yoshani began dividing his time between his own community of Light and the part of Sanctuary that was more accessible to visitors. People felt easy around him, so he had become an informal listener and counselor to the weary hearts that reached Sanctuary.

He was one of the few people she trusted without reservation. But...

"They don't want to talk to me."

Lee looked at her, his temper shining in his green eyes. "They don't have a choice, Belladonna. The leaders of the Places of Light were very clear about that. All the leaders."

You're not without friends, Glorianna thought. And you're not without family. Those are blessings you need to hold in your heart and remember.

"Are you going back to the guest house in Sanctuary?" Glorianna asked.

"I'd rather not."

She figured as much and would welcome his company, but she was worried about the depth of his anger and bitterness. So the best thing for both of them was to fall back on a simple ploy that had never failed her: treat him like the younger brother he was. "Did you bring something to eat? The last time you were here, you cleaned out the pantry and didn't bother to tell me."

He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes. "Yes, I brought something to eat. And I did not clean out the pantry, just that last bit of cake Mother had made — which was stale by the way since you'd left it so long, so that doesn't count."

"Does too."

"Does not."

"Does too."

"Does —" Lee glared at her.

"Do either of us have to cook this food you brought?"

"We'll have to heat it up and slice the bread and cheese. Even I can manage that, Glorianna."

Satisfied that he was now focused on being an annoyed sibling, she smiled sweetly. "In that case, you can stay. Want to make yourself useful and help me weed?"

"Not a chance." He gave her the look that always made her want to smack him. "It's my rest day. Remember?"

Chapter Seven

Caitlin dug her pitchfork into the compost heap that was tucked away in one corner of her secret garden. Pull out the weeds that choke the flowers and form a messy tangle around the bushes, let them simmer in a corner where sun, water, and air turned them into a rotting stew, and gradually they become a rich loam that fed the same flowers and bushes they had tried to usurp.

If only her own life could be that simple. If only the rotting stew of her emotions could be changed into rich loam.

She worked until her muscles ached. Not because the compost heap needed that much work but because she didn't want to touch the rest of the garden while bitter anger churned inside her. When thirst became a torment, she gave the compost heap one last turn, then leaned the pitchfork against the garden wall and walked over to the little pool of water shaded by a willow tree. The ground around one side of the pool rose up chest high and was a tumble of stones and pieces of slate that created a series of small waterfalls. The spring that fed the pool had to start somewhere among the stones since there was no sign of it on the other side of the garden wall, but she had never found the source.

Taking the tin cup she kept tucked among the stones, she filled it under one of the little waterfalls and drank it dry once, twice. When she filled the cup a third time, she settled beside the pool, one hand moving idly through the water as she sipped from the cup and looked around the garden that had provided her with an odd kind of companionship most of her life.

The pool had been her first exhilarating — and later, frightening — example of her power over the physical world.

She'd been six years old when she'd found the garden hidden on the hill behind her family's cottage. Michael had just left for the first time to take up the wandering life, and she'd run off, heartbroken that her only friend and playmate had abandoned her. She'd run and run and run. Aunt Brighid had told her she would make friends when she started school, but it hadn't happened. The other girls teased her and said cruel things, and she knew the teacher heard the girls and did nothing, encouraging them by keeping silent. So there were no friends, and without Michael to help her, school was hard. And Aunt Brighid hadn't wanted to admit that the same ... something ... that lived inside Michael and had driven him away from Raven's Hill lived inside her, too.

Her aunt would defend her against anyone — including the women who had been Brighid's Sisters on the White Isle — but privately, Brighid hadn't been able to hide the flinch, or the anger, whenever she saw evidence of Caitlin's and Michael's "gift."

So all Caitlin had known that day was that the difference that lived inside her and Michael was the reason Michael had gone away, and she ran, wishing with all her young heart that she could find someone, anyone, who would be her friend.

She'd tripped and ended up sprawled on the path. When she looked up, there was a stone wall in front of her and a rusted, broken gate.

She had found Darling's Garden.

Tangled and overgrown, desperately needing care, the garden tugged at her, and as she walked around it, her heartache eased. Here was something that needed her, wanted her, welcomed her.

Spotting something small that looked pretty but was almost buried under weeds, she pulled up a weed to get a better look. Then pulled up another. And another. When she finally cleaned out a circle of ground around the little plant, she still didn't know what it was, but it made her feel a little less lost and alone.

Years later, she learned the plant's name. Heart's hope.

She kept going back to the garden, escaping from school as soon she could to run up the hill to the secret place. Aunt Brighid's scolding and obvious worry about where a child that age was disappearing to for hours at a time couldn't eclipse the lure of a place where the light seemed to sparkle with happiness every time she slipped through the gate.

Then a girl at school invited all the other girls to see the expensive fountain her father had installed in the family's garden. All the girls except one.

Not you, the girl had said. I don't want you and your evil eye to look at our fountain.

Caitlin had stood outside the school, blinking back tears of shame as anger filled her.

"I wish your fountain looked as rotten as your heart," she whispered.

All the way up to the secret garden, she thought about a fountain and how lovely it would be to have one.

When she got to the garden, there it was — not the kind of fountain appropriate for a formal garden, but a tumble of stones forming a series of waterfalls into a knee-deep pool that was guarded by a young willow tree.

It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen — but it hadn't been there the day before. That was when she realized she could make things happen just because she wanted them to. She was excited, delighted, sure it was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

A week later, her aunt hauled her into their cottage, sat her down in a chair, and said, "Whatever it is you did, Caitlin Marie, I want you to undo it. There's enough talk about evil eyes without you causing trouble."

She didn't understand until Aunt Brighid told her about an expensive fountain that had turned foul. The water plants rotted overnight. The golden fish that had been bought from a merchant in Kendall and brought to Raven's Hill at great expense kept dying. And the water stank like a stagnant marsh no matter how often the groundskeeper cleaned the fountain and replaced the water. There was fear of sickness running through the village because of that foulness.

She'd cried and sworn she hadn't done anything bad, even though she suspected she was the one who had caused the change in the fountain, and she cried even more when Aunt Brighid yelled, "Where will we go if we're driven out of this cottage? This is all we have, and we have this much because it was your fathers legacy, the only tangible asset he left his children. If we don't have this, we have nothing, Caitlin. Nothing."

Then Aunt Brighid started to cry.

She'd seen Aunt Brighid cry happy tears and the "little sadness" tears that came over the older woman from time to time, but not this heart-tearing sorrow.

So that night she wished as hard as she could that the fountain in her classmate's garden would be wonderful and clean and make everyone happy.

It didn't happen. Oh, the next time that fountain was cleaned, it didn't turn foul, but the plants and fish never flourished, and the water never quite smelled clean. Finally, it was drained for the last time and had stood empty ever since.

After that, she kept her wishes contained to the garden and never wished something bad on anyone. Which was hard for a young girl who had no friends, who the teachers looked at with distrust, who knew she was an outsider because of a difference in which she had no choice.

She had kept the garden her secret until Michael came home the first time. He, at least, was like her. He would understand that special place.

But he hadn't understood it. Oh, he'd admired it, had praised the work she had done all by herself to clean it up, but he hadn't felt anything for it.

And yet, he'd done the one thing Aunt Brighid couldn't do: He had accepted her strange communion with the world. It worried him, and it wasn't until years later that she realized he was worried for himself as well as for her. Magicians, the luck-bringers and ill-wishers who could change a person's life by doing nothing more than wishing for something to happen, had been driven out of towns when things turned sour. Some had been injured; some even killed. And in those places ... Well, it wasn't safe for anyone to live in those places anymore.

When she was ten years old, her secret was discovered by two boys who followed her after school one day. She didn't know if they had intended to do more than follow her; she had heard nothing while she had worked in the garden. It wasn't until she had slipped out through the gate that she heard the screams for help and found the boys. One had a leg pinned under a fall of boulders. The other was sinking in a patch of bog.

Fortunately, it had happened during one of Michael's visits home, and he'd been walking up the hill to find her — or shout for her, since even he couldn't find Darling's Garden unless Caitlin was with him, but, oddly enough, his voice carried over the garden walls when nothing else did.

So while she had stood there, horrified that she might have done something that had caused the hill to create boulders and bog, Michael had come up the path.

A sudden crack, and a tree limb fell across the bog hole, just missing the boy and providing him with something to cling to — and providing Michael with a safe way to pull the boy out. That same branch became a lever for freeing the other boy from the boulders.

The boys recovered from their misadventure, but no one in Raven's Hill forgot the story that Caitlin had been seen entering Darling's Garden. Darling, who, it was said, had been a mostly benevolent sorceress who could command the world to do her bidding. There had been rumors that women in her father's family had found the garden a few times, but no one had known for sure that the garden still existed until Caitlin Marie had stumbled across it.

After the incident with the boys, Aunt Brighid began talking about the White Isle and Lighthaven, a place of peace, of Light. Maybe a place for a second chance, a new beginning — and, for Brighid, a return to the life for which she was best suited. For Caitlin, the stories about the White Isle were the seed that began a dream of friends and acceptance, of being part of a community.

Until the Sisters of Light, at Aunt Brighid's request, came to test her to see if she could be one of them.

She was not. Could never be. Wasn't welcome on their little piece of the world.

That she had failed the Light's test had been noticed by the villagers and had sealed her fate, branding her a sorceress.

And now ...

Setting the tin cup back in its place among the stones, Caitlin moved to the bed in the garden that usually gave her the most comfort. Sinking to her knees, she studied the heart's hope.

The plant hadn't bloomed for the past three years — not since she had failed the Light's test. Oh, it continued to survive even though it didn't thrive, and it produced buds each year. But nothing came of those buds, of those small promises of hope. Even now, when it was well into the harvest season and most other plants had spent themselves, it was full of buds, as if it were waiting for some signal to bloom that never came.

Like me, Caitlin thought. I can have my choice of professions in Raven's Hill — village sorceress or village whore. Take me out for a moonlight walk, tell me how lovely I am now that I'm all grown up, tell me my hair is so lush — like a courtesan in a story. Courtesan! just because I didn't spend much time in school doesn't mean I haven't read the books Michael brought borne from his travels, doesn't mean I wouldn't know a fancy word for whore.

The pain of a lifetime of small hurts and snubs swelled up inside her until there was nothing left. There were plenty of people who were willing to use her in one way or another, but nobody really wanted her.

Swallowing down a sob as she remembered that young man standing in the moonlight, looking so romantic and saying things that ripped her heart open, she took the little folding knife out of her skirt pocket, opened it, and lifted it up to eye level. As she studied the blade, the breeze in the garden died, and it was as if the earth held its breath and waited to see what she would do.

"A whore needs to be lovely," Caitlin said. "A sorceress does not." Lifting the knife, she held the blade just above her cheek.

Imagining Aunt Brighid's horror and sorrowful acceptance upon seeing Caitlin's maimed face gave the girl a feeling of jagged pleasure. Imagining Michael's grief — and worse, the guilt that would live in his eyes ever after because he'd had to leave them in order to provide for them — made her lower the hand that held the knife.

"I can't stand this anymore," she said, staring at the heart's hope. "I can't stand being here, living here. If I wasn't around, Aunt Brighid could go back to the White Isle where she belongs. Then Michael wouldn't have to support anyone but himself and could have a better life than the one he has now. He deserves a better life." Tears filled her eyes. Her breath hitched. "And so do I. Why can't I go someplace where I can have friends, where I'm accepted for what I am? Why can't there be a place like that? I'm so alone. It hurts to be so alone. Isn't there anyone out there in the world who would be my friend?"

As she curled her body over her legs, her waist-length hair swung over one shoulder. Grief flashed back to anger, which deepened to a cold, dark feeling.

Sitting up, she grabbed the hair just below the blue ribbon that kept it tidy. Then she laid the knife's blade just above the ribbon and sawed through the hair. Tossing the length of ribbon-bound hair in front of the heart's hope, she continued to grab chunks of the shortened hair and cut it even shorter, feeling a terrible satisfaction at this act of self-violation.

Then she sliced her thumb, and the pain broke the cold, dark mood.

Folding the blade into the handle, she tucked the knife in her pocket, then went to the waterfall to wash the wound. Not so deep it would need stitching, but it was painful and — she sighed as she wrapped her handkerchief around her thumb — it signaled an end to working in the garden that day.

She looked at the tufts of hair that littered the ground around where she had been sitting. She looked at the tail of beautiful hair that used to make her feel pretty and no longer gave her pleasure.

Then she ran out of the garden, ran all the way home.

"Caitlin Marie!"

She found no satisfaction in her aunt's dismay at her appearance, but she lifted her chin in defiance. "That hair was only suitable for a whore. I won't be anyone's whore."

Aunt Brighid started to speak, then changed her mind about whatever she was going to say. Instead, she pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. "Sit down. I'll get my shears and see if I can tidy up what is left your hair."

While Aunt Brighid trimmed the hair, Caitlin kept her eyes closed. There was a freedom to having hair so outrageously short. It would be seen as unfeminine, undesirable. Tomorrow she would look through the trunks stored in the attic. There might be a few things left that Michael had outgrown. With masculine hair and masculine clothes ... Maybe she would learn to smoke a pipe. And she would make it known that any man who showed interest in her did so because he had no real interest in women. No man in Raven's Hill would want to be accused of taking a moonlight walk with another man. Maybe, if she were mistaken for a young, somewhat effeminate man, she could even go traveling with Michael, get away from Raven's Hill altogether and see a bit of the world. Maybe even find people who could accept this strange gift inside her and would want to be her friends.

No longer feeling quite so bleak, she helped Aunt Brighid sweep up the hair trimmings, then prepare the evening meal. Later, as they both worked on the mending, she thought about the hairs she had wound around the heart's hope and belladonna plants she had given to Merrill.

When she'd gone up to get the plants, she hadn't paid attention to anything but the plants. Now, picturing that corner bed in the garden, she realized the stone that had come from the White Isle had been tucked behind the plants.

After Aunt Brighid began talking about Lighthaven, she had given Caitlin the stone that had come from the White Isle as a sort of talisman, and Caitlin had brought it up to the garden to be part of the flower bed she had made to honor the Place of Light. The bed never flourished. Some lovely little flowers bloomed in the spring, but the rest of the year that ground remained stubbornly bare, no matter what she tried to plant there — or tried to coax Ephemera to produce there. After she failed the test of Light, she stopped tending that flower bed, and even the little spring flowers died out.

She didn't remember doing it, but she must have moved the stone to that corner. And now that she thought about it without anger clouding the feel of the garden, it seemed a little ... odd ... that the plants had been with that stone. Remembering the feel of a hand clasping hers when she touched the plants, she realized something else. The plants hadn't felt quite in tune with the rest of the garden — as if she were singing one song while someone else sang another, and the melodies tangled and blended at the same time, working toward harmony but not there yet.

Not there yet.

Caitlin winced. No. Surely not. It had been a childish gesture, a bit of pretend. The two hairs she had wrapped around the plants' stems couldn't change whatever was going to happen when Merrill and the other Ladies performed their ceremony. Could they?

Glorianna fastened the gold bar pin to the plain white blouse, then stepped back to get a full view of herself in the mirror. The dark green skirt, and the matching jacket that had flowers embroidered around the neckline and cuffs, were probably too formal for this meeting. With her hair pinned up, she looked like she was attending some afternoon society function instead of meeting colleagues to discuss the danger to their world.

But we aren't colleagues, Glorianna thought as she dabbed a little scent on her pulse points. I was never one of them.

But she had to see the Landscapers who had found their way to Sanctuary, had to talk to them and hope they would be willing to work with her to protect Ephemera from the Eater of the World.

Guardians of the Light, please help them accept me, listen to me. If they can't, if they won't, Ephemera will end up more shattered than it is now.

The woman who looked back at her from the mirror had eyes filled with nerves instead of much-needed confidence. The woman in the mirror was tired of being an outsider who couldn't count on her own kind to stand with her in the battle that was coming. Even though she still believed in her heart that she would have to face the Eater alone, it would be a relief to know her family didn't have to shoulder the weight of being the only ones supporting her.

Which was why she had chosen these clothes for this meeting — as a reminder that her family did support her. Her mother had given her the blouse as a gift for her thirty-first birthday. Lee had purchased the fine green material, and Lynnea had made the skirt and jacket. Jeb, still a little uncertain of his place in the family beyond being Nadia's new husband, had given her the bar pin, which had belonged to his mother. Yes, the outfit was lovely, but it was the love and acceptance it represented that she had donned with each piece of clothing, like a shield that would protect her heart from whatever was to come.

As she turned away from the mirror, she was drawn to the watercolor that hung on the wall next to her bed. Titled Moonlight Lover, the view was of the break in the trees near Sebastian's cottage, where a person could stand and see the moon shining over the lake. The dark-haired woman in the painting wore a gown that was as romantic as it was impractical, and looked as substantial as moonbeams. Standing behind her, with his arms wrapped protectively around her, was the lover. His face was shadowed, teasing the imagination to provide the details, but the body suggested a virile man in his prime.

There was something about the way he stood, with the woman leaning against his chest as they watched the moon and water, that made her think he was a man who had journeyed far and now held the treasure he had been searching for.

Sebastian, the romantic among them, had painted it for her. He had captured the yearning for romance that she thought she kept well hidden. But in the same way that the secrets of the heart couldn't be hidden from a Landscapes could romantic yearnings be hidden from an incubus?

It worried her sometimes when, in the dark of a lonely night, she conjured the image of a fantasy lover. When that shadowy lover began to feel almost real enough to touch, was she still alone in her fantasy or had an incubus joined her by reaching through the twilight of waking dreams? Or was something else trying to reach her through that yearning? Sometimes it almost felt as if she could extend her hand across countless landscapes, and touch —

Bang, bang, bang. "Glorianna?"

Muffling a shriek that would announce her abrupt return to the present — and give Lee the satisfaction of knowing he'd startled her — Glorianna pressed her hand against her chest to push her jumping heart back into place. There was nothing quite like a brother when it came to shattering a sensual fantasy. She hoped to return the favor someday.

Annoyed with herself for procrastinating and annoyed with him, since he wouldn't have been banging on her bedroom door if they weren't already late and that meant he knew she was procrastinating, she hurried across the room and opened the door.

All her annoyance disappeared, because all she could do was stare.

He was wearing his best black trousers and jacket, with a white shirt, a patterned green silk vest, and a black necktie. He'd worn those clothes for the weddings — Sebastian and Lynnea, and then, a week later, their mother and Jeb. Except for those two occasions, she couldn't remember the last time he had dressed so well.

"My handsome brother," she said, intending a light compliment. But seeing him standing there, polished up because he was as nervous about this meeting as she, was a sharp reminder that his life would have been so much easier if she hadn't been his sister.

Or if he had refused to acknowledge her after she had been declared rogue.

So she couldn't keep her voice light, couldn't wave aside how much his loyalty had meant to her over the past sixteen years.

"Don't get maudlin," Lee said, grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the room.

"I am not getting maudlin," she snapped, insulted because she was so close to feeling that way. "I was just trying to be pleasant."

"Uh-huh." He kept pulling her along, slowing down when they reached the stairs to give her a chance to lift her skirt so she wouldn't trip and send both of them tumbling.

"Will you stop pulling at me?" Glorianna snapped when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"No." He pulled her out of the house and around to the side. "We'll use my island to reach the rest of Sanctuary. It will take too long to use a boat. You spent so much time primping, we're late as it is." He gave her a calculating look. "Or did you get distracted by something else?"

Heat flooded her face, and Lee, being an odious sibling, laughed.

"Sebastian will be pleased that you like his gift," he said.

"I wasn't mooning over a painting," she replied, clenching her teeth.

"Did I say mooning? I never said mooning." He stopped at the edge of where his island rested over hers, visible since there was no reason to hide it.

Lee's little island was anchored in Sanctuary. She had originally created it as a private place for herself, but it had resonated with Lee from the moment he'd set foot on it, and the connection was so strong that he could impose the island over any other landscape. Unseen unless he chose otherwise, the island provided safe ground if he found himself in a dangerous landscape.

"So," he continued, "do you want to sit around with the other Landscapers indulging in sterile, suffocatingly polite talk or just ask Ephemera to conjure up a big mud wallow?"

"What?" She stared at him. "Did you knot that necktie too tight? I don't think there's any blood getting to your brain."

"There's a custom in one of the landscapes — not one of yours but one I visited with another Bridge a couple of years ago. When two people — usually women since men tend to deal with things in other ways — start hurling insults at each other, and the disturbance starts dragging other people in to take sides, the village leaders have the two women — people — escorted to a wallow at the edge of town that was created just for that purpose. The two ... contestants, let's call them ... are assisted into the wallow —"

"Shoved, you mean."

Lee shrugged. "And they go at it. Every insult is accompanied by a handful of mud that is slung at the other contestant."

"Mudslinging in the literal sense."

He nodded. "So they scream and rant and rave and sling mud at each other until they're too tired to continue."

"Must be humiliating, to say things meant to be kept private."

"But they don't keep it private. They've been saying the same things to people behind the other person's back. This gets it all out in the open, and beyond showing everyone else how petty the argument truly is, it's also highly entertaining."

"Does it do any good?"

"Sometimes I think it really does clear things up between people who care about each other but stumbled somewhere along the way."

Glorianna cocked her head. "Like siblings?"

Lee grinned. "From what I gathered, some of them start a ruckus just to go play in the mud."

She laughed. "Too bad you didn't know about this custom when we were younger."

He laughed with her, then he turned serious. "You're not like other Landscapers, Glorianna Belladonna. You never were. You're a heart-walker as well as a Landscaper. Never forget that."

Tears stung her eyes, and she didn't resist when he put his arms around her in a comforting hug.

"Do you ever wish that I had been like them?" she asked, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Sometimes," he replied quietly. "But only because of what it cost you to be different." He hesitated, then added, "I wouldn't change anything, Belladonna. I've worked with other Landscapers. Had to. And I'll tell you this, not as your brother but as a Bridge. There is no one else I would want leading this fight against the Eater of the World. There is no one else I would trust enough to follow."

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. Not that she needed to see the truth; she could feel his heart.

"Let's go meet with the others."

With their hands linked, they stepped onto the island. Within moments, Lee had shifted them back to the part of Sanctuary where the island physically existed. A few minutes later, they entered the guest house and found the room Yoshani had reserved for this meeting.

The Landscapers and Bridges in the room didn't look bedraggled, exactly, but there was a dazed expression in all their eyes. They had seen the end of their world as they knew it, and none of them were sure how to take the next step toward healing what had been savaged by the Eater of the World's attack on the Landscapers' and Bridges' schools.

Had the Guides of the Heart looked the same way? Glorianna wondered. When the battle was over and they looked around. At their shattered world, had they, too, felt lost and uncertain?

Yoshani smiled when he saw them, but she felt the sadness resonating from his heart, felt the Dark currents of power that flowed through the room, fed by the five Landscapers and three Bridges who sat waiting. She didn't know any of the Bridges, and she didn't know the Third Level Landscaper or the three who wore First Level badges. But the oldest Landscaper had been an Instructor at the school during her brief time there.

"Hey-a," Yoshani said softly.

One of the Bridges looked over and saw them. For a moment, his eyes remained blank. Then anger filled him as he leaped to his feet and pointed. "What are they doing here?"

"They are the ones you have come to see," Yoshani said.

"Not them," the oldest Landscaper said. "Not her."

"There are things you need to know," Glorianna said, moving further into the room. "Things you can do to protect your Landscapes if you just —"

"You did this!" the Third Level Landscaper screamed. "The wizards should have destroyed you when they had the chance!"

"Glorianna didn't release the Eater of the World, and she didn't destroy the school!" Lee shouted. "She's never done anything to any of you! The Dark Guides poisoned your minds and hearts against her, but she's the only one who can help you now."

"We don't need her help," the oldest Landscaper said, her whole body shaking with anger as she got to her feet. "She was declared rogue for a reason, and we've finally seen Belladonna's true face."

"Do you really see it?" Glorianna asked. "Can you calm your own hearts for just a moment to really see me for who and what I am?" She held out a hand and focused on the oldest Landscaper. "You don't need the garden at the school to connect with your landscapes. They resonate within you. You can reach them. If the landscapes you came from are secure, you can build another garden to help you protect the places in your keeping. And the Bridges can connect the landscapes the five of you hold. I need your help in fighting the Eater of the World."

"Our help?" the oldest Landscaper said. She laughed bitterly. "If anyone unleashed these horrors on the landscapes, it is you. You dare to come here to Sanctuary? This is sacred ground, a Place of Light. You sully it with the mere presence of your filthy heart!"

"Enough!" Yoshani shouted.

No, Glorianna thought. It is not enough.

The Dark currents inside her swelled with an anger that was black and undiluted. She stepped away from Lee. But before she said the words that were straining to break free, she sent out a command.

Ephemera, hear me. The anger in this room is nothing more than wind, a storm that cleanses and is gone. This anger manifests nothing, changes nothing.

But it would change everything.

"I am not like you," Glorianna said, the fierce anger that flowed through her making her voice rough. "I have never been like you, because I am a direct descendant of the Guides of the Heart who walked this world long ago. I am like them, and I am connected to the world in ways you cannot imagine. But I also have the bloodlines of the Dark Guides flowing through my veins, so I command the Light and the Dark. I am not human. Not like you. I am Belladonna. You have never wanted any part of me. Now I want no part of you." She raised a hand and pointed at the Landscapers and Bridges. "Ephemera, hear me! Know these hearts. Any place that resonates with me is closed to them for all time. They may leave this landscape of their own choosing, but if they do not leave, send them to the landscape that resonates with their hearts. This I command."

She turned and walked to the door. Then she paused and looked back at them. "The Eater of the World is free among the landscapes. If you don't hold on to your pieces of the world with all the Light in your hearts, It will destroy you and everything in your care."

She walked out of the room, walked out of the guest house. Then she ran from the pain that threatened to cripple her.

But even as she ran, she knew no one, not even Glorianna Belladonna, could run fast enough or far enough to escape the pain that lived in her own heart.

Yoshani stepped in front of Lee. "It is done," he said, keeping his voice low so that only Lee would hear. "There is no need to say

more. Go away for a few hours. Go see your cousin."

Lee's green eyes were filled with icy anger. "My sister needs me."

"There is too much anger in your heart, my friend. You cannot help her. Let your feelings spill on someone who can drink them in and not be hurt by them. Sometimes anger needs an echo before it can be washed away. Go. I will look after Glorianna."

Lee glared at the Landscapers and Bridges, but he left the room.

Yoshani closed his eyes and tried to calm the turmoil in his own heart.

Opportunities and choices. It was a saying Glorianna often used to explain how the world worked to fulfill true heart wishes. He had seen the Light side of that saying, but until today, he had never seen the tragic side of it when the choices might cost so much.

He turned to face the eight people in the room.

"I am sorry," he said, "but you can no longer stay in Sanctuary."

He gave them a few moments to deny and protest his words, then he raised a hand to command silence. "You cannot stay."

"But we came here looking for help, looking for answers to what was happening in the landscapes — and what happened at the school," one of Bridges protested. "You said we might find the answer here."

"The answer stood before you, and you would not see. You chose to turn away from her, and now she has chosen to turn away from you."

The oldest Landscaper stared at him in disbelief. "Belladonna? She was the answer? She's a rogue!"

"And that is all you see," Yoshani said sadly. "For you, she is nothing more than a word that evil used to shroud your hearts. So now you do not resonate with the currents of power that flow through Sanctuary, and you cannot stay here."

"But she can?" one of the Bridges shouted.

"Sanctuary is one of Belladonna's landscapes," Yoshani replied quietly. "She altered Ephemera in order to bring the Places of Light together so that we might learn from each other, draw strength from each other."

They just looked at him, too stunned to speak.

The youngest Landscaper wrapped her arms around herself "The school is gone. We can't go back to our gardens. How are we supposed to take care of Ephemera if we're all alone?"

"You are not alone," Yoshani said, looking at each of them in turn. "You have each other. So you find a place where you can build again, begin again." And hope the Eater of the World does not find you again. "Come. I will escort you to the bridge that, I believe, will still be able to take you back to your landscapes."

Glorianna kept her eyes fixed on the koi pond. She wanted to go back to the Island in the Mist and wrap herself in the comfort of

solitude. But she sat on the bench and watched the koi while waiting for Lee to find her.

Except it was Yoshani who sat down on the bench and watched the golden fish.

"Where is Lee?" Glorianna asked, her voice husky from the storm of tears that had broken inside her after she'd run from the guest house.

"He has gone to spend a little time with Sebastian," Yoshani replied.

"But..." She pushed down the feeling of disappointment. Lee had to be upset about that meeting. He was entitled to venting in whatever way he chose.

"I suggested he leave for a little while," Yoshani said. "As close as you are to your brother, I think there are some things that you cannot say to him."

Glorianna didn't answer, so they sat together and watched the koi.

"Heart wishes are the most powerful magic that exists in our world," she finally said. "They can reshape the world, cause a cascade of events."

"Is it not true that any heart wish, no matter how powerful, can be thwarted by another heart wish that alters or disrupts that cascade of events?" Yoshani asked. When she didn't respond, he added, "What is it you fear, Glorianna Dark and Wise?"

Fear. Yes, there were things she couldn't discuss with a brother — or a mother. But here, now ...

"I've known for sixteen years that I was different," she said softly. "I've known I wasn't like the other Landscapers, even before I was declared rogue. But I've wanted to be one of them. I've wanted to belong and have friends and people who would understand the challenges and frustrations of being a caretaker of the world." She hesitated, then pushed on to the thing that had to be said. "Did I cause this, Yoshani? Did my own yearning to belong ripple through the currents of the world and set all this in motion, freeing the Eater and destroying the school so that the survivors would need to see me as one of them?" Tears welled up, stinging her eyes before they flowed down her cheeks. "Did I do this?"

"Glorianna, I say this with honesty and with the love of a friend." Yoshani took her hand in both of his and leaned toward her. "You are being a conceited ass."

She blinked at him, trying to see him clearly through the tears.

"Did you free the Eater of the World?" he asked.

"Maybe I —"

"Did you go to the school and set that evil free?"

"No, but —"

"Did you deliberately, and with malice, use your influence over Ephemera to cause whatever was done to set the Eater free?"

"No." Using her free hand, she wiped the tears off her face.

"Let me tell you a story about the world."

"I don't think there's time for a story," Glorianna said, feeling surly. He had called her a conceited ass. What kind of help was that?

"There is time for this one." Yoshani released her hand, braced a foot on the bench, and wrapped his arms around the upraised knee. "I wasn't a bad man, more of a youth whose wildness could have led him down a dark road. If there had been a place like the Den of Iniquity in those days, I might have chosen a very different life."

Glorianna studied him. "Teaser still gets hysterical when your name is mentioned."

Teaser was an incubus who lived in the Den and was Sebastian's closest friend. When she had gone to Wizard City to trap the Dark Guides, Yoshani had returned to the Den with Teaser to help that landscape remain balanced. The incubus was still having trouble accepting the fact that a man who lived in a Place of Light had been comfortable — had enjoyed — visiting the Den of Iniquity.

Yoshani smiled. "As I told him many times during my visit, I was not always a holy man."

"So why did you become a holy man?"

"Because of you."

Glorianna didn't know what to say, didn't know what to think, what to feel.

"My wildness was making things difficult for my family. At the core of that wildness was anger. Within my extended family there were several professions I could have chosen, several trades I could have apprenticed in. But none of them touched my heart, and in my own way I fought against being yoked into a life I wasn't meant to live.

"Finally my grandfather took me aside and told me I had a choice: I could go up the mountain and live in the community that served the Light and remain a member of the family, or I could continue my wild ways alone, shunned by all who had loved me. If at the end of three years I had not found my place or my purpose with the Light, I could come home and take up my old ways with no familial penalty.

"So for three years I worked in the community and studied with the elders and tried to find my purpose in the Light. And every day I prayed that something or someone would show me what, in my heart, I knew I was missing.

"And then you appeared one day, a girl from a strange part of the world, trying to make herself understood. The elders decided that you suffered from a sickness of the heart, a ... poisoning. I was twice your age, and most unwilling, but the elders assigned me the task of staying with you as you wandered the land that made up our holy place. So I followed you through our gardens, through the fields and woods. Then you stopped suddenly, lifted your face to the sky, closed your eyes ... and drank peace. I watched the Light fill you, felt it rejoice in the vessel, saw you bloom like a plant responds to rain after a dry spell.

"I watched, and I felt something shift in my heart. I understood the kind of work I could do in the world — helping others find that pool of calm, that moment of peace when they can truly hear the wishes of their own hearts and see the paths that are open to them for their life's journey. Because I was asked to watch over you, I found my place in the Light."

"If I hadn't gone to your community that day, the Dark Guides would have succeeded in sealing me in my garden at the school," Glorianna said. After a silence that seemed to fill the world, she asked, "Why didn't you tell me this story before?"

"Until we became friends and trusted each other enough to talk about delicate matters, I didn't know how you, as a Landscapes saw the world around you. After I began to understand how you saw the world, it never felt like the right time to tell you this story. Until today. So now I will ask you, Glorianna Dark and Wise. Were my prayers, my heart wish, the reason Ephemera created a way for you to reach my part of the world? If they were, am I to blame for the sorrows in your life?"

"No, of course not," Glorianna said. "We make a hundred choices every day, and each of those choices, no matter how trivial, changes the landscapes we live in just a tiny bit. Enough tiny changes can change a person's resonance and open up another landscape as the next part of their life's journey."

"Or close a landscape?" Yoshani asked gently.

She nodded. "Sometimes people cross a bridge and never find the way back to a landscape they had known because they have outgrown that place. They have nothing to offer that landscape, and it has nothing to offer them."

"And sometimes when they reach that point, they know it is time to leave." Yoshani took her hand again. "You reached that point today. I think, in your heart, you never truly left the school. I think that by holding on to a landscape that was not yours, you denied your own heart's attempts to manifest a heart wish." He gave her hand a little squeeze. "You spoke the truth, Belladonna. You are not like them. You never were. Let them go. They have their own journey. It's time for you to look for the people who are like you."

It washed through her, a wave of power, as if a dam had finally broken to free what had been trapped for so long.

A heart wish.

Hers.

"Guardians and Guides," she gasped.

"What is it? What is wrong?" Yoshani grabbed her shoulders to support her.

"I think it's called an epiphany — or a heart wish released from its cage." She felt faint resonances. "Something is already in motion. I couldn't feel it before."

But she had felt it — in a stone Ephemera had brought into her garden.

"I need to go back to the Island in the Mist," she said as she sprang to her feet.

"May I come with you?" Yoshani asked, rising to stand beside her.

She hesitated, almost refused his company, then allowed the ripples still flowing through the currents of power to decide for her.

"Thank you. Your company would be welcome."

"And since you are so gracious, I will even cook a meal for you," Yoshani said as they walked away from the koi pond. "Do you have rice?"

"Yes. No. Maybe." She did cook when she was alone on the island for a few days and wanted to putter in the kitchen, but that wasn't the same thing as knowing what she had in the pantry at the moment. "Lee eats things."

Yoshani made a sound that might have been a snicker. "In that case, I suggest we fill a basket from the guest house larder. Simpler that way, don't you think?"

She had no opinions about the simplicity of using the guest house larder, but she knew with absolute certainty that her life was about to change — and nothing was going to be simple.

In the hidden part of the world known as Darling's Garden, air ruffled the water in the pool and murmured among the leaves. Fluttered the blue ribbon that tied a long tail of brown hair.

The garden resonated with New Darling's heart wish, sending ripples through Ephemera's currents of power, both Light and Dark: "Isn't there anyone out there in the world who would he my friend?"

An answering resonance rippled back from many places of Ephemera, but there was one place that had a stronger resonance, a better resonance. Because one heart wish could answer another. In response, Ephemera altered a little piece of the garden to provide an access point to a part of itself that resonated with that other heart wish. But New Darling did not cross over. So it took what New Darling had left for it to play with and brought it to the place that resonated with the other heart wish.

As the long tail of brown hair disappeared from the garden, one bud on the heart's hope bloomed into a beautiful, delicate flower.

Chapter eight

Hurry, hurry, hurry, Merrill thought as the ship closed the distance to Atwater's harbor. But not fast enough, despite having full sails. Something followed them. She could feel Its presence, feel the lure of It every time she looked at the water.

Would they have time to get back to Light-haven and do ... What? Shaela kept asking that very question, but Merrill had no answer. If that was the Destroyer — the Well of All Evil from the ancient tales — moving through the water in pursuit of their ship, how could two plants or a prayer circle stop It?

"It still follows," Shaela said when she joined Merrill at the bow. "It makes no attempt to catch up to us, but It follows."

"It doesn't need to catch us," Merrill replied. "All It needs to do is surround the White Isle, and we'll be trapped. Then It will consume the people living in the island's villages, just as It did in the old stories, until Lighthaven and our Sisters are all that is left

— tiny candles in the dark. Candles that, in their turn, will be snuffed out one by one."

"Don't talk that way," Shaela said, her voice sharp, "You are the leader at Lighthaven. If you believe the White Isle is lost, our Sisters will believe it too. And then it will be lost. Our belief in the Light is the ship that brings the Light to all the people who live on the White Isle as well as our countrymen in Elandar. That's why we live apart — to maintain the innocence needed to nurture that belief."

"Your life wasn't sheltered," Merrill said.

"No, it wasn't. Which is why I cling to my belief in the Light. It is my raft, made from the planks of a broken life." Shaela rubbed her fingers against her forehead. "What will we do when we reach home, Merrill? There will be no time to sit and debate. We need to decide before we reach Atwater, since whatever we do must be done swiftly."

"I know, I know." But what could they do?

Merrill curled her hands around the railing, then dosed her eyes and tried to picture a ceremony they could perform that would save the White Isle — and more importantly, Lighthaven — from the Destroyer.

And could picture nothing.

"We're heading into harbor," the captain called.

"This is what we'll do," Shaela said, shifting closer to Merrill. "We'll form a prayer circle made up of seven Sisters. We'll place the plants in the center of the circle. Four Sisters will chant the words that were heard in the dream. The other three will chant an affirmation as a refrain."

Merrill stared at her friend. "But that's — That's sorcery. You're talking about casting a spell, not participating in a prayer circle."

"It's all about belief, isn't it?" Shaela demanded. "Sorcery or prayer. What difference does it make what we call it? If we stand in front of our Sisters and say seven is a number of the Light, not a tool of magic, who will doubt us? Who will doubt you, our leader? If you say it is so, it will be so."

Suspicion too primitive to be shaped into words suddenly filled Merrill. She felt her body draw itself up, flinch away from the other woman. A broken life, Shaela had called the past that had brought her to the White Isle. A broken life — and not an innocent one.

"What were you before you came to the White Isle?" Merrill whispered. "After all the years we've worked together and lived together ... and now you ask me." Shaela smiled bitterly. "What do you believe I was?" A sorceress. She looked at the scarred face, the blind eye and wondered, for the first time, if the wounds might have been deserved. Why am I thinking this? she wondered, feeling off balance and a little desperate. Why am I wondering about a friend when I need her emotional strength and purpose of will. Why... ?

Then she knew. She didn't need to look at the stern or the water beyond the ship. It was so easy to picture a black stain on the sea, moving with the tide, coming closer and closer to shore.

Somehow, the Destroyer had reached into her mind and heart and was planting doubts, dividing her from her Sisters.

"I think your plan will work," Merrill said.

"And why would you think that?"

"Because the evil pursuing us doesn't want me to believe in the plan — or in you."

"Merrill?" Shaela's voice was sharp with worry. "Have you been tainted by the evil out there?"

"Touched but not tainted," Merrill replied, trying to smile. "I'll be all right. And we'll reach Lighthaven and perform the ceremony in time to stop the Destroyer from consuming the White Isle. I'll leave the preparation to you. I think you understand best what we need to do. I will gather the other five Sisters."

Shaela lightly touched Merrill's arm. "Heart's hope lies within belladonna. We don't have to understand what it means. We just have to believe it will save us."

Merrill nodded. Almost to the wharves now. Almost home.

But it's foolish to be hasty, whispered a solicitous voice. Foolish to hurry through something so important.

Yes, it would be foolish to hurry. Especially when they weren't even sure of how to do what needed to be done.

Best to think carefully. For the good of all. So important. And you ... So responsible for whatever happens.

Leader. But not as good a leader as Brighid had been. Never as good.

No, not as good, the voice whispered sadly. There is too much darkness in you, too many ... unnatural ... desires.

Merrill sucked in a breath. Not true! Not true!

But something outside of herself wanted her to doubt her decisions enough to hesitate. And that meant any delay — even the time it would take to reach Lighthaven — would be enough to destroy all chance of them succeeding.

"We can't wait," Merrill said as the ship docked and the gangplank was moved into place. "We're going to have to take whoever we can find to make up our circle. Sailors, shopgirls, anyone."

"And what are we going to tell those people?" Shaela asked.

"We'll tell them we found the magic that can save them from what is coming, but it won't work without their help."

Which was, Merrill thought as she walked down the gangplank, nothing less than the truth.

She maintained a calm facade as minutes ticked away while she and Shaela selected the spot for the circle and considered who among the people present at the wharves and warehouses would be suitable participants. But underneath was the now-incessant drumbeat of hurry, hurry, hurry.

The Eater of the World drifted through the water, letting the sea carry It toward the land ahead that blazed with currents of Light. There was no hurry. The Dark currents on the island were swelling rapidly and now tasted of fear — and the certainty that It could destroy the humans who lived on the island. Even the ones who guarded the Light.

So easy to slip into that one female mind and plant a seed of suspicion in her heart where trust originally had been sown. But that trust, carelessly given and just as carelessly tended, had shallow roots and was not strong enough to survive when attacked. That female wanted to save the Place of Light, wanted to believe the magic she had acquired from the ... sorceress ... would be able to defeat It.

But the female had become a battleground. Her heart cried out with the need to save the Light. Her mind didn't truly believe the magic would save anything — or anyone. And because what her mind believed was just as strong as what her heart wanted, Ephemera would not answer.

It amused Itself for a little while, moving toward a ship or fishing boat, then savoring the fear when the humans realized the shadow in the water was no longer following the sea's currents but moving toward them with purpose. Cries of warning filled the air as ships and fishing boats maneuvered to escape. Some fled toward the safety of the harbor; others turned away from the island.

Heart by heart, the humans fed the Dark currents, changing the feel of the island. And whatever heart was supposed to supply the bedrock ... Murky bedrock. The heart who held the island in its keeping did not care about the people here enough to tend the landscape, so there would be little resistance when It began changing the island's resonance to match Itself. Wasn't that delightful? But...

The heart that held the island also held the village where It had first noticed the guardians of the Light — another place equally neglected that It would change into a hunting ground. But there was something else on the island, tangled up in the Dark and Light currents. Something more. Something that It couldn't sense dearly, which made It uneasy.

No longer content to drift in the water, anticipating the feast, It moved toward the island with purpose.

"I'm flattered that you invited me to view your garden," Yoshani said.

Satisfied that there was no dissonance in the part of the garden that represented her mother's landscapes, Glorianna gave her companion a sly smile. "Would you still be flattered if I invited you to help me with the weeding?" She laughed at Yoshani's startled expression. But when he said, "This would be permitted?" she felt a flutter of sadness, so she linked arms with him and moved on to the next part of the garden.

"I have brought you sorrow," Yoshani said, seeing more than she wanted him to. "I am sorry."

"It wasn't you."

"Something in my words made you sad."

She stopped at the next bed but didn't focus on it. Not yet. "This garden represents my landscapes and is my connection to them. Oh, they're always connected to me here" — she tapped her chest to indicate her heart — "but this is a tangible ..." She frowned as she tried to figure out how to explain. "Every landscape should have the Landscaper's actual presence on a regular basis to remain balanced — and because standing on that ground is the best way to sense if a particular part of a landscape needs special attention. The gardens are an easy way for a Landscaper to step between here and there to reach the pieces of the world in her care. It's an established path, an anchor that takes me to the same place in the landscape every time. Also, by working the soil, by planting and weeding, I can feel each landscape, so I know if any of them need immediate attention."

"But you invited me to work in your garden," Yoshani said. "Would that not interfere with your landscapes?"

Glorianna shook her head. "Your heart would not interfere with this garden." Then her voice was barely a whisper as the sadness washed over her again. "That's how the training begins. You work with an experienced Landscaper, weeding the beds in her garden, learning the names of the plants and what they symbolize and what they need to grow well. You learn how to combine things that are pleasing to the eye but also represent different aspects of a landscape. You learn the resonance of Ephemera's currents of power — the Dark as well as the Light. You learn all these things on safe ground because someone else's resonance maintains the balance." She forced herself to smile. "But that could all be a ploy made up by the older Landscapers to

get out of doing all the weeding by themselves."

Yoshani looked around, then looked into her eyes. "Perhaps you need an apprentice."

Something rippled through her when he said the words.

Something is changing, she thought, suddenly feeling a tug from the section of the garden she specifically wanted Yoshani to see — the beds that represented Sanctuary. No. Something has already changed.

"Glorianna?"

She didn't answer him, just slipped her arm out of his and ran toward that other part of her garden, leaving him to hurry after her.

Was it luck and the restlessness of young women, Merrill wondered, or the Lady of Light's guiding hand that had brought three of their Sisters into Atwater? The girls had come to town to run errands and do some shopping For the community and — giving in to an impulse — had come down to the wharves to ask for news about Merrill and Shaela just as their ship's lines were being secured.

Only five of them in total instead of the seven Shaela had wanted, but five experienced in focusing their thoughts in order to connect with the Light were better than seven who would need to be coached.

Foolish to set up on the wharf in front of all the warehouses, Merrill thought as she and Shaela set the pots of heart's hope and belladonna side by side. Surely they could get away from the waterfront and the smells of seawater and fish? Atwater had a lovely little park. That would be a much more pleasing setting for a prayer circle and would take hardly any time at all to get there. Was this sense of urgency something that came whispering from the Dark so that they would act prematurely and ruin the chance of this "magic" succeeding? If she chose wrong, their failure would be her fault. How —

Her mind ceased its frightened chatter when she looked into Shaela's eyes — the one clouded and blind, while the other saw the world a bit too sharply.

Believe.

It was as if the word had been breathed on the air between them.

Shifting the pot of heart's hope, Merrill said quietly, "You take up the chant from the dream. I will lead the refrain."

Shaela shook her head. "As leader ..."

"I can't believe, Shaela, Not strongly enough. Now that it comes down to it, I can't do what you can. But I can take up the refrain." She hesitated, then added, "We won't get a second chance."

Shaela looked toward the sea. "I know."

A crowd formed around them as sailors, merchants, and dockworkers were drawn toward their little gathering and word began to spread that the Sisters of Light were going to do a special circle of protection right there at the wharves.

"Ladies?" The captain of their ship, as well as several of his crew, eased through the crowd. "Is there something we can do to help?"

Before Merrill could refuse, Shaela spoke up. "Take up any part of the chant your heart can believe in without question. The more voices that are raised for this ceremony, the better our chances of having our prayers heard."

They took their positions, Merrill and Shaela facing each other while the other three Sisters filled in the circle, the heart's hope and belladonna at its center. Around them, the people formed another circle.

If this doesn't work ... Merrill closed her eyes for a moment, trying to banish doubt, then focused on Shaela.

"Heart's hope lies within belladonna," Shaela said, raising her voice enough to be heard by the first few people around the circle.

"Guardian of Light, hear our prayer," Merrill answered as the refrain.

"Heart's hope lies within belladonna." This time, two of their Sisters took up the chant with Shaela.

"Lady of Light, hear our prayer." The other Sister's voice joined Merrill's.

"Heart's hope lies within belladonna.''

"Guardian of Light, hear our prayer."

"Heart's hope lies within belladonna." Male voices joined the chant, a little hesitant but there.

"Lady of Light, hear our prayer." More voices.

Merrill felt the Light fill the circle, felt it spill over the crowd, felt it grow stronger with each voice that took up the chant. And for the first time since they had sensed the stain of evil that had followed them from Raven's Hill, she truly believed they would succeed.

Looking at her friend, Merrill added her voice when Shaela said, "Heart's hope lies within belladonna."

It gathered speed as It moved toward the island.

Something had changed. The fear was fading, and It felt the world becoming fluid as Ephemera prepared to manifest the need that was now held in many hearts.

No! It had not found the other Places of Light, so it would not be deprived of this one.

It fed Its rage to the Dark currents in the sea. Then It became the sea — and rose up as a deadly wave that moved toward the island with the speed of a wild storm.

The calling was filled with a desperation that felt like a lash against her skin. The resonance of that landscape grated against her

senses.

But she had to answer. Had to.

"Glorianna!"

A hand grabbing her arm, holding her back. "Something calls to me, Yoshani," she said, trying to pull free. "I am an ill-fitting piece being wedged into a place I don't quite belong, but I'm all there is." She stared at the bowl-shaped stone and the silver cuff bracelet beneath the water, feeling the need that rang in the hearts connected to those objects. Feeling a rhythm in the air.

"This is not a place you know, isn't that true? If you go there, can you get back? Glorianna!"

Yoshani shook her, and that startled her enough to focus on him. And seeing the look in his eyes startled her enough to hesitate. When she had seen that expression in other men's eyes, she had called it "warrior's eyes." She had never thought to see Yoshani's dark eyes look that way.

"A summons that powerful may not come from the Light," Yoshani said.

"I have to answer," Glorianna said. "If I don't, something precious will be lost. I know this, Yoshani. I can feel it."

He nodded, but the wild look in his eyes didn't fade. "You will not go alone."

"But —"

"Both of us or neither. I will not compromise, Glorianna."

There wasn't time to argue. Snatching the bracelet out of the stone bowl, she tried to ignore the grating dissonance, that conflict of resonances.

Whatever wants me will also reject me.

She closed her hand around the bracelet, then said to Yoshani, "Don't let go of my arm." When she felt his grip tighten, she thought, There will be bruises tomorrow. But she didn't tell him to ease his hold on her. She would rather have bruises than lose a friend while taking that step between here and there. Besides, she suspected that more than her arm would be bruised by the time she completed this journey. "When I tell you, take a step forward."

She waited, waited, let the resonance build until the rhythm felt like a chant.

"Now," Glorianna said, and felt Yoshani move with her as they took the step between here and there.

"Heart's hope lies within belladonna."

"Guardian of Light, hear our prayer." Most of the people ran, trying to escape the destruction that was coming, but some stayed. Maybe they realized they couldn't get far enough away to save themselves. Maybe they believed their voices would still be able to tip the scale and save the White Isle.

Merrill glanced over her shoulder and shuddered as she saw the wall of black water coming toward them. Shaela, facing the sea and watching the wave come closer with every heartbeat, didn't falter.

"Heart's hope lies within belladonna."

"Lady of Light, hear —"

The man and woman came out of nowhere, breaking into their circle. The woman stumbled against the pots, knocking over the belladonna before breaking through the other side of the circle. The sailors and dockworkers caught the two strangers and steadied them, but the damage was done. Whatever "magic" had been made by the chant and the circle had been destroyed.

"You!" Merrill said, giving in to the slash of anger that wanted to drive the dagger of failure into someone else's heart.

But the black-haired woman just stared at the wall of water coming toward the island, then turned her icy green eyes on Merrill.

"What is this place?" she demanded.

"Guardians and Guides," the man said as he looked at the black wave. "We can't stay here, Glorianna."

"We can't leave yet," the woman, Glorianna, replied. Those eyes fixed on Shaela. "What is this place?"

"The White Isle," Shaela replied.

"An island? This is an island?"

Shaela nodded.

"Glorianna," the man said.

The woman shook her head. As she held up her clenched hand, Merrill caught a glimpse of something silver.

"This is a Place of Light, Yoshani," Glorianna said.

"And that is a killer wave that will drown this island and everyone on it."

Glorianna shook her head again. "No, that is the Eater of the World. I recognize the resonance of It."

Merrill gasped. How did this woman know? How could she speak with such certainty? Like the man, her speech declared her a foreigner, someone who came from a country far beyond Elandar. But there was something familiar about her, something ...

It's like being around Caitlin Marie. Only ... more so.

A shiver went through Merrill as the woman stared at the sea, then turned and looked inland as if she could see beyond buildings and hills right to Lighthaven.

"This place is mine and not mine," Glorianna said quietly, turning back to look at the sea. "Resonances are tangled up in a way I don't understand, but that other resonance isn't strong enough to keep me from holding on to this landscape — at least for a little while. I can try to save or I can try to destroy. If I try to destroy and fail, I will save nothing." She stared at the black wall of water, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Ephemera, hear me."

She was there! The True Enemy was there, on the island! It would smash her, drown her, destroy her! In this form, It was part of the sea. She could not cage It, could not stop It.

The black wave swelled even higher, moved even faster.

Glorianna watched the unnatural wave bearing down on the island. If there had been time, she would have considered each of her landscapes in turn to see if there were any borders that could be made that would connect this landscape to other pieces of the world. But there wasn't time. Besides, something wasn't right here. Despite being a Place of Light, that tangle of resonances warned her that something wasn't right.

They're going to be alone, she thought, For a while, they're going to be alone.

Couldn't be helped.

"Ephemera, hear me."

She felt the world changing to manifest her heart and will. But the change wasn't smooth, wasn't complete. Even in the moment when Ephemera altered the landscapes and the black wave disappeared, she knew the change wasn't complete — because this newly made landscape didn't quite resonate with her. The place itself felt secure enough; the currents of power were flowing as they should, although the Dark currents felt too thin to properly balance the hearts on this island.

Nothing to do about that, either, until she found the other Landscaper who controlled this island. Besides, now she wanted to solve her own puzzle.

"You're safe," she said, approaching the two older women. "The Eater of the World can't reach you."

They said nothing, but the three younger women all made a sign with their fingers. Yoshani responded by saying something under his breath that she suspected was a very bad word learned in his youth. Which confirmed that the sign was meant as an insult.

She took a step closer. They all took a step back.

Whatever wants me will also reject me. She felt the truth of it as she looked at the women.

One of the older women straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin — the movements of a leader reminding lesser beings that she was a leader.

"Your kind are not welcome on the White Isle," the woman said.

An echo from the woman rippled through the Dark currents inside Glorianna. Pain. But not pain received; this was hurt inflicted. And when she thought about the hurt inflicted and listened to that heart, her eyes were drawn to the two pots — the heart's hope and the belladonna, which was knocked over, its dirt partially spilled out on the wharf.

"Where did you get those plants?" Glorianna asked.

"That is not your concern, sorceress," the woman said. "Go back to whatever shadow place you came from."

Ignoring the woman, Glorianna crouched beside the spilled pot that held belladonna. Something there. She righted the pot, then scooped up as much of the spilled soil as she could without filling her hands with splinters from the wharf. As she pressed the soil around the plant's stem, her fingers touched a spot at the base of the stem that tingled, resonated, was so full of a wanting it made her ache.

"Yoshani," she said as she brushed the soil away from the stem, "can you see anything?"

He crouched beside her. As she tilted the pot, she saw something glint in the sunlight.

"There," Yoshani said, pointing to the exact spot on the stem. "It looks like a hair was wrapped around the plant."

A need so great even a hair carries its resonance.

More than that, the resonance in the hair matched the resonance on the island that was tangled with her own.

Handing the pot to Yoshani, she stood and faced the two older women. This time she focused on the one with the cloudy eye. "Where did you get those plants?" No answer. "Tell me now, or I will give you back to the Eater, and the Light will vanish from your part of the world."

They looked at her in horror. Then the leader said, "You have such darkness in you that you would condemn the innocent?"

"You will never understand the currents of power that flow through me." She opened her hand, revealing the silver cuff bracelet — and saw shock and recognition in the leader's eyes. "And you are not innocent. But you got what you asked for." Before the woman could move, Glorianna grabbed her hand and slapped the silver bracelet into it.

The woman stared at the bracelet. "Where did you get this?"

"In the future, be more careful what you ask for." She paused. "Heart's hope carried the need to be protected, and you are. You are no longer connected to the world. You will not be found by the Eater of the World — or anyone else."

The cloudy-eyed woman frowned. "But the dream said heart's hope lies within belladonna."

"It does," Glorianna replied. "I am Belladonna."

Ripples, murmurs. Ignoring the leader, she focused on the cloudy-eyed woman. "For the last time, where did the plants come from?"

"From a girl who lives in Raven's Hill," the cloudy-eyed woman replied. "She gave us the plants."

"Where is Raven's Hill?"

"On the eastern coast of Elandar."

That told her nothing, but she would wait until she was back on her own island before trying to figure out where Elandar was in relation to any landscape she knew.

She picked up the pot of heart's hope and handed it to the cloudy-eyed woman. "Tend this carefully. It's the only anchor you have left to the world. If it's destroyed, I don't know if you'll be able to touch the world again."

"Touch the world?"

"This island is all you have now. What can be harvested from the land and the sea within this landscape's boundaries is all your people can reach — at least until I find the other ... sorceress ... whose heart resonates with this place."

Glorianna stepped back and took the pot of belladonna from Yoshani. "Hold on to my arm. We need to leave now."

"Agreed," he said, looking around at the men who had remained at the wharves.

She focused her heart and will on her garden, on the beds that represented Sanctuary. The feeling of strength and peace and home filled her. "Now," she whispered.

Together they took the step between here and there — and stood in her garden, looking down at a bowl-shaped stone filled with water.

Glorianna set the pot of belladonna next to the stone. She wasn't sure the island was really one of her landscapes, but she would keep it safe for a little while.

"What now, Glorianna Dark and Wise?" Yoshani asked, striding to keep up with her as she headed for the part of the garden that would take her to Aurora.

"I need to talk to my mother and Lee — maybe Sebastian, too — and see if any of them have heard of Elandar or know how to reach Raven's Hill. If the Eater followed the ship, It may know how to find the girl. We have to find her first."

"Forgive me if the question sounds cold, but why is this girl so important?"

Glorianna stopped in front of the statue of a sitting woman that she'd taken from her mother's garden to act as an anchor for Nadia's landscapes. She kept her eyes on the statue as she felt the question flow through her.

Something is changing. Has already changed.

"Because, Honorable Yoshani, I think this girl is like me. There may be someone else out there who is like me."

It smashed water on water out of frustration at being cheated of Its prey. It raged at the True Enemy's cunning. It could see the Place of Light, but as It got closer to the island, the land began to fade, becoming less substantial until It

reached some invisible marker in the sea. At that point, the island vanished altogether. Something had drawn the True Enemy to this place. Something ... or someone. Turning, It followed the ships fleeing south. If It couldn't have the Place of Light, It could — and would — have the sorceress

who had helped deprive It of Its prey.

We're safe, Merrill thought as she stared at the calm sea. The Destroyer is gone; the dark-hearted sorceress is gone.

"Merrill."

The world can't touch us anymore. Isn't that what she said? We won't be tainted by the world anymore. But the Dark feelings are still here. The Dark still smears the Light. I am the leader. I will cast out the Dark. I can. I will. Somehow, I will.

"Merrill."

She looked at Shaela and smiled. "We're safe. From everything." She looked at the pot. "We should throw that into the sea. We can't take it with us. It would contaminate Lighthaven."

Shaela shook her head. "Hope is the Light's seed. We must keep it with us and tend it. We will need it in the days ahead."

Merrill looked at the pot of heart's hope that had come from Caitlin Marie and shuddered.

I will cast out the Dark. I can. I will. Somehow, I will

Chapter Nine

"I'm not drunk," Lee said as he bumped into Sebastian.

"Of course you're not," Sebastian agreed, steering them both along the path that led from Sebastian's cottage to Lee's.

"Because you kicked me out of the Den."

"That's what family is for — to help you stop being stupid."

"That is not what family is for."

"You'll have to explain that to my wife. In point of fact, cousin, Lynnea was the one who decided you needed to go home and kicked you out of the Den. I'm just the messenger."

Before Lee could say anything about women not minding their own business — which would have gotten him into trouble — his feet got adventurous and decided to make flat ground dip and roll.

Damn the daylight, weren't all the chirpy-chattery critters supposed to get quiet when people walked through the woods? It seemed like they were all gathered just overhead and expressing their opinions at volumes little critters shouldn't be able to reach. And he'd drunk just enough that all that noise was threatening to fill up his head and change into a mountain-sized headache. As if that wasn't bad enough, he kept feeling like something was tugging him off balance — and it wasn't the whiskey he'd tossed back while he'd raged about Landscapers and Bridges who were determined to believe the worst about Glorianna because considering anything else might require them to use their brains.

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 semifriendly 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 whoever 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 heart 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 different, 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 stoned 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. Fie 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.

He'd taken that first step back when a voice called from one of the tables. "There's the man! Barkeep, bring my friend a whiskey and ale."

The sailors, recognizing the voice, relaxed and went back to their conversations. Michael made his way to the table and shrugged out of his pack before sitting across from the man who had hailed him.

"Captain Kenneday," Michael said. He glanced up at the barkeep — a new man who hadn't been working at the Port of Call the last time he'd visited Kendall — and began digging in his pockets for the coins needed to pay for his drink.

Kenneday waved a hand. "On me." Then he raised his glass of ale. "To your good health, Michael."

"And yours," Michael replied, raising his own glass to return the salute. He looked around the room. "Doesn't seem to be a night to drink for the fun of it and get pissed enough to tell a bald-faced lie to your mates and believe it's the truth."

"No, no one is drinking for the fun of it." Kenneday drained half his glass, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "Did you hear about the murders?"

Michael's hand stuttered, almost spilling the ale. "Murders?"

"Four streetwalkers and a young gentleman who had picked the wrong night to go slumming around the docks."

"Someone killed four women?" The young gentleman wasn't that surprising. Anyone who came around the docks at night dressed like he had money was a man begging to be robbed at the very least.

"Three women." Kenneday shrugged to indicate he didn't pass judgment on who was earning a living in the alleyways. "All viciously killed. Caused quite a stir."

"They didn't find the man who did it?"

"The constables didn't find anything. It's like whatever killed those people just melted away."

"Which is impossible."

"Is it?" Kenneday whispered. "Is it really, Michael?" He scrubbed his salt-and-pepper hair with the fingers of one hand, then smiled, clearly trying to change the mood. "So where are you off to now? Heading for your southern ports of call?"

How many other people realized his wandering wasn't as aimless as it seemed? It had started that way, but by the end of his second year he found himself making a circuit, returning to the same villages several times a year.

Just like his father had done. Odd that it had never occurred to him before, but the last year the family had traveled together, he'd been old enough to anticipate revisiting places but too young to appreciate what the pattern of traveling meant.

"Actually, I'm heading north," Michael replied, suddenly feeling cautious. Kenneday was ten years his senior and an open-minded man who usually wasn't inquisitive about another man's personal life, except for a bit of bawdy teasing. The question sounded friendly, but he couldn't shake the notion there was something behind it. "Going up to Raven's Hill to spend some time with my aunt and sister."

"I'm heading that way myself. Got cargo to take up to the White Isle, so we'll be sailing past Raven's Hill. I can drop anchor there long enough to see you ashore."

"That's kind of you to offer," Michael said, feeling more wary by the moment.

Kenneday shrugged to indicate it wasn't worth mentioning. But he kept his eyes fixed on the table as he moved his glass in slow circles. "We'll be sailing with the morning tide, so I can settle you into a bunk for the night. Have you had dinner yet?"

"No." Michael glanced around the room, then leaned across the table. "I'm not saying you're not a generous man, Captain Kenneday, or that you haven't offered me passage at other times to make the traveling easier, but before I agree to anything this time, I'd like to know what's behind the offer."

For a moment, Kenneday looked up, and Michael caught a glimpse of a haunted soul. Then the other man fixed his attention back on the glass and the circles he was making on the table.

"Safety," Kenneday finally said. "Safety for my ship and my crew. That's what's behind the offer." He hesitated, then leaned forward so his forehead was almost touching Michael's. "I've been a sailor most of my life. Took to the sea as a boy, as soon as I was old enough to be hired on. So I've seen my share of the world, and I can tell you there's something strange about Ephemera and the way it responds to some people."

Magician. That was the word that now hung between them. First Shaney, now Kenneday. Maybe he'd never been as unremarked as he'd believed.

"There's stories coming down from the north," Kenneday said, "and the captains who sailed past the spot are swearing they'll sink their own ships before they sail that stretch of water again."

A twitch in the belly, a tightening in his shoulders. "What kind of stories?"

"Something evil has risen from the depths of the sea. A great, tentacled monster. It destroyed five fishing boats, killed everyone on board. Now fog covers that stretch of water — a fog you can't see until you sail into it. And while you're trapped there, you can hear men calling for help, calling for mercy, calling ..." Kenneday swallowed hard. "Just calling. The voices of doomed men, already dead."

"There are stories about all kinds of monsters," Michael murmured. "They give a reason for tragedies that have no reason."

"Can you look me in the eyes and tell me there are no monsters in the world, Michael? Can you tell me there's no truth behind those stories?"

He couldn't. Not when he knew demons walked in the world. After all, Elandar had the waterhorses, who would give a man a fatal ride, and the Merry Makers, who would lure their prey into the bogs with their lights and music.

"I've seen the mood in a room change just because you started twiddling on that whistle of yours," Kenneday continued. "That's all I'm asking. We have to pass that stretch of water in order to go on to the White Isle, and I'll be sailing with half my crew if I try to haul anchor without some kind of talisman to protect us when we reach that foggy water. But if there's a luck-bringer on board, twiddling a bit of music to calm the sea and whatever stirs within it, my men will be easier for it."

"I don't know ..." Michael jerked back as two meaty hands set two more glasses of ale on the table. "Big Davey."

Big Davey tipped his head toward Kenneday. "His won't be the last offer, just so you know. I reckon right now you can get passage on any ship for the price of a few tunes." He pulled a folded and wax-sealed paper from the pocket of the stained apron tied around his waist. "This came for you. The sailor who left it said a Lady of Light had asked him to leave it here for you since it was known that you stop here when you come to Kendall."

Michael's heart jumped into his throat, but his hand was steady when he took the paper.

"I'm thinking another whiskey might be in order," Kenneday said quietly, looking at Big Davey.

Big Davey nodded and went away. Kenneday picked up his glass of ale, then leaned back and half turned in his chair to look at the other men in the tavern, giving Michael the illusion of privacy.

Michael, Come home as soon as you can. Things are happening. Dreams, portents. It is possible that the Destroyer has risen from whatever shadow place it has used as its lair. I had a dream, Michael, and in the dream a voice said "heart's hope lies within belladonna." I do not know the answer to this riddle, but I feel certain the answer is the key to protecting Elandar from a great evil. I hope you receive this message, and I hope you can come home. But if your heart calls you elsewhere, you must follow. Find the answer to the riddle. For all our sakes, find the answer to the riddle.

Your aunt,

Brighid

PS. Do you remember the story about the Warrior of Light?

Cold hands closed over his heart ... and squeezed.

The Destroyer? The Warrior of Light? What did two plants have to do with stories and dreams and a riddle? Did Aunt Brighid really expect him to protect their country by finding the answer to a riddle?

And what if finding the answer was the only way to protect Elandar?

Lady of Light, have mercy on me.

Michael folded the paper and tucked it into his pocket. Then he closed his eyes in order to close out the room and the other men.

Heart's hope lies within belladonna.

A warmth, a tug that suddenly turned into a longing so fierce it was almost painful. He could feel her, smell her, hear the music in her heart. The dark-haired woman who had been filling his dreams lately.

Dreams, Aunt Brighid had said. Portents.

Could his dream lover be the key to the riddle? Could she lead him to the Warrior of Light?

"Michael?"

He opened his eyes and noticed the glass of whiskey. He drank it down, wanting the heat of it to warm a cold that suddenly filled his bones.

"Trouble at home?" Kenneday asked.

"I'm not sure," Michael replied. "But I'll take your offer."

Kenneday started to push back his chair. "Then let's get you settled. We sail with the morning tide."

Michael shook his head, then leaned over and rummaged in his pack. When he straightened up, he held his whistle. "Give me an hour here."

Heart's hope lies within belladonna.

He let the rhythm of the words fill his heart, his body, and then let the words shape the music that flowed from him as he played no particular tune. He could sense something quivering in response to the music, had the strange sensation of the ground turning under the building to align itself with ... What?

He had no answer, so he concentrated on the music — and hoped he would dream of his dark-haired lover. He wanted that last memory of her as a talisman when he sailed through water where Evil dwelled.

Chapter Eleven

It flowed from the sea to the land, a shadow under stone, a feeling of menace that made horses bolt and run wild through the village streets, made penned animals fling themselves at their enclosures until they broke free — or ruined themselves in the attempt — made women, for no reason they could explain, snatch up their children and bring them inside, ignoring the wails and protests that toys had been left behind.

As It flowed beneath the earth, It sent the force of Its own rage through the Dark currents that ran through the land around the village of Raven's Hill. It could sense the presence of the Landscaper who had helped the True Enemy hide the Place of Light, but It couldn't find her. Somewhere on that hillside. There and yet gone. Somewhere.

Frustrated and furious, It paused on the edge of a well-tended lawn, a darker shadow among the shadows cast by stones and trees. Paused and stretched Its mental tentacles to touch the minds of the villagers.

And, oh, wasn't this delicious? These foolish humans looked on the Landscaper with distrust, not realizing she was their protector, that her presence spared them from the stains within their own hearts.

Sorceress? Yes, It whispered. Yes, she is a servant of evil. She covets what you have, wants to destroy what you hold dear. Nothing good has come from that family. Nothing ever will.

Hearts wavered. Were seduced. Fed the Dark currents. One heart blazed with the Light and one heart was too anchored in the currents of Light to be completely swayed, but even in those hearts It found shadows of doubt.

It flowed along the base of the hillside until It reached the path that led upward. Like other animals, humans had game trails they followed. The Landscaper traveled this one often. It could feel her resonance in the earth.

It could feel something else too — a tangle of currents so bloated with the Dark and resonating so strongly with It that Ephemera gave up that piece of itself with no resistance.

And part of the meadow behind the cottage near the hill changed to rust-colored sand.

Satisfied, the Eater of the World rested — and waited.

Michael tucked the tin whistle inside his pack, secured the pack's flap, then set it aside where it would be out of the men's way but within easy reach when they finally dropped anchor at Raven's Hill.

He was glad his presence and his music had eased the hearts of Captain Kenneday's crew, but he hoped by all that was holy that he wouldn't be ready to leave when Kenneday sailed back this way, hoped he could find a reason — or an excuse — for taking the roads to head back to the villages that made up his circuit. Because he didn't want to sail through that stretch of water again, even knowing that it would be hard for Kenneday and his men to make that part of the journey without him.

What was out there was no story told by the surviving fishermen in order to explain a tragedy. Kenneday's ship had had a clear sky, a good wind, and no hint of anything unnatural. Then they sailed into fog.

He'd heard the voices of the dead men. A chill had gone through him, as if he'd stepped out of the sun into deep shadow. So he'd picked up his whistle, and he'd played. At first the tunes were laced with sorrow and were a salute to the dead and the families who mourned the lost men. Then he eased into tunes that threaded hope into the melody. The fog thinned, the voices of the dead faded, a hazy sun shone overhead, and he imagined he could see a faint glow around each man as, one by one, they shed their despair and believed they would reach clean water again.

When they finally sailed clear of that terrible stretch of water, Kenneday looked at his pocket watch — and discovered they had been lost in the fog for three hours.

No, he didn't want to sail through that stretch of water again, but as he had played, a thought had danced with his tunes. Maybe his brain had gotten addled in the fog, but if not, the feeling people had of a journey being shorter or longer than usual might not be just a feeling after all.

Leaving his pack, Michael made his way to the stern, where Kenneday was manning the wheel.

Kenneday smiled as Michael came up to stand beside him. "We'll have you home in time for tea, Michael. That we will." Then he looked away. "I'm grateful for your help. If you hadn't been on board. . . Well, we might still be sailing in that fog, becoming more of the lost men, if it hadn't been for you."

Michael gave the captain a sharp, assessing look and decided Kenneday believed what he said.

And it is true, Michael thought. If this isn't more than fevered imaginings, a ship might never leave that stretch of water if the men on board start believing they'll never get free of that haunted place.

"I think there's a way to avoid the fog," Michael said.

"What? Sailing clear around Elandar every time I have a supply run between ports in the north and south? That would put days on every trip."

"You don't have to avoid this part of Elandar, just that stretch of water." When Kenneday made a dismissive sound, Michael clamped one hand on the captain's forearm. "Listen to me. The bad water is where those five fishing boats were destroyed. Talk to the men who were in the other boats. You can be sure they know how far out they were when that monster rose from the sea. Damn the darkness, man, you and the other captains can figure out the position of a safe channel that will keep ships from sailing into that water. You mark other dangers; why not this one?"

"Because this one is different."

Kenneday might be arguing, but Michael heard the underlying hope in the man's voice.

"This one has boundaries, same as any other piece of dangerous water," Michael said. "I don't know how I know that, but I know it. And I'm thinking the area inside those boundaries is never any smaller than the area where those fishing boats were destroyed, but it can expand to be as big as a person believes it to be."

"That's crazy talk."

"Is it? Then how do you explain us being in that fog for three hours?"

Kenneday hesitated, then shook his head. "I can't."

You said yourself there's something strange about this world. I'm thinking it's gotten stranger. So maybe there's someone out there who knows what is happening and what to do about it."

His dream lover's face filled his mind. Would she understand Ephemera's strangeness? Did she know the answer to the riddle his aunt had sent him?

Maybe you've been alone too long.

Where had that thought come from?

"Michael?"

The sharpness in Kenneday's voice brought him hack — and he realized he was now holding the man's arm in a painful grip.

"Sorry. My mind wandered." He took a step back and tucked both hands in his pockets.

"I'll talk to the other captains about marking a channel." Kenneday tried to smile, but worry filled his eyes. "After all, we can't always have a luck-bringer on board with us."

The truth of it, and the unasked question under it, caused an awkward silence between them.

"I'd best pull my gear together," Michael said. Since Kenneday would have seen him checking his pack, it was a poor lie, but it served its purpose.

Michael paused near his pack, then didn't even pretend to check his gear. He went to the rail and looked toward the shore. He wanted to go home, needed to go home.

But as he looked at the shore, he suddenly had the feeling "home" was a place he hadn't seen yet.

"What are you playing at now?" Caitlin muttered. "If I don't get back in time to help Aunt Brighid put tea on the table, there will be nothing but cold silence this evening."

When there was no response to her words, she rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead as if that might scrub away the day's frustrations. How many times over the years had she used the old hoe to work the soil in that part of the garden? There shouldn't have been any stones there, let alone a big stone buried under the soil just deep enough and just at the wrong angle.

Giving the broken hoe handle a sour look, she used the jagged end to poke at what should have been the path leading down the hill to the cottage.

It should have been a simple day of weeding and tending the garden, but everything had been harder to do. The ground held on to weeds with a perverse tenacity. For the first time since it appeared in her garden, the knee-deep pool of water at the base of the little waterfall held no more than a finger length of silty water at the bottom, so she'd had to let the bucket fill by leaving it under the falls — and yet the surrounding beds weren't saturated.

"Maybe I've found where the water drained," Caitlin said, lifting the now-muddy end of the hoe. The path, which had been dry when she walked up it that morning, was now ankle-deep mud for several man-lengths. And now that part of the path was bordered by thorny, impenetrable bushes that had sprung up in the few hours she'd spent in her garden.

"I need to go home," Caitlin said. "I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I need to go home."

She waited and watched. The path didn't change. The bushes didn't sink into the ground to give her an easy way to skirt around the mud and pick up the path farther down the hill.

Giving the thorny bushes a hard whack with her hoe handle, she retreated up the path. Then she set off through the trees. If the hillside behaved, she should come down close to where the path crossed the meadow behind the cottage.

But as she picked her way through the trees, watching for ankle-twisting roots and dips in the ground, she couldn't shake the feeling that Ephemera really was trying to stop her from going back to the cottage.

The Eater of the World flowed through Raven's Hill, nurturing the bogs of doubt and fear that lived in human hearts.

Yes, it whispered to three boys whose hearts already embraced the Dark. The woman in the cottage. Nothing but a hag, a whore, an old liar rejected by the Ladies of Light. She sullies the village with her presence.

As the boys headed for the cottage that held the heart full of Light, the Eater of the World drifted back toward the harbor. Something on the water was producing a faint resonance with this place. Something strong enough to leave a resonance, despite the murky bedrock of the Landscaper's heart.

Whatever was coming would never leave again. The Eater — and the sea — would make sure of that.

Uneasiness became an itch under Michael's skin. He knew Kenneday and the crew were becoming infected by his uneasiness, but he couldn't stop prowling from one end of the ship to the other, watching the sea, the shore, the sky. Something out there. But what was it? And where was it?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kenneday hand over the wheel to the first mate, so he stayed by the rail and waited for the captain to approach.

"Is there something you need to be telling me, Michael?" Kenneday asked.

Michael shook his head. "I need to get home." The moment he spoke the words, the certainty of it was like a fist pounding against his heart. "I just need to get home."

"We should have you ashore in another hour or so. Not in time for tea, I'm afraid, but maybe in time for supper if the wind doesn't die on us again." Kenneday hesitated, then added, "If you'd come north by land, it would have taken you longer, even with the delay we had in that fog."

Hearing a defensive apology in the words, Michael offered an understanding smile. "I know that. I've just been anxious since I read my aunt's letter. I'll feel easier when I find out the fuss turned out to be a trifling matter." I'll feel easier when I know for certain that an hour from now isn't an hour too late.

But that wasn't something he wanted to think about because he had the strangest feeling that if he thought about it, and truly believed it, he would make it true.

"Old hag! Old hag!"

"Come get what you deserve, old hag!"

Doing a trip and stumble — and just managing not to land on her face — Caitlin rushed down the last few man-lengths of the hill. She knew those voices. Coyle, Roy, and Owen were the village troublemakers, but they had always kept clear of the cottage.

"Old hag! Old hag!" That was Coyle.

"Owen! Stop diddling with yourself and bring us more rocks!" That was Roy.

Using the curse words she'd heard Michael say once — words that had earned him a slap upside the head because Aunt Brighid had also heard him — Caitlin paused at the bottom of the hill to decide what to do.

Coyle threw another rock, shattering the glass in an upstairs window, while Roy jumped up and down, yelling at Aunt Brighid, yelling for Owen. And Brighid was doing some yelling of her own but was sensible enough to stay inside.

Since her aunt's yelling was filled with anger rather than being the sound of someone crying out in pain, Caitlin decided to wait until the boys had thrown their last rocks. Then she could wade in. Maybe a hoe handle applied to their backsides would teach those hooligans a few manners.

But as she waited, she noticed the ground changing between her and the boys. Fear shivered up her spine.

There had been no sand when she'd gone up the hill that morning, but there was a large patch of it now, beginning at the base of the path she usually used to reach her garden and stretching out toward the cottage. It looked like someone had poured barrows of sand over the meadow to create a long-fingered, bony hand.

But there were no grasses or wildflowers poking up beneath the sand, which didn't look deep enough to have covered the plants. And she'd never seen rust-colored sand before and knew it hadn't come from any of the beaches around Raven's Hill.

As Coyle and Roy threw more rocks at the cottage windows, Caitlin watched meadow grass disappear as two of the sand fingers stretched a little further toward the cottage.

There's something out there that can change the land, she thought. Something ... evil.

The cottage was too isolated. She and Aunt Brighid would be nothing but hens waiting for the fox if they stayed. Which meant getting Brighid out of the cottage and escaping to the village proper. Which meant getting past those black-hearted boys.

Holding the hoe handle in a two-handed grip that would make it a useful weapon, Caitlin scanned the trees at the base of the hill, looking for some movement. Where was the third boy, Owen? It was rare to see just two of the boys when they were causing trouble, so the third had to be around.

Deal with the here and now, Brighid always told her. Well, the here and now was the two boys she could see.

This is my place, Caitlin thought as she stared at Coyle and Roy, who had their backs to her. This is my land. You're not wanted here. You're not welcome here. Leave this place!

She wasn't able to influence people, and she didn't expect anything to happen. The words were merely a way to bolster her own courage before she made a dash for the cottage that would bring her to the boys' attention.

You're not wanted here. You're not welc —

Her focus shattered as she saw three of the sandy fingers shrink, the sand changing back to packed earth. It was bare earth — the grass and flowers didn't magically reappear — but it was earth, not sand.

I can change the meadow hack to the way it was. I can fight this evil, make it go away.

Then her attention came back to the boys. They were waiting for her, staring at her. Each boy held a filled whiskey bottle with rags stuffed into the necks of the bottles like a wick in an oil lamp.

The rags were already burning.

"No!" Caitlin yelled.

The Eater of the World flowed toward the hillside as fast as It could. The Landscaper was trying to destroy the access It had created into the bonelovers' landscape. She was sending her resonance into the world and Ephemera was responding.

It would stop her. Yes, It would. She was stronger than many of the Landscapers It had destroyed at the school, but not as skilled or powerful — or dangerous — as the True Enemy. It could pull her into Its landscape, just as It had done with the others. The bonelovers would do the rest.

Coyle and Roy flung the burning whiskey bottles through the broken windows. Then they grinned at her and ran, no doubt

intending to be far enough away that they could claim ignorance when she accused them of setting the cottage on fire.

Because it was burning. Too much. Too fast.

"Aunt Brighid!"

The fingers of sand were stretching out again, reaching for the cottage, blocking her way to the back door.

Why hadn't Brighid come out the front door? They couldn't save the cottage. Not by themselves. Was Owen guarding the front door, holding some kind of club or other weapon so Brighid was afraid to leave despite the fire?

Caitlin turned, intending to run to the front of the cottage and rescue her aunt. But with her first step, the ground felt soft, fluid ... strange. She staggered. Stabbed the hoe handle into the ground to maintain her balance.

"Earth isn't fluid," Caitlin said, putting all the conviction she could into her voice. "This earth isn't soft. It's solid, and it's real."

She felt the ground firm up, but when she looked around, she let out a cry of disbelief and despair.

She stood in the center of a perfect circle surrounded by sand. She felt a pulse of evil at the edge of the circle. In front of her, bits of meadow still poked up like hummocks in a marsh.

It was as if something were daring her to jump from one hummock to the next in order to reach safe ground. As if something dared her to pit her influence with Ephemera against its power to control the world.

If I stay here, I'm safe, Caitlin thought. Except ...

"Auntie!" Her heart swelled with relief when she saw Brighid staggering away from the cottage, coughing horribly, and bleeding from cuts probably made by broken glass.

Her heart shrank to a cold, hard lump in her chest as she saw a shadow thicken in the ground behind her aunt, saw a darkness rise up and take the shape of a man holding a knife. He looked at Brighid, then looked at her and smiled — and she understood the message.

He — it — can't touch me where I stand, hut if I stay, he'll kill Aunt Brighid. One of us lives, one of us dies. My choice.

For a moment, she hesitated. Brighid hadn't been an easy woman to live with and she didn't think of her aunt with any warmth or joy, but Brighid had set aside her own life to help them when she and Michael were children, so she owed the woman for that.

My choice. My life. Doesn't mean I won't try to survive.

Watching the man-shaped darkness, Caitlin backed up to the very edge of the circle. She still had a chance. A running leap to land on the largest "hummock" and push off from there to solid ground.

Lady of Light, help me. Please, help me.

She held the hoe handle in one hand, its length evenly balanced. Probably better to leave it, but she didn't want to face the knife empty-handed.

She took off across the circle, driving with her legs, putting everything she had into the leap.

"Caitlin!" Brighid screamed.

She didn't need to look. She could feel the change in the earth beneath her as her aunt and the world she knew faded away, disappearing altogether the moment the "hummock" vanished and her foot landed on the rust-colored sand.

She stumbled, flailed, drove one end of the hoe handle into the sand. It caught on something, acting like a lever as it lifted an object up from the sand. The momentary resistance was enough to help Caitlin stay on her feet.

She paused, gasping for air as she looked around. Rust-colored sand beneath a sky the color of ripe bruises. Nothing else — except that shifting black mound not too far from where she stood.

Caitlin watched the mound, then shook her head. Couldn't be ants. Much too big to be ants.

The mound shifted. She caught a glimpse of ... something. Thought she heard a wet-sounding cry.

She turned to free the hoe handle — and froze at the sight of the rib cage that had been pulled out of the sand. She stared at the clean bones, then at the black mound.

For one heartbeat — maybe two — something made a last, desperate effort to escape, knocking a few of the creatures away. In that heartbeat, she saw what was left of a boy's face.

"Owen," she whispered.

She couldn't help the boy. Even if she could pull him free of those creatures, she couldn't save the boy. So she freed the hoe handle from the old bones and backed away carefully and quietly to avoid attracting attention.

When one of those unnatural ants noticed her and moved toward her, she did the only thing she could do.

She ran.

"Friend of yours?" Kenneday asked as their dinghy approached the stairs that led up to the south side of the Raven's Hill harbor.

"He is," Michael replied, settling his pack as he watched the man waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Nathan had been a friend since boyhood and had remained one even after it became evident that Michael was a Magician. He came back to Raven's Hill out of love and duty; however, it was the time he spent with Nathan that made those visits tolerable.

But having Nathan waiting around the harbor instead of working in his shop boded no good.

Kenneday looked back at the crewman who had rowed them to the stairs. "Stay here and keep on eye on things in case we need to leave in a hurry," he said quietly.

"Aye, Captain."

Pretending he hadn't heard that exchange, Michael climbed the stairs. A cold fist squeezed his belly when he got close enough to see the worry — and regret — in Nathan's eyes.

"Ah, Michael," Nathan said. "It's bad. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but it's bad."

"What happened?" Michael asked. A nudge from behind had him shifting to make room for Kenneday.

"Well, a couple of boys got into some mischief and —" Nathan stopped, swore softly, then shook his head. "No. I won't whitewash it like others want to do. The fact is we have conflicting stories and some things just plain aren't right, but the nub of it is Coyle and Roy — and we suspect Owen was with them but he hasn't been found yet — started their mischief by throwing rocks at the windows of your aunt's cottage and ended it by burning the place down. We tried, Michael. The men rallied when the smoke was spotted, and they got the water wagons and pumps out there as fast as they could, but the fire had taken hold and ... It was like that fire didn't want to be put out. And after Jamie disappeared right in front of us ... He raised his hands palm up to indicate helplessness. "I'd just come down to the harbor to see if there might be a ship that could take a message when sails coming up from the south were spotted. Your aunt said you would be coming, so I hoped ..."

Kenneday's hand on his shoulder was a warm comfort, but it didn't ease the cold fist that still squeezed his belly. "Aunt Brighid? Caitlin?"

Nathan looked away. "Don't know why your auntie stayed inside so long. Fear, I'm guessing."

A shudder went through him, jangling the pots attached to his pack. "How bad?"

"She has some cuts on her back and arms. Most likely got them from the glass when the windows were broken. And her lungs sound a bit charry from the heat and the smoke, but the doctor figures she'll mend just fine with some care."

He couldn't breathe. He could feel his lungs fill and empty, but he still couldn't breathe. "Caitlin?"

Nathan rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. "She disappeared. We thought your aunt meant she had run away — Caitlin was acting touched in the head, Michael; she'd gone and cut off her hair just because some boy had asked to go out walking in the moonlight. So at first, when Brighid said the sand had taken Caitlin, we thought she was just babbling because of the pain. But when Jamie disappeared right in front of our eyes ..."

"What sand?"

"Something ... evil," Nathan whispered. "A rusty color, like dried blood. Stretching out from the base of the hill right up to one side of the cottage. Brighid said Caitlin tried to jump it in order to reach her, but the ground just changed under the girl — and she disappeared."

Something thrummed under Michael's feet.

"Where's the aunt now?" Kenneday asked.

"At the doctor's house," Nathan replied. "She'll be looked after until she mends."

Thrumming. A harsh buzzing that vibrated up from the soles of his feet. Clashing chords. Grating notes that sliced at harmony.

He had brushed against this sound before in Foggy Downs and Kendall — and in a terrible stretch of water where the voices of dead men drifted on the fog.

He'd entertained the notion that it was another Magician trying to drive him out of the villages where he felt easy. But it wasn't another Magician that had touched those places and changed their songs. It was something more. Something out of myth.

"Listen," Michael said. "Do you feel it?"

Kenneday looked puzzled, but everything about Nathan sharpened.

"Can you still hear the feel of a place?" Nathan asked.

Michael nodded. It was all clashes and grating noise— but it was in tune with pieces of Raven's Hill, and that scared him more than anything.

Almost more than anything. Because when he looked at the land just beyond the harbor's southern spur, he saw a shadow flow over the earth and stone before it disappeared into the sea. And its song chilled him to the bone.

"Lady of Light, have mercy," Michael whispered. "It's here. The Destroyer is here." He spun around, looked at the crewman waiting in the dinghy, and shouted, "Get off the water! Up here, man! Up here!"

"Michael!" Kenneday said. "What's got into you?"

"The thing that destroyed the fishing boats. It's out there in the harbor. Right now. I can feel it." He looked at Nathan. "Give me your word that you'll give my aunt what help she needs once she's on the mend. And you, Captain, promise you'll give her passage to wherever she wants to go if she chooses to leave Raven's Hill."

"You have my word on it," Kenneday said. "But, Michael, where are you going?"

Dread shivered through him, but he pushed it aside. "Somehow, that thing took my sister. I'm going to get her back."

Michael pulled on the shoulder straps of his pack to resettle the weight. Probably smarter to leave it, since a part of him believed he wasn't going anywhere except the bottom of the harbor, but all that was left of what he could call his own was in that pack, including his whistle, and he wasn't leaving it behind.

"Michael," Kenneday said sharply. "Where are you going?"

Certainty flowed through him, swift and strong, replacing the cold feeling with a lovely heat as he filled his mind with the image of his dream lover.

He looked at the two men he considered friends and felt as if he'd finally removed a mask he'd hidden behind all his life. "I'm going to see what happens to evil when a Magician does some ill-wishing." Turning away from Nathan and Kenneday, he walked to the edge of the spur.

Light surrounded by a net of Dark currents. It knew the resonance of this heart, had felt the bedrock of it in the foggy village and the seaport. This was the resonance that was connected to the Landscaper in this village.

Smash it! Destroy it! Once this heart was gone, there would be no bedrock. There would be nothing to protect the people who lived in this place. It would snuff out the Light in each heart, and this place would change, would fester, and the people would curse and wail at a world turned harsh and bitter and dark, never admitting that their own hearts had shaped the world they had to live in.

But first, It would drag this male down into one of Its watery landscapes. And there It would feast.

As It rose toward the surface, It changed into the monster men of the sea most feared.

Michael felt his heart stop beating for a moment as tentacles rose out of the sea. This was the nightmare that destroyed ships and

left dead men to haunt the sea.

He could feel the song of its darkness, could almost find the rhythm that matched the seductive lure of it.

No! He didn't want to find the rhythm of it. This thing had taken his sister, had used bad-hearted boys to hurt his aunt. This thing was going to dance to his tune.

And what tune do you know that is dark enough? a mocking voice whispered to his heart.

He didn't have an answer, and he faltered.

The tentacles, which were flailing around him like whips lashing the air, came closer.

No, Michael thought. No! But he suddenly realized the question hadn't been idle. The Destroyer knew something he didn't know, and his survival depended on that something. Which was why the thing was certain it would win.

The ground beneath his feet became soft, fluid. A wind that didn't touch his skin blew through him. The harbor faded, the sounds of men shouting or crying out in fear faded.

And what tune do you know that is dark enough?

The question echoed in his mind.

If I am condemned to a dark place, it will be a place of my own choosing, Michael thought with all the conviction he could summon.

What place? the mocking voice whispered. I am the Eater of the World. I am the Destroyer of Light. There is no place you can go where I cannot follow.

Despair filled him. He felt himself being lifted. Knew that his fate was about to be sealed.

The world was in motion. He felt things that had no language but music. And then, as he felt himself plunging toward water, he heard another song — and had an answer.

Once more, he filled his mind with the image of the black-haired woman of his dreams.

Her darkness is my fate. Her heart is my world. Then is nothing else, nothing else, nothing. And when I stand within her heart, she and I will destroy you.

The thing screamed in rage and fear. The world tore apart, pulling Michael and the Destroyer in separate directions. Michael fell — deaf, blind, helpless to do anything but cling to the image of a face ... and a riddle.

Her darkness is my fate. Heart's hope lies within belladonna.

Falling. Falling. Suddenly the world returned. Sound. Sight. He had one moment to see the land around him before he hit the water. And when the water closed over his head, there was only darkness.

Chapter Twelve

Glorianna dashed from one section of her garden to the next. Looking. Searching. Listening with her heart and not understanding the messages coming through Ephemera's currents of power.

This felt like Heart's Justice, and yet it didn't quite feel like someone had been swept away in the currents of the world to end up in the landscape that most reflected that person's heart. This felt like someone crossing over a bridge from one landscape to another, but normally she wouldn't have felt the resonance of a crossing because someone who truly didn't belong in her landscapes shouldn't be able to reach them. That was disturbing enough, but ...

"Glorianna!" Lee caught up to her. "Glorianna?"

"Someone — or something — tried to bring the Eater of the World into my landscapes," Glorianna said, staring at the part of the garden that held the access points to her dark landscapes.

"What?" Lee skipped back a step, as if he expected the Eater to burst out of the ground at any moment.

You touched a boy! You've got the ickies!

Lee's skip-step made her think of that taunt, which she'd heard, in one form or another, in so many villages — a taunt that seemed part of the rituals that transformed a girl into a young woman. Somewhere during those years, "icky" changed into "interesting," and after that, a girl's life was never quite the same. Of course, the boy's life was never quite the same either.

The moment's amusement settled her enough to think rather than react.

"Someone crossed over," Glorianna said, "but not in a customary way. And the Eater almost crossed over with that person."

"Almost." Lee wasn't asking a question so much as demanding the answer he wanted to hear.

Glorianna nodded. "Almost. The dissonance would be clanging through the currents of power if the Eater had come into one of my landscapes."

"It had slipped in before. Made an anchor point small enough to escape your detection until you were almost on top of that piece of ground."

"I know, but this is different. I don't think It was trying to enter my landscapes. I think ..." Glorianna frowned. "A battle of wills. Maybe the person wasn't trying to bring the Eater in. Maybe the person was trying to get away, but that wouldn't explain the feeling of Heart's Justice."

"There is such a thing as spontaneous Heart's Justice," Lee said reluctantly.

Glorianna just looked at him.

"Bridges don't talk about it, but we know it happens. If two incompatible people cross a resonating bridge at the same time

— especially if one person is trying to force the other to cross over to an ... unsuitable ... landscape — Ephemera sometimes responds with Heart's Justice, sending each person to a different landscape. In those cases, it seems that where the will is focused is equally important as what landscapes resonate with the person's heart."

"You have a mother and a sister who are Landscapers, and you've never mentioned this."

Lee shrugged, looking wary. "It's not talked about. It just seemed better if everyone believed Heart's Justice didn't happen unless a Landscaper initiated it." Then he gave her a look that wasn't brother to sister but Bridge to Landscaper. "Besides, doesn't a kind of Hearts Justice happen every time a person crosses a resonating bridge? When you cross one of those bridges, the landscape where you end up may be a place you've never seen before even if it does resonate with your heart."

He had a point. And maybe it was one of those bits of knowledge that seemed so obvious it was assumed everyone knew about it. At least, all the Landscapers and Bridges who kept Ephemera balanced and connected as best they could.

Lee stepped up beside her and studied the access points to the dark landscapes. "What are you sensing now?"

"Nothing. I'm fairly sure whoever crossed over ended up in one of the dark landscapes, but that heart has vanished in the overall resonances."

"A person who has died wouldn't leave a resonance, and if there was a fight with the Eater ..." Lee lifted his hands in a

helpless gesture. "Even so, I'd better get a message to Sebastian in case any ... unusual strangers ... show up in the Den." "I can do that," Lee said. "You're not going to feel easy about leaving the garden for a while." She wrinkled her nose and smiled to acknowledge the truth of that.

Lee gave her a one-armed hug. "Just remember to go back to the house and get something to eat. And bring a shawl or jacket back out with you. It's getting too cool at night to be outdoors without one."

"Yes, Mother."

"That's brother."

"Sorry, I could have sworn the tone said mother even if the timbre of the voice was too deep."

"If you tell me I'll make a great uncle, I will wrestle you to the ground and push your face in the mud."

Glorianna blinked. Clearly this wasn't the time to offer an opinion about such things, even if she'd thought to say anything.

She couldn't recall what she said to him in response, but it must have been satisfactory since he left, intending to stop by their mother's house on the way to the Den.

"Well," she said to the garden as she deadheaded flowers on a few of the autumn plants. "Well, I'm sure he'd be a fine uncle as long as he doesn't depend on me to make him one." Which made her wonder why he'd even be chewing on the question.

Which made her think of one reason why he would.

Glorianna grinned. Sebastian a daddy?

Then the grin shifted into a pout. Lynnea should have told her. Even if it was too early to be sure, Lynnea should have said something to her or Nadia. Because, obviously, Lee had been given a hint.

Would giving Lynnea a present of baby blanket and booties be too unsubtle a request for information?

A tremor went through the currents of power — there and gone. But it was enough to remind her that something strange had happened and it was best to be cautious until she discovered who had entered her landscape in an unexpected way — and why.

The Eater of the World huddled in a cave within the water landscape It had shaped long ago. Its coloring matched the stones in the cave; Its only movement was the two tentacles extending beyond the cave, undulating in a way that made fish think they had found a meal when, in truth, they were about to become one.

Simple minds. Simple creatures. It had nothing to fear from these things. It had no enemies in this landscape.

The male who had escaped It was dangerous. The male had powers that made It uneasy because those powers stirred old memories too vague to be useful and too strong to be dismissed.

Not quite like the True Enemy, whose resonance had filled the male's heart, allowing him to pull away from the Eater's landscapes. No, not like the True Enemy ... but like the Old Enemy. The ones who had locked It inside Its landscapes.

But It was safe here. The male could not swim so deep to find It here. And the True Enemy did not know how to find It within Its own landscapes.

It was safe here. It would eat and rest. Then It would go back to the landscapes filled with busy human minds. It would listen to the fears revealed in the twilight of waking dreams — and It would take more things from the natural world and shape them into nightmares. Fear would have a name and become stronger for the naming.

Fear already had a name: The Eater of the World.

Pleased that It had remembered this, It left the cave. The Landscaper It had ensnared in the bonelovers' landscape was probably nothing more than bones by now, but bringing those bones back to the cottage beside the hill would create more shadows in the people living in that village.

Especially in the hearts that would be pleased to see the bones.

Caitlin ran across sand that never ended toward a horizon that never changed. Light filtered through the bruise-colored sky, but she couldn't find the sun, so she had no way to tell which direction she was heading, and the only assurance she had that she wasn't walking in circles was the fact that she hadn't crossed her own footsteps or the lines and squiggles she occasionally made in the sand with the hoe handle for the sole purpose of showing herself where she had been just in case she was walking in circles.

Feeling the stitch in her side flare up again, she slowed to a walk, breathing hard, craving water. But when she looked back, she saw the dark shapes heading toward her. Closing the distance.

Can't, Caitlin thought as she stabbed the hoe handle into the sand and leaned on it. Can't run anymore. Need water, need rest, need a way out of this place, need ... help. Lady of Light, I need help.

She looked toward the horizon and let out a sobbing laugh. More dark shapes. More of those creatures coming for a feast. Coming for her.

Caitlin closed her eyes.

Even if she could continue to outrun them, what would be the point? Survival? For what? There was no food, no water. She was going to die here, one way or the other. And even if she could get back to Raven's Hill with a snap of her fingers, living there wasn't much better than being lost in this place. Yes, she had Aunt Brighid and the garden, but her life was as barren as the sand.

I don't want to go back to Raven's Hill. And I don't want to die here. I need help.

The ground beneath her vibrated like she was standing on a giant tuning fork.

Her eyes popped open and she twisted her torso to look around, not daring to move her feet.

A long step away from her was a heart's hope plant, so tiny it could barely support the single bloom.

Her breath caught. Her heart rapped against her chest. And she remembered what she had done in the meadow, what she had said.

Maybe, she thought. Maybe.

She glanced around. The dark shapes were getting closer. Couldn't think about that. Couldn't think about anything but what Ephemera could do.

Shifting until she stood a shoulder-width from the heart's hope, Caitlin bent at the waist and held out the hoe handle with both hands. She rested the broken end on the sand; then, using herself as the center point, she drew a circle in the sand.

"This is my place," Caitlin said as she drew the circle, "Within the bounds of this circle is a place of Light and hope. My heart dwells within the bounds of this circle, and creatures of the Dark are not welcome here. You cannot touch this ground. You cannot touch me."

As she closed the circle and began tracing it again on the sand, she felt the world beneath her feet become soft, fluid.

Come on, Caitlin Marie, think about what you need here while you have the chance to get it.

Water. Food. A place that wasn't this place.

As she finished the second tracing of the circle and began the third, she saw the creatures running toward her, and her focus almost snapped. But she held to the thought that she was safe inside the circle. She had to believe that. Had to.

The world beneath her feet was no longer soft. Whatever Ephemera could do had been done.

Caitlin bit her lower lip to hold back a cry of despair. No food, no water. Nothing but the tiny heart's hope within a circle sketched in the sand.

She widened her stance. Shifted her hands on the hoe handle for a better grip.

Then she watched as the ant creatures reached the circle and disappeared, reappearing on the other side of the circle moments later. They didn't go far before they began milling around, searching for something.

Caitlin slowly lowered her arms, letting one end of the hoe rest on the sand.

The creatures couldn't see her, couldn't sense her. Couldn't find her. She was close enough to that awful place to see it — and them — but she was no longer there.

She sank to her knees and watched the ant creatures.

Slowly, she noticed the difference in the sand — and the difference in the air, which smelled of fish and seawater. Within her circle, the sand was no longer rust-colored. Scooping up a handful, she let it sift through her fingers until all that was left was a small shell like the ones she used to bring home when Michael took her for a walk on the beach.

She had done this much. Maybe after she rested a bit, she could try to shift herself from this little patch of Raven's Hill beach to her garden.

She waited until they were gone, having accepted that their prey had somehow escaped. Then she stretched out beside the heart's hope and gently brushed a fingertip over the bloom.

She didn't have food or water, and she would be in desperate need of both very soon. But she was safe from the creatures, and even though she didn't know how to take the next step, she had gotten back to the part of the world she knew. For now, that was enough.

It found the remains of the young male — one of the three boys whose hearts had embraced Its whispers to harm the Light that lived in the cottage. But It couldn't find the Landscaper. She was here but not here. It could feel the resonance of the current of Light that had formed in the bonelovers' landscape because of her presence, but It couldn't find her.

A spot in the sand. Nothing there — and yet something there. This had the same there/not there feel as the garden hidden on the hill behind the cottage.

She was strong, but she had seemed unskilled, like the young ones at the Landscapers' School, who had been so easy to kill. But she had known how to escape from one of Its landscapes. No one had escaped from Its landscapes before.

At least, not until that incubus had managed to elude Its attempt to bring him into the bonelovers' landscape. The incubus lived in the Den, one of the True Enemy's landscapes.

Then the male who had fought It at the village where the Landscaper lived. He had broken free by resonating with the True Enemy's heart.

And this young female was somehow connected with the True Enemy because of the Place of Light they had taken away from It.

These human creatures were all connected to her, to Belladonna ... the True Enemy. It couldn't reach her landscapes. Even when It felt the male crossing over and tried to hold on to him, It had been pulled away to one of Its own landscapes. If the Landscaper found a way into one of Belladonna's landscapes, It wouldn't be able to reach her, either.

But there were Dark hearts in every landscape, and It could always reach them.

And one of them would be able to find Belladonna's companions — and destroy them.

"What, exactly, am I looking for?" Sebastian asked for the third time.

Lee was ready to pound his cousin's head against a wall. "I told you. I don't know exactly. Someone who doesn't belong. Someone ... different."

Sebastian looked down the Den's main street, where two men and a succubus were staggering toward a brothel that provided slightly more privacy than having sex in the alley. He looked in the other direction, where three bull demons stomped out of a tavern, bellowing.

"Guess someone had a good night playing cards," Lee said.

"Omelets all around," Sebastian muttered, watching as three horned, shaggy heads turned in the direction of Philo's place, where Lynnea waited tables and cooked a few "special" dishes.

"I hear Lynnea's got the bull demons clearing out some of the brush around your place and cutting another path so folks aren't walking through your backyard when they want to get from the Den to Aurora."

"Yeah," Sebastian said, stepping aside to let the bull demons stomp over to their favorite table and then wait politely for Lynnea to notice them. "She made a cake — with a buttercream frosting, mind you — and brought it to Philo's during one of her work shifts. Gave each of the bull demons a piece of cake and offered to make each one a cake of his very own in exchange for clearing brush and cutting the new path. The negotiations got ... noisy."

Lee grinned. "I heard you almost had to lock up your own wife."

"You hear too much. Anyway, they each get a cake for clearing the brush, and another cake for cutting the new path through the woods so we can maintain some privacy at home."

"Did you get a taste of the sample cake when all this bartering was going on?"

Sebastian just sighed.

Lee laughed.

"So," Sebastian said, watching Lynnea and the bull demons. "Tell me again about noticing someone in the Den who's different?" When Lee didn't answer, he turned and looked at his cousin. "Lee? Lee!"

"I have to go. Someone needs ..." So strong. The need was so strong. "I have to go."

He started to step back, to step away. Before he'd completed that first step, Sebastian grabbed his jacket and hauled him back so close that the only things separating them were Sebastian's fists.

"Where are you going?" Sebastian demanded.

"I don't know. It's not a place. I don't get a sense of place."

"You're the only Bridge Nadia and Glorianna can count on. Maybe the only one living in their landscapes. If something happens to you ..."

"I know." Lee tried to free himself, but even if he decked Sebastian, Lynnea was heading toward them — and the bull demons were on their feet, waiting to see what the humans were going to do — and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Teaser hustling toward them. He wasn't going anywhere until Sebastian let him go. Unless he took Sebastian with him. All it would take was a stumble and a step back, but ...

"I know," he said again. "But I have to go. I'll use my island to cross over to the place where I feel the need. I'll be careful. As long as I stay on the island, I'm connected to Sanctuary. I can get back. I'm not going to take a risk that will put us in danger, Sebastian, but I can't leave a heart out there when the need is so strong."

Sebastian uncurled his fists but didn't quite let go of Lee's jacket. "You're exhausted now, practically asleep on your feet. How long will this take?"

"You can't pin a time on something like —"

The hands tightened into fists again. "How long?"

This isn't about me being the only Bridge in Nadia's and Glorianna's landscapes. This is about family. "Give me four hours. If you don't hear from me by then, figure I've run into bad trouble." Not that knowing that would do you any good. If I'm in the kind of trouble that makes it impossible to reach my island, there's nothing you can do to help me.

Sebastian let go of Lee's jacket and stepped back. "Four hours."

Using his unusual gift of being able to impose his small island over another landscape, Lee brought the island to the Den's main street. He extended one hand back and felt the bark of a tree. One step back and he was standing on the island, vanished from the sight of the Den's citizens even though he could still see them,

Slipping one hand into his jacket pocket, he fingered the coiled braid he carried everywhere. Resonance and need rang through him, confirming what he'd already suspected. He was about to let Ephemera's currents of power take him to an unknown landscape in order to find the woman who belonged to a discarded braid of hair.

And he hoped she was worth the risks.

Chapter Thirteen

"Iz dead."

"Iz sleeping."

"Iz dead!"

"Iz sleeping!"

"How you know iz sleeping?"

"Cause I poked it? See?" poke poke poke.

Michael jerked awake, coughed up more bog water, then groaned. "I'm not sleeping now, you brainless twits, and I'm not dead, either."

Silence. Then the first one said, "We could kill it. Iz enough flesh on it to feed the clan."

Clan. Bog. Lady of Light, have mercy on me.

Michael pushed himself up to a sitting position and carefully rubbed his eyes, which felt hot and gritty. Then he looked at the two youngsters standing in front of him — and the adults silently moving closer.

The Merry Makers were human-shaped, and a full-grown one came up as high as a human man's chest. But they looked like they were formed from the bogs they claimed as their own: thin, brown bodies with limbs that looked like animated branches; hands that had long, twiggy fingers; faces that could have been carved from gnarls of wood; hair like the moss that hung from the trees that grew on the bog's islands.

There was a vicious strength in those thin limbs that could easily overpower a grown man, and humans lured into the bog by the lights and the music seldom found their way home.

Unless they could bargain.

"I am not familiar with this clan," Michael said, feeling the need to step as carefully with his words as he would with his feet in order to get out of this dark place. "But I have been among your people before." Early in his wandering, when he'd been young and foolish and lost one night — and had learned firsthand that the stories about the demons who lived in their world weren't just stories. "We shared a night of music."

They didn't speak. Their large yellow eyes just stared at him.

There was no place for him to go. The Merry Makers were in front of him. A quick roll would have him back in the water, but the water offered no real escape from them — and trying to escape would be enough to condemn him.

Then one clear note sounded through the air.

Michael looked toward the sound and noticed his pack sitting close by, open.

He didn't remember taking off the pack, but his memories of what happened after he hit the water were jumbled bits of images. At least now he understood why he'd thought trees had reached down and saved him from drowning.

The Merry Maker who stepped forward held Michael's tin whistle in its long fingers. "Magician." The voice was deep and harsh and yet fluid — and sounded like it belonged to the bog itself. "We have heard of you, Magician."

There was something more primal about this one, something more dangerous. Which made Michael wonder if he was looking at this clan's Heart of the Bog. He'd heard the name the last time he'd been among the Merry Makers. They wouldn't explain what it meant, but he figured the name itself pretty much said it all — especially in terms of who made the decision of whether or not a human lived or died.

"Luck-bringer," the Heart of the Bog said, watching Michael. "Ill-wisher."

"I have never wished ill on your people," Michael replied.

"No, you have not." A pause. "You appear without warning, deep in our piece of the world, at a time when nothing should be able to cross over into the protected dark places."

Protected? Michael wondered. By who?

A lovely face once again filled his mind, and he was very much afraid he knew the answer.

"Why are you here, Magician?"

His life hinged on what he said next. He knew it; they knew it. So he listened to his heart and gave the Merry Maker the same answer he had given the Destroyer. "Her darkness is my fate."

Bodies shifted. Murmurs rose and fell until the Heart of the Bog raised one hand, commanding silence.

When the Heart of the Bog just watched him, Michael added, "Heart's hope lies within belladonna."

The Heart of the Bog tipped its head to one side and smiled a sweetly chilling smile. "You seek Belladonna?"

Something about the look in the Merry Maker's eyes told him he had misunderstood the riddle. It wasn't about the plant, it was about a person. It was the name of his dream lover, who must be a dark-hearted woman if she protected this part of the world. But he sensed she was also the key to getting away from the Merry Makers,

"Yes," Michael said. "I seek Belladonna."

The Heart of the Bog walked over to the pack and tucked the whistle inside before fastening the pack's straps. "We will take you to the Justice Maker. He has powerful magics." That chilling smile again. "Deadly magics. See-bastian will decide if you are a friend... or a meal."

A gesture of its hand, more frightening because of the gracefulness of the movement, indicated that Michael should pick up his pack.

When he had his pack settled on his shoulders, they closed in around him. He saw no weapon in any hand, but he knew all

the Merry Makers carried a knife and a slingshot — and were lethal with both. So he followed the Heart of the Bog and hoped this

Justice Maker with the deadly magics was someone he could reason with.

A hand pushed her shoulder into the sand, holding her down. Another hand clamped over her mouth, And a stranger's voice said, "Stay quiet. I'm not going to hurt you. The boundaries are so thin the bonelovers can sense prey even though they can't reach this landscape. But this place is so small, I already broke the boundaries in order to reach you, so I don't think your access point is going to last much longer."

The words made no sense to Caitlin, but she understood enough. Someone had come to help her, and those ant creatures — bonelovers? — were nearby. She relaxed her muscles, which was the only thing she could think to do to let him know she wasn't going to fight him.

The hand lifted from her mouth. The other still rested on her shoulder, but now lightly enough to feel like offered comfort rather than a restraint.

She didn't move except to turn her head enough to look at the man kneeling beside her. About her brother Michael's age, give or take a year. A good face. Handsome even, with the black hair and those green eyes framed by lashes that were unfairly lush. And the beginnings of those crinkle lines at the corners of the eyes that gave a man's face character and made women just look old.

When she shifted to push herself up, his hand moved from her shoulder to her arm, pulling her up to a sitting position.

She looked beyond her circle and clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle the scream. The sand all around them swarmed with bonelovers, and not too far beyond her circle ...

"They found something," the man said. "Might not be human. If there's only a border between two landscapes, animals can cross over easily enough. Most instinctively avoid landscapes that are dangerous, but if they're scared and running, they could end up in a landscape like this and then not be able to get back out." He stood, then offered her a hand to help her up. "Let's go while they're occupied."

Go where? Caitlin wondered, since she didn't see horses or a buggy or any other way to outrun the bonelovers. Then again, he had gotten here, Somehow.

As she raised her hand to clasp his, she remembered the heart's hope. She twisted around on her knees and began scooping a channel in the sand around the tiny plant. Couldn't have many roots. Not a plant this size. And certainly not deep.

"What are you doing?" the man demanded. "That's probably the only thing holding this access point intact."

She looked over her shoulder and glared at him "I'm not leaving it in this place." She didn't know how much time had passed between when she'd created the circle of sand and when the stranger found her, and she wasn't sure she could explain to this man how often she'd awakened during those hours and felt like the presence of the heart's hope was a sip of courage. "I'm not leaving it."

He held up a hand to stop her. "Wait. Don't pull it out of the ground. Don't move. Just wait."

He moved to the edge of the circle, studied the bonelovers mounded over the unknown prey. Then he took a step and disappeared.

"No." The word came out as a whimper. Caitlin just stared. He'd left her. She hadn't been willing to leave the plant behind, so he left her.

Then he was back, reappearing inside her circle as suddenly as he had disappeared.

"Here," he said, handing her a sturdy bowl. "It's been cleansed, so it doesn't resonate with any earth that's been put it in before."

She understood the individual words, but the way he was stringing them together, the meaning escaped her. And his accent said plain as plain that he wasn't from a part of the world she knew. But she wasn't about to start asking questions that might have him thinking he'd be better off leaving her behind.

She worked her fingers under the tiny heart's hope. Yes, just as she thought. Not much root. She scooped up the plant and the sand, but there was too little of it for the size of the bowl.

"Just hold it at the right depth," the man said. He scooped up sand and poured it into the bowl while she held the plant in place. When he scooped up a shell, he looked at it, then at her. "Beach?"

Caitlin nodded. "I'm thinking it's the one near the village's harbor, but I can't be sure."

He set the shell aside and scooped up more sand. "And where would that be?"

"Are you asking the name of my village or my country?"

Now he looked puzzled. "Both."

"I live in Raven's Hill, and my country is called Elandar."

There was less warmth and more wariness in his green eyes.

"That should do it," she said, trying to sound cheerful as she pressed the sand down around the plant. On impulse, she set the shell next to the heart's hope.

He brushed off his hands, then reached into his jacket pocket. "Is this yours?"

She looked at the coil of braided hair tied with blue ribbon that he pulled out of his pocket — and shivered. "Where did you find that? I left it ..." She wasn't about to tell him where she left it.

"It appeared near my mother's house," he said, looking and sounding more wary. Then he looked beyond the circle and stuffed the braid back into his pocket. "Let's finish this discussion in a safer place."

A bonelover was right at the edge of the circle, staring at them.

"It can see us!" Caitlin said.

"No, it can't," the man said with an oddly heavy emphasis. "But I think the boundaries have thinned to the point that it can hear us and it knows there's prey close by, so we need to leave here now." He helped her to her feet, then took a step closer to the bonelover and picked up her broken hoe handle. Stepping back, he wrapped a hand around her upper arm and led her to the spot where he had disappeared.

"This will be easier for you if you close your eyes," he said.

What would be easier? But she closed her eyes. He moved away from her, but not so far that he released his hold on her arm.

"Imagine stepping over a log," he said. "Lift one foot up and over."

"We're too close to the edge," Caitlin protested. "If I take a step, I'll be out of the circle."

"You'll be all right," he said. "Take the step."

Wasn't much choice, so she took the step.

Her breath caught. Not sand beneath that foot. Firmer ground. Where ... ?

"Now the other foot," the man said. "Now is not the time to daydream or dally."

"Where did you hear that saying?" Caitlin muttered as she obeyed him. For a younger man, he suddenly sounded like a querulous uncle. Or how she'd imagined a querulous uncle would sound.

"From my mother. I heard it often at one point in my life."

She smiled — and had the strange feeling that she'd almost fallen but had recovered her balance.

"Open your eyes. Give me the bowl."

She opened her eyes, but she hugged the bowl to her chest as she looked around. Trees and dappled sunlight. The cool air of autumn. But to her left was the circle of sand from the Raven's Hill beach and beyond that the rust-colored sand that belonged to a nightmare. "How ... ?"

"We'll discuss it later. Right now ..." He pulled the bowl out of her hands, then gave her the hoe handle. "Undo this access point to the beach before the bonelovers find a way to cross over. If they manage to get through to your beach, they'll have access to everything it connects to, including your village."

"How do I do this? I don't know how to do this.'"

He stared at her. "You really don't know what you've done, do you? You don't know what you are."

Sorceress.

"Ask Ephemera to take your beach back where it came from. Tell Ephemera to leave nothing connected to the Eater's landscape — not so much as a shell or grain of sand."

She hesitated.

The man lifted the bowl. "The sand and shell are enough to create an anchor point. You can get back home."

If I knew how this worked. "I can't be talking to the world while you're watching."

"I'll go up the path a ways. But we need to get away from this landscape as soon as you're done." He touched her arm lightly. "Don't step off the island."

As if she needed the warning.

The moment he was out of sight, she wished she could still see him. Pretending to be brave was easier when she wasn't alone.

Just get it done, she thought as she knelt at the edge of the island. He sounds like he sees this sort of thing all the time. Why would he see this sort of thing all the time?

She shook her head and put her mind to the task. He was right; there was no time for anything except getting away from this place.

By the time there was no trace of the circle she had made, she was sweating and panting — and fighting panic as she watched a bonelover move toward the island.

"I wasn't sure you could do it," the man said, coming up behind her.

"You certainly sounded like you expected me to do it," Caitlin replied testily.

"That doesn't mean I was sure you could. Better close your eyes again."

The bonelover was moving toward them, heading right for the path she knelt on.

She squeezed her eyes closed ...

... and heard a roaring. And beneath it, closer, the lap of water.

She opened her eyes and threw her body back from the edge, knocking into the man and almost sending him tumbling.

"Easy," he said, grabbing her to steady them both.

"Lady of Light, have mercy." A wall of water, curved like a horseshoe, coming down from the land high above to meet the river.

"Haven't you ever seen a waterfall?" the man asked.

"Not like that." Even though their little bit of land was a safe distance away, the sheer sound of it made her tremble. Closer to them was another falls, its water breaking halfway down on a tumble of boulders as big as houses.

"They're called the Guardian Falls," the man said, crouching beside her. "The river has several names, depending on which landscape you're in. Some call it the Wish River; others call it the River of Prayers." He paused and looked at her. "What do people call you?"

"Caitlin Marie. And you?"

"Lee." He rose and moved to the edge of the island, and raised a hand in greeting as a boat sailed past.

Seeing the men on the boat return the greeting, Caitlin scrambled to her feet. "They can see us! Why can they see us?"

"Because I want them to see us. The island resonates too closely with the river. Even if the people couldn't see it, the boats on the river would still run into it. So the people here can see it until I shift it back to the place where it actually exists."

"You don't seem to be drunk, so you must be daft because most of what you say makes no sense."

"It makes sense," Lee said. "In this part of the world, it makes sense." He leaned against the trunk of a tree and studied her. "Caitlin Marie, I don't know the customs of your people, so I hope you won't take this in a way it isn't meant."

"Take what?" she asked, suddenly too aware that she was alone with a man she didn't know on a small bit of land she couldn't leave.

He smiled. "I think it's best if I take you home to meet my mother."

Chapter Fourteen

"Sentinel Stones," the Heart of the Bog said, pointing to the two massive stones that rose out of the bog on either side of the "trail."

"I never thought I'd see the likes of them out here," Michael said quietly, awed and uneasy. He'd seen Sentinel Stones before. They were always placed outside a village in a field beside a main road. Easy enough to reach, but set back far enough that going to them would be intentional.

There was power m the Sentinel Stones, and some strange magic in the air between them. People disappeared when they walked between the stones. Sometimes they came back with wild tales of seeing different countries or of suddenly finding themselves walking the streets of a town on the other side of Elandar; more often they were never seen again.

"No," Michael said, stopping when he realized the Heart of the Bog intended to walk between the stones. "We can't go there."

"That is the border," the Heart of the Bog replied, turning back to face him. "There is no other way to reach the other landscape from here." Its yellow eyes studied him. "You afraid, Magician?"

"Yes." No point blunting the truth.

The Heart of the Bog was silent for a moment. Then, "You must pass between the Sentinel Stones to find the Justice Maker. He is the next step in your journey. If you do not find him, you will not find her."

Damn the darkness. "People disappear when they walk between Sentinel Stones."

"That is the purpose of the Stones. But these mark a border and only go to one place."

That is the purpose of the Stones. Lady of Light, did anyone besides the Merry Makers know this?

Michael swallowed hard, trying to push his heart back down his throat. You don't have many choices, lad. You can't stay here, and it seems a walk between the Stones is your only way out. The world has turned strange, and a great evil is out there, somewhere. And Caitlin Marie is out there, somewhere.

"What do I have to do?" Michael asked.

"Hum a note that sounds like what you seek," the Heart of the Bog replied.

He thought about the woman who stirred him in dreams in ways other women had never done and who was somehow connected to this dark piece of the world. He took a deep breath and hummed the note.

A moment later, another note filled the air, creating a simple harmony.

The Heart of the Bog nodded, then wrapped its long fingers around his wrist. Humming the two notes, they walked between the Sentinel Stones.

Michael felt the lightest tingle of power. Then he was through the space between the Stones and ...

The bog was gone. From what he could tell in the moonlight, there was open country in front of him and some lights in the distance that might be a village. The air felt different — and it didn't smell like home.

He looked back and saw a handful of Merry Makers appear between the Stones, but there was no sign of the bog now. The Stones were just standing in the middle of a field.

"Not much farther," the Heart of the Bog said, releasing Michael's wrist and heading toward the lights. "Humans will find us soon and take you to the Justice Maker."

Nothing to do now but follow. The pots on the outside of his pack clacked and clattered to the rhythm of his walk. After a minute or so, two of the Merry Makers pulled out their reed whistles and began playing a tune that turned the rattle of pots into percussion.

Well, Michael thought, if the lanterns and the musical clatter don't attract someone's attention, nothing will.

They were halfway between the Sentinel Stones and the lights when the Heart of the Bog stepped onto a cart path that began in the middle of a field for no reason Michael could discern. But a few minutes after that, two men came riding up to block their path.

"Halt!" the older man said. "State your business."

"This human came to us without warning, appearing deep within our piece of the world," the Heart of the Bog said. "He seeks the Justice Maker."

Not by choice, Michael thought. Who were these men? Law enforcers? Thugs? He couldn't tell by the look of them.

"Do you want us to take him the rest of the way, or are you bringing him to the Den?" the man asked.

The Heart of the Bog considered for a moment, then shook its head slowly. "Take him. If the Justice Maker is pleased with the Magician, we will trade him for another kind of meat."

Michael stared at the Heart of the Bog. "What kind of meat?"

The Merry Maker shrugged.

"What kind?" Michael demanded. Lady's mercy, would they drag some poor fool to those Sentinel Stones and hand him over to the Merry Makers? Or ... different meat. Did the Merry Maker mean a woman ... or a child? "I'll go no further until I know what kind of meat." And if he didn't like the answer, he would do the most harmful ill-wishing he could think of before he was dragged away.

The Heart of the Bog studied him. Then it smiled. "Cow. Sheep. Maybe goat."

Michael's huffed out a breath as relief shivered through him.

The Heart of the Bog stepped closer. "You are worthy of what you seek, Magician. Remember that." It tapped Michael's chest above his heart. "In here."

Then the Merry Makers turned away and headed back toward the Sentinel Stones.

Michael looked at the two men. "My name is Michael. Who would you be?"

"Addison," the older man replied. "This here is Henley." He hesitated, then added, "From the sound of you, you come from a landscape that's a fair distance from here."

"I come from a country called Elandar."

"Country? Huh," Addison said, nodding as if Michael had just confirmed something. "Didn't take you for a city dweller, since most of them wouldn't know what to do with a pack like that, let alone be able to carry it. Come on, then. It's not too far a walk for someone who's used to using his feet."

Michael walked in front of the horses, torn between wanting to lengthen his stride to walk off his annoyance and wanting to slow down to delay getting to their destination — whatever it was.

Obviously they thought a wanderer was an uneducated man and couldn't tell the difference between being from the country and living in a country. So let them underestimate him and judge him by his clothes and the pack on his back. All the better for him to get away from this place and figure out how to find Caitlin.

It didn't take long enough before they passed stables, paddocks, and a line of hitching rails as well as ... Yes, those wooden slats were bicycle racks. Looked like everyone left their conveyance here and went the rest of the way by foot.

The street was cobblestone, which was common enough. The colored lights that lit up the street ...

There was a feel of a harvest fair about the place, and he almost expected to see the booths that offered games of chance. Of course, it felt like the seedy side of the harvest fair, where the games of chance weren't as innocent as a ring toss to win a stuffed animal for your sweetheart.

There had been times, when his belly had been as empty as his pockets, when he'd accepted a coin or two in exchange for bringing someone a little more luck at those games of chance — or a little bad luck if the coins had come from a man's rival.

"Is there some kind of festival going on?" Michael asked.

"Nah," Addison said. He dismounted and handed the reins to Henley. "The Den of Iniquity always looks like this. You can leave the pack here. No point in jangling down the street, is there?"

Lady's mercy. The last time someone suggested he leave his pack, they hadn't wanted anything worth selling to be ruined if things got messy when they killed him. Music had gotten him out of that bad patch, and he'd made a point of avoiding that particular fork in the road ever since.

He looked at the two men — and noticed that each of them had a hand resting on a weapon. The Heart of the Bog had cleaned his tin whistle, valuing the instrument far more than the man, but he hadn't had time to assure himself it was in any condition to be played. So it was best not to offer entertainment he wasn't sure he could deliver — especially to men already suspicious of him because he was a stranger.

He slid the straps off his shoulders and set the pack on the ground.

"This way," Addison said. "If Sebastian isn't at Philo's, the folks there will know where to find him."

"And he rules this place?"

Addison pondered for a moment, then nodded. "That's a way of saying it."

Wondering what kind of justice would be found in a place called the Den of Iniquity, Michael followed Addison, who headed for a courtyard full of tables and statues.

Then he shoved Addison aside and ran to the woman standing next to a table with her back to the street.

He spun her around and grabbed her arms in a bruising grip. "Damn the darkness, Caitlin Marie, you scared me out of a decade of my life pulling a stunt like this! If you weren't a grown woman, or close enough, I'd take a strap —"

He was dimly aware of the sound of chairs crashing as men shoved away from the tables, dimly aware of men and ... something shaggy ... moving toward him with deadly purpose. But what he saw with painful clarity was the fear in the woman's blue eyes. He gentled his grip but still held on to her, ready to catch her if she swooned.

"I am sorry," he said, working to make his voice soothing. "When I saw you standing there, I thought you were Caitlin Marie."

"Who deserves a strapping?" Her voice trembled with fear, but there was an undercurrent of anger now — the kind that came from a woman who knew the feel of a leather belt against tender flesh.

The men and the shaggy things were closing in, and he was pretty sure he was holding the one ally he might have in this place

— if she chose to be.

"She's my sister," he said quickly, too aware of how little time he had to explain. "My little sister. She disappeared. Just vanished from the village where she and my aunt live. I have to find her. There's something evil out there, and I have to find her.

And I thought, when I saw you — the right height, the right color hair — I thought I'd found her."

"Take your hands off my wife."

Hearing the "or else" under the command, Michael released the woman, took a step back, and took stock of how much trouble he was in.

The blond-haired man on his left was holding a sharp table knife, but not in a way that said he was used to street fighting. On another day, the two shaggy, horned creatures that looked like bulls walking on their hind legs would have scared him out of half his wits — especially since one of them was carrying a club and the other had a large knife, and they did look like they knew a lot about street fighting. But it was the dark-haired man coming up on his right that held Michael's attention. He was dressed in black leather and had cold green eyes, and there was something about the way he rubbed his thumb against the fingertips of his right hand that produced a ball of fear in Michael's gut,

The woman hesitated a moment, then shifted enough to half block the man's approach. "Sebastian," she said, taking hold of his arm with both hands.

So this was Sebastian, the Justice Maker who was going to decide his fate. I'm a dead man.

"He wasn't trying to hurt me," she said. "His sister is missing, lost in the landscapes."

"And this is how he responds to finding his sister!"

The woman's mouth primmed as she looked at Michael and made a lightning-flash decision. "I've been told that men who are scared tend to yell at a loved one as a way of showing relief. Which is totally unfair since the person being yelled at has already had a difficult time because otherwise she wouldn't have been late. But unfair or not, I've been told that this is a male thing to do and men have to be forgiven, eventually, when they do it."

Irritation tightened Sebastian's mouth when the blond-haired man choked back a laugh, but it was enough to break the coldness in his eyes.

"I thought we agreed that discussion was finished," Sebastian said.

"It is finished," she agreed. "I was just reminding you of it."

He would have found the domestic byplay more amusing if his life didn't depend on Sebastian's temper.

The woman looked at Michael. "You came here to find your sister."

"I came here by mistake," he replied.

"No one comes to the Den by mistake," Sebastian said. "By accident, yes, but not by mistake."

Michael nodded to indicate he understood the distinction. "By accident then."

"The Merry Makers brought him across the border in order to see you," Addison said from behind Michael.

"Why?" Sebastian asked.

"I'm looking for the answer to a riddle," Michael replied. It wasn't really a riddle anymore since he'd already figured out "belladonna" was a woman and not the plant, but if he kept these people intrigued about why he was among them, he might be able to talk his way out of this place.

"You said you were looking for your sister," the woman said, shifting so she no longer blocked Sebastian's right hand.

Damn the darkness, these people were too suspicious of strangers to be intrigued by anything. And if the woman stopped believing his reason for grabbing her ... He had a feeling Sebastian could kill him in cold blood right here on the street and no one would say a thing about it.

"I am looking for my sister," he said, putting all the conviction he could into his voice, "and the answer to this riddle. I'm thinking finding one is the only way of finding the other."

Sebastian stared at him. "What's the riddle?"

"Heart's hope lies within belladonna."

He didn't expect a reaction, so he wasn't sure what it meant when Sebastian rocked back on his heels as if he'd just felt a fist jab him in the ribs.

"Who are you?" Sebastian asked.

"Michael. The Magician."

No response to the word. Might have given him some leverage if they'd been a bit fearful of him. Then again, he wasn't sure being an ill-wisher measured up to whatever "deadly magics" Sebastian wielded.

"I'm Sebastian Justicemaker," Sebastian said. "This is my wife, Lynnea," He tipped his head to indicate the blond-haired man. "That's Teaser."

Michael nodded to Lynnea, then to the blond-haired man, who just gave him a measuring look before returning to his table.

Sebastian lightly touched Lynnea's shoulder. "Why don't you clear that far table and ask Philo to bring some food."

"Best make it downwind," Michael muttered, pinching his shirt. Since everything he owned had gone into the bog, everything smelled like the bog. "I'd be grateful for some food and something warm to drink. And some water."

The customers at the chosen table were shifted to another, and Michael noticed no one grumbled about the change in seating. At least, not out loud. He washed his hands in the bowl of warm water that was offered, glad to have that much clean. The beverage Lynnea called koffee was hot and strong, which made him realize how cold and tired he was.

"I suppose you want the whole story," Michael said after Lynnea delivered the food — thick stew, slices of fresh bread generously buttered, a white cheese, and some round, black objects in their own small bowl.

"Be careful biting into the olives," Sebastian said, pointing at the small bowl. "They have pits. Eat while it's hot. Then I'll listen."

He didn't need to be told twice. He dug into the meal, but he studied the street and the people while he ate. Strange place. There was a mean edge that reminded him of the streets around the docks in Kendall, and certainly enough taverns ...

A beautiful woman strolled toward the table, gave him an assessing look, then smiled in blatant invitation. Michael felt the heat of a blush as he looked down at his meal and pretended not to see the invitation.

... and there were brazen streetwalkers.

"What do you think of the carnal carnival?" Sebastian asked, sounding amused.

That was the perfect way to describe the Den of Iniquity, Michael thought. "It's interesting."

"You've never seen a succubus before?"

"A what?"

"The female who made you blush." There was something about Sebastian's smile that was sharp and just a little mean.

"Is that what you call streetwalkers here?" Michael asked, looking up to meet Sebastian's eyes.

"No, that's what we call female sex demons."

Michael's jaw dropped. He'd heard of such female from a few sailors who had docked at Kendall, but he'd figured the men were just telling tales.

Sebastian's smile got a little sharper. "A male sex demon is called an incubus." He raised his koffee cup in a mocking salute.

"Lady's mercy," Michael whispered.

"More koffee?" Lynnea asked, coming up to the table. She looked at Michael and frowned, "is something wrong?"

"He's just wondering why a sensible woman would want an incubus for a husband," Sebastian said.

"That's because he's not female," Lynnea replied is she refilled their cups. "If he was, he'd know why a sensible woman would want you for a husband."

Michael took his time stirring a lump of sugar into the koffee, trying to decide if prudence or curiosity would win the battle of whether or not he kept his questions to himself.

Prudence had no chance of winning.

"Those men," he said. "They're going into a brothel?"

Sebastian nodded.

"Do they know the woman ... the female ... is a…"

"That's why they come to the Den."

Teaser set a bottle of whiskey and two glasses on the table. "Philo figured it was time for this."

"Philo was right," Sebastian said, his eyes never leaving Michael's face. "Teaser is an incubus. As far as the women who cross over to visit are concerned, he's one of the Den's assets."

Michael glanced up at Teaser. "Are you a Justice Maker, too?"

Teaser laughed. "Having one wizard in the Den who can call the lightning and sizzle people is enough. I'll stick to making women very happy and leave the other part to Sebastian."

Well, Michael thought when Teaser strolled away, that told him what sort of "deadly magics" Sebastian could wield.

Sebastian poured whiskey into both glasses, then set the bottle aside and rested his forearms on the table. "Now. Tell me

your story, Michael the Magician, and make it a good one. Your life depends on it."

I've no doubt of that.

Michael took a sip of whiskey to give himself time to think. Where to begin? And how much would Sebastian believe when none of the things that had happened recently seemed believable?

So he started with meeting Captain Kenneday and hearing about the lost fishing boats. He told Sebastian about the letter that had come from his aunt that contained the riddle she had heard in a dream. The hand holding the whiskey glass trembled as he talked about that haunted piece of the sea, and his voice broke when he got to the part about his aunt being injured in a fire and him learning that Caitlin Marie had disappeared. But his voice held steel and fear when he recounted seeing the monster, and of his battle of wills with that evil in order to choose the darkness that would claim him.

Throughout the telling, Sebastian never moved. Just watched him with unnerving intensity.

"So that's how I ended up with the Merry Makers, and they decided to let you decide," Michael said. He tossed back the glass of whiskey and poured himself another to fight the chill that was back in his bones.

Sebastian picked up his glass of whiskey and sat back "You don't know the incubi and succubi, but you're familiar with the Merry Makers?"

Michael nodded. "Ran into them once before, in the early days of my wandering. They liked my music, so they let me go."

"Are there any other demons in your landscapes?"

"In my country, you mean?"

Sebastian tipped his head, as if considering. "A persons landscapes can hold many places, so I have a feeling we aren't talking about the same things. But we'll go with your way of looking at the world — for now."

Michael frowned. "What country is this?"

"This landscape is the Den of Iniquity."

He huffed in frustration. "But it has to connect to something!"

"It has borders with the Merry Makers' landscape, as well as the waterhorses' and the bull demons'. There are stationary bridges to several daylight landscapes."

Michael braced his head in his hands. "One of us has a brain fever."

"No, one of us has spent his life in the part of Ephemera that was shattered the most during the battle between the Guides of the Heart and the Eater of the World. And the other has probably moved through landscapes all his life without realizing it."

He stared at the table. At some point the dishes had been cleared away, but he couldn't remember who had done it or when. His mind went blank, and in that moment of restful emptiness the things he'd seen recently, the things he'd said, and the things he'd been told drifted through that emptiness and came together to form a new pattern.

"This vanishing from one place and appearing in another," he said slowly, as if feeling his way. "You don't see anything strange about it, do you?"

"In this part of Ephemera, you gamble with your life every time you cross a bridge," Sebastian replied. "So, no, I don't see anything strange about your crossing over from one place to another. At least now we know where the Eater of the World was last

seen, and that's more than we knew before." He pushed his chair back. "Come on. You look ready to fold."

Michael nodded. "I could do with a bit of a wash and some sleep."

"You can use our room at the bordello, since Lynnea and I will be staying at the cottage. I'll come fetch you in the morning and take you to Sanctuary."

"Sanctuary?"

"The next step in your journey to answer the riddle."

Michael stood up, but didn't follow Sebastian when the other man started to walk away from the courtyard. "Sebastian Justicemaker?"

Sebastian stopped and turned to face him.

"Do you know the answer to the riddle?" Michael asked.

"I should," Sebastian replied. "I'm the one who sent it out through the twilight of waking dreams."

His heart started beating harder, faster. "Then you know how to find Belladonna."

"I know how to find her. But whether or not you can find her ..." Sebastian shrugged. "That's what you're going to find out."

Chapter Fifteen

Michael looked at the creatures waiting in the street then pulled Sebastian back inside the bordello and firmly closed the door. The pushed-in faces and tufted ears made the things look like mangy but somewhat loveable critters — if a person overlooked the razor teeth, the powerful arms and upper bodies, and the curved talons that could gut a man with one swipe. And that was just the front half. The back half looked like a draft horse version of a bicycle, complete with saddlelike seat, but lacking wheels. Of course, since the things were floating above the ground, the lack of wheels wouldn't trouble them. But it was that last detail that was a little too much for him.

"That's the transportation you arranged?" he asked.

"Demon cycles," Sebastian replied too agreeably.

"You expect me to straddle one of those things and put the family jewels within reach of its teeth and claws?"

Sebastian's lips twitched as he glanced down at Michael's groin. "Is that what you're packing under your belt?"

"You know what I mean. Don't you?" He wasn't going to make assumptions about what these people did or didn't know. Not after having breakfast with Teaser and hearing the incubus's ideas of how the world worked.

"If they were interested in any organs, it would be your heart and liver, not your penis," Sebastian said, opening the door. "Come on. You've got a ways to go today."

"Well, isn't that just grand," Michael muttered as he followed Sebastian.

When he swung a leg over the demon cycle, he wished Lynnea and Sebastian had found him some broken-in hand-me-down clothes rather than these new ones that felt a little too stiff to be comfortable. Or maybe it was his feelings that were a little too stiff. He could count on one hand the times when he'd had a truly new garment in the past dozen years, and here they were giving him a whole new set of clothes. And he hadn't done any luck-bringing on his own behalf to bring it about!

Then he scolded himself for being ungrateful. He was a stranger from another land who had dropped in among them with a story of a lost sister and a battle with a terrible monster. Instead of running him out of town, they had given him clothes and a place to stay, had loaned him a travel pack and filled it with basic supplies, and were cleaning up his gear from its dunking in the bog so that it would be ready for him when he got back from this bit of the journey.

If he got back from this bit of the journey.

None of them said it, but it was there, unspoken, under everything they did say.

He might have enjoyed the new experience of riding a demon cycle if he really believed Sebastian and Teaser's assurance that the creatures didn't harm the people they'd agreed to transport.

He didn't consider "they usually don't eat their passengers" to be sufficient assurance. "Demon cycle are safer to ride than waterhorses" wasn't much comfort either since the whole reason the horse-shaped demons gave humans a ride was to drown that victims.

But if he survived this and found his way home again, he'd have a story that would buy him a meal and a bed in any inn he chose to stay at, and an always-full glass in any pub he walked into.

When they reached an odd spot in the dirt lane, Sebastian told the demon cycles to stop, then looked at Michael. "Which way do you want to go?"

Michael studied the land ahead as best he could in the available moonlight. The dirt lane ran straight ahead, but the odd spot was nothing more than a bump of road that formed a half loop, reconnecting to the straight lane. At the midpoint of the half loop were two boulders set far enough apart to allow a wagon to pass between them.

"What's the difference?" Michael asked.

Sebastian pointed to the straight lane. "If we go on that way for another mile or so, we'll reach the border that connects the Den to the waterhorses' landscape." He pointed to the half loop. "That's a stationary bridge that leads to Aurora, which is where we have to go in order to reach Sanctuary."

Michael stared at Sebastian. "I'm in a part of the world that's nowhere close to home. I know that. I can feel that. But you're saying that a mile down the road can pass between a couple of stones and end up within walking distance of a village I've stopped at once each season for the past ten years?"

"That's what I'm saying."

He'd met some crazy people in his travels, but he'd swear by the Light that Sebastian wasn't one of them. Which meant he could be back in Elandar, no more than a long day's walk from Dunberry. Not that he'd go to Dunberry. Not anymore. But...

"If I make that choice, I won't find Caitlin Marie, will I?" Michael asked.

"Probably not."

And I'll never find Belladonna. An unshakable certainty rang through him. If he didn't make this journey, he would never find the woman who haunted his dreams.

"We'll go on to Sanctuary."

Sebastian nodded. "Best clear your mind of everything but the thought that you need to cross over to Aurora."

"Teaser said these stationary bridges only go to specific places, so you can be certain of where you end up when you cross one of them."

"Nothing is that certain in Ephemera," Sebastian replied. He tapped the demon cycle on its shoulder. "We're crossing over to Aurora."

"Do we need to hum a particular tune?" Michael asked.

The demon cycles jerked to a stop, and they and Sebastian looked at him with the same quizzical expression.

"I had to hum a note when passing between the Sentinel Stones in order to get from the Merry Makers' bog to the Den," Michael mumbled, feeling his face heat as Sebastian continued to stare at him, "So I just wondered."

"That spot between the Merry Makers' landscapes and the Den is a border, not a boundary," Sebastian said.

Michael's only response was a lift of his shoulders to indicate the explanation lacked any useful information.

"A boundary requires a bridge," Sebastian continued blandly. "A border is a place where two landscapes connect without need of a bridge. They're usually marked with stones just to make it easier to find the spot."

"So what was the humming all about?"

Sebastian shrugged. "They might have had a reason for you to do it, but it had nothing to do with reaching the Den."

"That ripe —" Michael caught himself and considered the wisdom of roundly cursing one demon in the presence of another, larger demon. That he was riding. Not to mention that the man escorting him was at least part demon. "As you say, there was probably a reason."

"Indeed."

He could hear the laughter in Sebastian's voice, Fine. Grand. Let the ripe bastard laugh at him. Wouldn't be the first time someone had laughed at him.

"Aurora," Sebastian said to the demon cycles,

Aurora, Michael chanted silently. Aurora. We need to reach —

Sebastian and the demon cycle passed between the stones and vanished right before his eyes.

"Lady of Light!"

Even though he'd done this twice now himself, seeing someone else disappear was more frightening somehow. If he'd had time, he would have jumped off the demon cycle, but they were passing between the stones before his brain could tell his body what to do.

Then ...

"Arrgh!"

Michael ducked his head and closed his eyes against the sudden daylight. When he could see again, he looked around — and swallowed hard.

They weren't in the same place anymore. Close enough by the feel of the land that, if he'd been walking a circuit back home, he might have considered the distance between the two places as a reasonable bit of travel. But nothing was reasonable in this part of the world, and it finally started to sink into his heart and brain that he was a lot farther from home than could be measured by something as simple as distance.

"Does that still lead to the Den?" Michael asked, tipping his head to indicate the straight lane.

Sebastian shook his head. "Follow the lane from this side and it will take you to the road that goes to the neighboring village, which can be reached without using a bridge. When the Landscaper initially altered the landscapes a few weeks ago, there was a border between Aurora and the Den. A bit unusual since one is a daylight landscape and the other is dark. But it turned out a border was a little too easy to cross, so a bridge was put in to keep the mothers in Aurora from worrying overmuch that their sons — or, worse, their daughters — would be slipping over to the Den."

"But some still do."

"Some do."

"If that's a stationary bridge, why can't all of them go to the Den?"

Sebastian smiled. "Even with a stationary bridge, you have to resonate with the landscape in order to cross over."

He heard the message. "You're saying I resonate with the Den."

Sebastian tipped his head in acknowledgment. "Like I told you last night, no one comes to the Den by mistake. Shall we go?"

Michael didn't see the signal Sebastian gave the demon cycles, but as they neared a tidy cottage, the creatures swung to one side, keeping to the edge of the cleared property before heading into the woods. The cycles followed a footpath, the kind of shortcut that was made by friends and neighbors in order to reach each other's houses instead of taking the long way around. At a fork, they followed the part that curved to the right. When the path ended, Sebastian hesitated, then swung away from the house and grounds that must have been the usual destination in order to reach another path that ran through another patch of woods,

The demon cycles finally stopped on the edge of a clearing with a pair of stones Michael was starting to recognize as a bridge.

"Whose house was that?" he asked.

Sebastian dismounted and walked toward the stones, leaving Michael little choice but to follow.

"My aunt's," Sebastian replied. "My cousin Lee has a cottage nearby."

Probably reached from the left-hand fork in the path. "And your cottage is the one near the bridge between Aurora and the Den." When Sebastian nodded, Michael felt a pang in his heart. Family living in the same village, their homes connected by well-used paths in the woods. Distant enough for privacy, close enough for comfort. And not together out of need or duty, but because they enjoyed each other's company. What would it be like to live that way instead of following a pattern of rootless wandering?

"That's a resonating bridge," Sebastian said, pointing to the space between the stones. "Keep your mind focused on why you want to reach Sanctuary, and you should get there."

Michael stopped adjusting the straps of the travel pack Sebastian had loaned him. "Should?"

"A resonating bridge can take you to any landscape that resonates with your heart."

"I suppose that's a comfort," Michael said, eyeing the stones.

"Is it? Do you know every facet of your heart, Magician?"

Michael shivered, suddenly comprehending the magnitude of what he was about to do and how many things could go wrong.

The Heart of the Bog stepped closer. "You are worthy of what you seek, Magician. Remember that." It tapped Michael's chest above his heart. "In here!"

The memory steadied him, even though he wasn't sure why it should. "All right. I'm ready."

"On you go, then."

Michael waited a beat. "You're not coming?"

Sebastian shook his head. "You have to find Sanctuary on your own. When you cross over, you'll see a large building nearby. That's a guest house. Someone there will be able to help you take the next step."

Michael held out his hand. "Thank you for all you've done. And for the loan of the pack. I'll get it back to you." Somehow.

"It's a kindness," Sebastian replied as he shook Michael's hand. Then he stepped back. "Travel lightly."

"How do you know the Traveler's Blessing?" Michael asked, startled.

"It's called Heart's Blessing in this part of the world," Sebastian replied. Then he smiled. "There's hope for you yet, Magician."

Hope. Heart's hope lies within Belladonna. I need to find Belladonna.

Taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly, Michael walked between the stones.

Sebastian stared at the empty space between the stones. "Guardians of the Light and Guides of the Heart, if he is who I think he is, keep him safe on this journey."

Turning away from the stones, he walked back to the demon cycles. "I'm going to visit my auntie, so you two should go back to the Den."

He could almost feel the friction caused by bits of demon cycle brain rubbing together to spark a thought.

"Cottage?" one of them finally said.

"Lynnea's still at the cottage."

They left him without a second thought, zooming through the woods at reckless speed in order to get to the cottage.

Sebastian set off at a leisurely pace, enjoying the quiet of a crisp autumn morning as he followed the almost-hidden path that would take him back to his aunt Nadia's house.

He just hoped Lynnea wouldn't be annoyed at him for the unexpected company. And he hoped Dalton, who had been a guard captain in Wizard City and was now working as a law enforcer in Aurora, wouldn't have a reason to cross over to the Den and inquire about the whereabouts of missing livestock since they both knew that if the demon cycles were responsible, missing livestock, translated to thoroughly eaten livestock — although the farmer did find a hoof and the end bit of a tail the last time Dalton had felt the need to come calling. And the three demon cycles that had given him, Lynnea, and Teaser a ride to Nadia's house on that particular occasion had rattled for days, sounding too much like bones and hooves being shaken in a metal barrel.

Not that he'd mentioned that detail to Dalton. When a man was the Den's Justice Maker, as well as being an incubus and wizard, he had a more flexible definition of law enforcement than the men who performed similar duties in the daylight landscapes.

Reaching Nadia's house, he gave the back door a perfunctory knock before he opened the door and stuck his head in the kitchen. "Anyone flying around in here?"

No one flying, but the stranger standing near the kitchen table spun around and dropped the cup and saucer she'd been holding.

"Who are you?" the young woman said in a shrill voice. She darted around the table to put it between them. "What do you want here?"

Sebastian was in the kitchen with his right hand halfway raised to call the wizards lightning when Nadia rushed into the room.

"Caitlin, darling, what's the — Oh." Nadia stopped, then brushed her hair back with one hand. "Sebastian. I didn't hear you come in. Caitlin, it's all right. Sebastian is my nephew."

Caitlin.

Sebastian lowered his hand and took in the young woman's details. A little younger than Lynnea, but the same height and general size. Same color hair but straight instead of wavy — and very short. No one would mistake one face for the other, but seen from the back, he could understand Michael's error.

Oh, Guardians and Guides.

He walked out of the kitchen and ended up in front of a flower bed that still had some late-blooming plants. He just stared at them, even when Nadia caught up to him.

"Sebastian." She sounded harried and a little breathless, and he wondered what sort of emotional mess he'd left behind in the kitchen. "What is going on?"

"That's Caitlin Marie, isn't it?" he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the plants rather than looking at his aunt. "Her hair is so short because she cut it off. That was the tail of long hair we found a few days ago."

"Yes. Lee found her in the bonelovers' landscape. She had altered the landscape enough to create a protective circle that kept the bonelovers from reaching her, but that's all she knew how to do. And even that was instinctive rather than a true understanding of what she was doing. She held on and held up until Lee brought her here. Once she truly believed she was safe, she ... fell apart. Just as well that she did it here where my will dominates, so she's not manifesting."

"I didn't talk to Jeb directly when he came to deliver Lee's message," Sebastian said. "He met up with Teaser near the edge of the Den and said Lee had gotten back safe and sound. I don't think Jeb mentioned the girl, Caitlin."

Nadia drew in a deep breath, then blew it out in a huff as she frowned at Sebastian. "Then how did you know who she was?"

"I just saw her brother Michael off on the next stage of his journey. He's heading for Sanctuary, so he crossed over the resonating bridge near here. He's searching for his sister — and Belladonna." He finally looked at his aunt. "I almost brought him here. I figured you would be up by now, so I almost brought him to the house so you could see him, talk to him. If I had, he would have found his sister, and maybe he would have chosen not to go on to Sanctuary."

"He wouldn't have needed to. Lee intends to drop in on Glorianna to tell her about Caitlin and ask her to come here to meet the girl as soon as she can." Nadia paused. "Why didn't you go up with him? If a stranger shows up asking to see Belladonna, no one at Sanctuary will tell him anything or ask her to leave her island. He'll have made the journey for nothing."

"He'll be able to see her," Sebastian said, turning back to stare at the flowers since that was easier than facing his aunt. "If he's worthy."

She gasped. "Oh, Sebastian. You sent him there to be tested by the river?" When he nodded, she put a hand on his arm, a silent command to look at her. "Why?"

"I painted him, Aunt Nadia," Sebastian said, obeying the command. "With her."

Nadia remained silent and frozen for a moment. Then she blinked with slow deliberation. "Moonlight Lover." She pondered for a moment. "You saw him in a dream?"

"A waking dream, yes, and never clearly enough for the details, which is why his face is in shadow. But I recognized the feel of him. Gave me quite a start when he came to the Den — especially after I learned he'd ended up here after fighting the Eater of the World."

Nadia's hand clenched on his arm before she regained control and released him. "Well. I'll still have Lee take a message to the island, but we'll wait until midday."

"Aunt Nadia." He'd made the decision, and he would stand by it. "I liked him well enough, but I'm not sure I trust him. I —" He felt his face heat a little. "Sometimes I become aware of … things ... without actively trying to link with someone through dreams, Romantic daydreams, I guess you could call them, that slip in under my guard."

She blushed as she realized the implications of what he was saying. "Do you still ... ? You're married, Sebastian."

"I know that." He closed his eyes, trying to recapture the feeling that had washed through him, giving him the inspiration for the painting. "She's lonely, Aunt Nadia, and the romantic side of Glorianna's heart..."

"I know," Nadia said softly.

"After I met him, I started wondering if the inspiration for painting him as the fantasy lover had come from a yearning flowing in the currents of Light... or if it had come from something in the Dark."

Nadia's breath caught.

"There are things he didn't say last night, reasons he's looking for Glorianna that he didn't share. So I'm not sure I trust him. But a person can't lie to the river. If it lets him reach the Island in the Mist, we'll know he's worthy of what he seeks.''

Nadia pressed her fingers against her eyes. Then she lowered her hands and sighed. "Should we tell Caitlin her brother was close by?"

He considered that for a moment, then shook his head. "There's no reason to tell her anything about Michael until we know if he survived."

"I'm sorry," Caitlin said as Lee gently pushed her hands aside and began picking up the broken pieces of cup and saucer. "I'm so sorry."

"It's just a bit of crockery, Caitlin Marie," he said.

"But it's your mother's bit of crockery."

He gave her a look that was friendly and exasperated. Not like a brother. Not quite. But not like the boys in Raven's Hill had looked at her either. He liked her, but he didn't want her, didn't expect anything from her. He was a friend. Just a friend.

The relief of that made her eyes fill with tears.

"Ah, don't go getting weepy over a broken dish," Lee said. "Especially when you did us a favor by breaking it."

Caitlin sniffled and blinked back tears.

"Do you think these are pretty?" Lee asked, holding up half the cup.

"No."

"Neither do we. And we're pretty sure Mother doesn't like them either, but she's developed a stubborn streak about using them as the everyday dishes. And since we're not company, we get stuck with them. We've been fairly subtle about it, but we've accidentally broken almost enough of these things for her to pack up what's left and start using the set of dishes we bought her as a wedding present when she and Jeb got married." He paused. "She was getting suspicious about the sudden clumsiness when someone besides herself washed the dishes, so you did us a favor since she can't accuse you of doing it on purpose."

"Still, they're your mother's dishes."

"We could pack them up and send them home with you."

"I don't want them." The words came out so fast and so emphatic that she startled them both. And it wasn't practical. There was no telling if anything had been saved from the fire. She should welcome being given a few dishes to help her and Aunt Brighid set up housekeeping again.

But she didn't want these dishes. Really, really didn't want them.

Lee grinned, as if he knew what she was thinking— and was maybe planning on how to give them to her at a time when she wouldn't be able to refuse.

Caitlin sniffed again. "Do you think breaking a dinner dish or two would be enough to get the rest sent up to the attic?"

"That might just be enough," Lee agreed. He dumped the pieces into the trash container, then fetched the broom and dustpan to clean up the rest.

They were sitting at the table, sharing a plate of sweet rolls and a pot of koffee, when Nadia walked back into the kitchen.

Something happened out there, Caitlin thought, watching the older woman for a moment before glancing at Lee. Yes, he saw it, too, but he was understanding more.

"We pulled the sweet rolls out of the oven," Lee said. "They browned up a bit too much, but they're still good. Isn't Sebastian coming in?"

Nadia fetched a cup and poured koffee for herself. "He had to get back to the Den."

Lee took a sip of koffee and watched his mother. "I'll go to the island right after breakfast."

"I'm making soup for our midday meal," Nadia said. "Wait until later so you can take some to your sister."

Later. Ever since she'd arrived here yesterday, Nadia had been promising that they would send a message to Glorianna first thing in the morning because Glorianna would be able to explain things in a way Nadia could not. Now that promise was being bent, the message was being delayed. Why?

Because something happened out there. Caitlin looked out the window at the garden.

She had been so young when her mother died; she didn't remember the death itself, but she remembered the feel of the people around her — the hushed voices, the things that were said with nothing more than a look or within a silence.

That same feeling filled the kitchen now. Nadia and Lee knew something, but they weren't going to tell her. Not yet.

And they wouldn't tell her as long as she acted like a weepy child instead of a grown woman strong enough to face the world.

"Would you like some help making the soup?" Caitlin asked.

Nadia studied her for a moment, then smiled. "Yes, I would."

Chapter Sixteen

Sanctuary. The song of it flowed through him, sweet and gentle, but with just enough spice to give the heart delight as well as peace. He wanted to walk the grounds and the gardens, wanted to sit on one of those little islands he'd spotted and twiddle on his whistle, letting the notes become part of whatever message was passed along by the water.

You're almost home.

The thought seemed to float on the air, seemed to slip into his body with every breath. You're almost home.

He wasn't anywhere near the land of his birth. Which made him wonder what sort of answers he might get from the man now escorting him to the next stage of his journey.

He still wasn't sure Sebastian and Teaser weren't playing games with him. Oh, he couldn't deny that this part of the world was much stranger than anything he might have imagined, but how could people live as a people if they didn't know where they lived?

"Yoshani," he said hesitantly. "I was wondering if you know what a country is?"

"I know what a country is," Yoshani replied with a smile. "And I understand what a landscape is. There can be many landscapes in a single country — and there can be many countries in a single landscape."

Michael frowned. "That makes no sense."

"Which part? Both are true, depending on how one sees the world."

"They can't both be true. The world —"

"— is fluid. Ever-changing. A reflection of ourselves."

That thought wasn't comfortable — or comforting. Not after the things he'd seen lately.

"Which is why I am grateful daily that I can walk here," Yoshani added quietly. "That this place reflects a piece of my heart."

And mine? Michael wondered, almost staggered by the power of wanting that to be true.

Yoshani raised a hand and pointed. "There is the path. It is not much further now."

For a few steps, the only sound was their shoes on the path.

"Do most people know about the world's ... odd behavior?" Michael asked. "I've never met anyone in Elandar who knew about this." No one who had admitted it, he amended. But they all knew about people who had walked between the Sentinel Stones and disappeared forever. Crossed over to another landscape. That's how Sebastian and Teaser had explained walking across an ordinary-looking bridge and ending up in another part of the world. Did all the Sentinel Stones work the same way? How could these bridges have existed in Elandar for centuries without anyone but the Merry Makers remembering how they worked?

Maybe people didn't want to remember. Maybe it's time for people to remember once again.

"It is not odd behavior, Michael," Yoshani said. "It is the nature of Ephemera." He stopped walking and stared at the land in front of them. "And no, most people do not understand our world. They are protected from its nature — and their own — by the bedrock of the Landscapers' hearts. But because they have lived in the part of the world that was most shattered by the war between the Dark and the Light, there are many people here who understand the truth."

"And what is the truth?"

Yoshani turned and placed a hand on Michael's chest. "That no matter how much you know about the world and its vastness, the only landscapes you can truly see are the ones that resonate with your own heart." He stepped back. "Come. The border is at the end of that path."

A shiver went down Michael's spine. He'd met Yoshani a few minutes after he crossed the bridge into Sanctuary, and had trusted the man on sight. But when he'd explained his purpose, something had flickered in Yoshani's dark eyes. That flicker hadn't altered his trust in the man, but it did worry him — especially after Yoshani explained that he'd have to cross over to another part of Sanctuary in order to continue his journey.

Now the border — and another piece of the world — was at the end of the path. At least there was comfort in knowing he wouldn't be leaving Sanctuary just yet.

"What's that?" Michael asked when they reached a statue of an otterlike being standing upright and wearing an open, full-length coat or robe. The top of the statue reached his chest, which reminded him of the Merry Makers because they stood at about that same height. And even though the creature looked benign, seeing something else that looked humanlike but wasn't human made him very uneasy.

"That is a River Guardian. They built their homes in the face of the gorge and have tended the River of Prayers for as far back as their race has memories. Their magic is very powerful and has become part of the currents of the river, even beyond the landscape they call home. Just stay on the path and walk past the statue. That will take you to their part of Sanctuary."

Michael hesitated. "Can you come with me?"

Yoshani studied him. "I can accompany you a little further on the journey if you like."

"I would like. Very much."

Yoshani smiled, "Come then." He walked past the statue and vanished.

Michael hurried after Yoshani, not wanting to get lost or left behind. But when he passed the statue and found himself in another part of Sanctuary, he forgot about his companion and the reason for this journey. Forgot about everything because the river pulled at him, the clash and harmony of its songs commanding all his attention.

Yoshani grabbed Michael's arm to keep him from moving closer to the rushing water. "This river runs through many landscapes and, even here in Sanctuary the banks are not always safe."

Power, Michael thought as he stared at the river. He'd never felt such a powerful flow of water. Some' parts of it looked tame and no deeper than an easily waded stream, and the dainty waterfalls that spilled from small slate islands were restful to the eye and heart. But the rest of it ...

"It's a battle," he whispered, his eyes drawn to the places where the current seemed to fight itself, and the speed of the river mesmerized him until the lure of becoming part of it was almost irresistible.

"Michael."

He still couldn't take his eyes off the river, was almost deaf to everything except its sound, but he allowed Yoshani to pull him back a few steps.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"I think it has other names in other landscapes, but here it is called Wish River," Yoshani replied. "The River Guardians say it reveals the conflicts that arise when one heart's wants and needs are directly opposed to another heart's wants and needs."

Michael forced himself to look away from the furious energy in the rapids and focused on the serene islands of stone with their dainty waterfalls and calm pools.

Yoshani followed his gaze and smiled. "Not all heart wishes are in conflict with another." He tugged on Michael's arm. "Come. Your journey has not ended, and if you delay too long, you may not find what you seek."

Troubled by the words, Michael turned away from the river — and became aware of an odd sound, like a low, steady thunder. A mist was rising up from the river, softening the air and forming rainbows. Where the mist rose, the river disappeared, and Michael began to suspect he knew what that sound of steady thunder meant.

But he wasn't prepared when Yoshani stopped and looked at him.

Michael's heart pounded in his throat. The river poured over the edge of the world, smashing on tumbles of huge boulders before the water found its way back to the river in the gorge.

"The path down to the river is over there," Yoshani said,

"And why would I want to be going down there?"

"Because the River Guardians live down there, and they are the only ones who can help you on the next stage of your journey."

Michael studied the other man. "You're leaving now."

"Yes. But I hope we will meet again, Michael." Yoshani paused, then added, "Remember the river's lesson: A heart wish that is not in conflict with another — or with itself — more easily finds its way." He raised a hand in farewell. "Travel lightly."

Michael watched Yoshani until the man was no longer in sight. Then he turned to the path that led down into the gorge.

More like a staircase carved out of the stone than a path, Michael decided by the time he was halfway down. And the wooden railing not only provided the comfort of a handhold, it distinguished the stairway from the rest of the stone. The River Guardians probably didn't need that distinction, but he figured visitors appreciated being given that much guidance.

By the time he reached the river and a flat area that was a dock, a dozen of the otterlike creatures Yoshani called River Guardians were waiting for him.

"Greetings," Michael said, wishing he'd thought to ask Yoshani if there was a particular greeting that was required or expected.

The River Guardians all bowed slightly, the pads of their paw-hands pressed together chest high. They looked at him out of bright black eyes, and none of them so much as twitched a whisker.

"I seek Belladonna," he said.

Whiskers twitched in response to those words. Then one of them — maybe the leader — took a step forward. "Dangerous journey to reach Island in the Mist."

"Where is this island?"

They all turned and pointed.

He looked at the falls and the spume of mist that rose up to the top of the river. Then he looked at the spume rising further up the river — a spume that reached for the sky and obscured whatever lay behind it.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I do this to find Caitlin Marie. I do this to find Belladonna. I do this to understand a riddle. "If that is where I must go, then I will go."

The leader bobbed its head. "This way."

They crowded around him, herding him to a boat that was secured to a post-shaped piece of rock by a leather collar connected to a rope.

Not much of a boat. Fine for rowing around a pond or small lake, but the thing didn't look big enough or sturdy enough to test the strength of that river. Then he realized what else was missing besides size and sturdiness.

"Where are the oars?"

"No oars," the leader said. "Magic boat. Won't work with oars." It pointed at the boat, then at Michael. "The heart is the sails, the will is the tiller."

"You expect me to steer that thing by wishing it where I want to go."

"The heart is the sails, the will is the tiller. When the river tests you, it does not hear mind wishes, only the heart." The River Guardian stared at him. "If you are worthy of what you seek, you will find Island in the Mist. If you are not meant to find it, the boat will bring you back here. If your heart needs another place, you will find another landscape. But if your heart tries to deceive the river about why you seek, the river will take you."

I could die doing this, Michael thought as he stared at the boat. "Nothing is ever simple around here, is it?'

"Ephemera is as simple as the heart," the River Guardian replied. "Go or leave?"

He was about to tell the River Guardian the words meant the same thing. Then he realized they didn't, not the way the creature meant them. He could go to the island or leave this part of Sanctuary. What was unspoken between the two words was that if he left he would never find what he sought,

"I'll go."

Only one seat in the stern. Guess these things aren't meant to hold more than one person, Michael thought as he gingerly stepped into the boat and settled himself in the center of the seat. He gave a moment's thought to slipping off the travel pack and placing it in the bow of the boat, then decided against it. Except for his whistle, now wrapped in a clean square of cloth, the pack and everything in it was a loan from Sebastian or Teaser, and he didn't need it bouncing out of the boat when he hit rough water. And he had no doubt there would be rough water.

One of the River Guardians removed its robe and handed the garment to a companion before it slipped into the water next to the boat. Another River Guardian lifted the leather collar from the stone post and tossed it to the one in the water, who slipped the collar over its head.

It swam against the current, pulling the boat to the center of the river. When they got to that point, the distant spume seemed to pull into itself, giving Michael a good view of what waited to test him.

The river above him split, divided by a large spar of land. The falls he'd seen had been awesome enough, but these ...

Walls of water. A huge half circle of white thunder falling to the river with nothing to break its long descent. Churning water and wild currents filled the bowl formed by those falls. And the spume of mist that rose from the center of that wild water marked the spot that held the prize — if he could survive the river long enough to reach it.

Suddenly the collar and rope were tossed into the boat and he was adrift, alone, with the currents tugging at the boat, pushing him back down the river, away from the place he needed to go.

The heart is the sails, the will is the tiller, Michael thought. I seek the Island in the Mist,

Against all logic and reason, the small boat began moving against the current. On either side of the river, he caught glimpses of buildings shaped from the native stone, blending in so well it was hard to tell where the intentionally created began and the naturally created ended. He wished someone else could steer the boat so he'd be free to just look at the world around him. But every time his attention strayed for more than a few seconds, the boat floundered.

Well, he'd just keep his mind on his business. When he reached the island, he'd be able to stand on the shore and look his fill at the falls and the river.

Except he couldn't see an island, and he was now close enough to the walls of water that the currents were vicious.

What do you seek? It might have been a thousand voices whispering the question — or only one.

"I seek the Island in the Mist." It seemed right to say the words aloud, to give them the weight of his voice,

Why do you seek?

"Heart's hope lies within Belladonna. I seek Belladonna. I seek her help in fighting the Destroy—"

Insanity or rage. It didn't matter. The river turned against him. It flung the boat out of the water, sending it smashing back down into savage currents that were intent on killing him.

What do you seek?

"I seek —" Why was this happening? He was being honest about what he sought!

A wave crashed against the boat, almost knocking him into the river. He flung himself to his knees, grabbing the side of the boat with one hand while the other fumbled to slip the leather collar over his arm to give him that much connection to the boat.

What did he seek? Caitlin Marie. The answer to a riddle. Help defeating the Destroyer of Light before it consumed the parts of the world he knew.

The currents changed, knocking him this way and that.

What do you seek?

Like a series of pictures, the world changed around him. For a moment, he was surrounded by fog, and he could hear the voices of doomed men forever lost. A moment later, he was gliding over a mist-filled lake toward an island he could barely see — and didn't want. A moment after that, he saw a rib cage partially buried under rust-colored sand. Then the currents, the river, and walls of water.

"I seek Belladonna!" he screamed.

Why do you seek?

Going under. Going under. No chance of surviving.

And in that moment, as he surrendered to fate, he felt the warmth of her as she leaned against him, as he wrapped his arms around her in dreams. Almost home. Almost...

My heart's hope lies with Belladonna.

Yes, the river whispered. Yes.

Glorianna leaned against the wall next to her garden's gate, catching her breath and her balance.

A heart wish that was full of joy and yet bittersweet. Separation and homecoming.

Right here. On her island.

She recognized the resonance of that heart. It had struggled to free itself from the Eater of the World, had almost pulled the Hater into her landscapes.

Now that heart was here on her island — and Ephemera was responding like a pet whose best friend had returned home after a long journey. Responding like that to another heart here, on her island. The world doesn't respond that way to Lee or Nadia when they came to visit. Didn't respond to anyone that way. Not here.

Until now, something inside her whispered.

Then she saw him coming up the path from the little harbor. He looked scruffy, despite clothes that appeared to be fairly new. And clearly the river had given him a hard ride, which meant he had tried to hide his true purpose in coming to the island. That was reason enough to be wary of him, even if he hadn't come into her landscapes in such an unusual way.

He stopped and looked around, his smile as warm as spring sunbeams after a long winter as he took in the grounds that were carefully balanced between created flower beds and the natural flow of the land. As he turned toward her two-story house, she stepped away from the garden. She didn't want him in her house until she'd taken a better measure of the man.

Catching the movement, he turned toward her. Moved toward her.

Another jolt of recognition when he got close enough for her to get a good look at his face. Here was the moonlight lover from the painting Sebastian had made for her. But that man had been a fantasy that was...

... as real as a dream, a wish, a desire.

A yearning washed through her. It flowed into Ephemera's currents before she could stop it or deny its importance.

But it didn't go beyond the island. Didn't have to in order to find fulfillment.

More than wariness jangled inside her now. She wasn't sure she could — or should — trust the man coming toward her. But she knew with absolute certainty that, where he was concerned, she couldn't trust herself.

He smiled at her and raised his hands as if to prove he held no weapons.

No weapons? Ha! She'd wager he had toppled a good many women's defenses by wielding that oh-so-charming smile. And did he think she didn't notice his eyes doing that quick, assessing sweep men always did when they saw a woman whose body appealed to them and got them wondering if ...

Guardians and Guides. Heat flooded her face when she remembered she was dressed in her grubbiest gardening clothes — and had been working in her garden all morning, so she certainly wasn't looking her best.

Which meant the look of appreciation in his eyes was nothing but a deceit.

You said once that the only man worthy of being loved was one who saw you in your gardening clothes and still thought you looked beautiful, her romantic side murmured.

Shut up, she told her romantic side. "What are you looking at?" she growled at him.

His smiled warmed. That son of a succubus was amused by her!

"More than an image that haunts my dreams," he replied, his voice flowing over her like warm, silky water. "A woman. A beautiful, real woman."

And because her stupid heart actually went pitty-pat in response to the words, she whipped her temper awake.

"Wasn't sure that bit of a boat would make it," he said, still giving her that charming smile.

"You'll have to be tested," she said, putting an edge in her voice to warn him she wasn't the least bit charmed.

"Already was."

When she didn't respond, his smile faltered. Good.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Glorianna."

He looked puzzled. And a trifle disappointed? But he rallied fast enough and polished up the smile.

"It's obvious you passed the river's test since you're here," she said. "But there is another test."

Now the charming smile gave way completely to frustration and a hint of ripening anger. Which only stoked her own temper since being mad at him seemed the safest thing to do until she could get him off her island. Not the fairest thing, true, but the safest. Besides, she needed to see the results of this test.

He slapped his hands against his legs. "Another test? Don't you people do anything for fun?"

"Yes," she snapped. "We give strangers tests and then laugh at them while they make fools of themselves."

The frustration vanished as quickly as it had come, He grinned at her as if he'd figured out the answer to a puzzle. "You're just snappy because you got caught out wearing your old clothes."

A mortifying assessment of her temper. Especially because it was partially true.

"Since this is my island, what I wear is no one's business but my own. And I am not snappy!"

He rocked back on his heels. "Oh, but you are. Which is a fine thing because the temper brightens your eyes and puts color in your cheeks. Makes you even more beautiful."

He was taller than her and heavier than her, but at that moment, riding on temper and embarrassment, she was pretty sure she could pick him up, haul him down to the shore, and toss him into the river. "Take the test or go back to the river. With or without the boat."

He gave her his most woeful wounded-male look.

She just stared at him.

"Got a brother, don't you?" he asked after a long moment of silence.

"I do." And Lee had perfected that woeful look by practicing on her until she had perfected the Stare.

"Thought so." He sighed. "All right, then. Let's get this test done before you have time to think up another."

He followed her to the spot she called the playground. Then he scratched his head and pursed his lips as he looked at a calf-high wooden box that was about the size of a marriage bed and was filled with sand. Another box, about half that length, was attached to it and held a wooden bench and gravel.

"It's a sandbox," he finally said. "Darling, if you're wanting me to build you sand castles, I'm going to need some water along with the sand."

"You won't need anything that's not already with you," Glorianna said. "Leave the pack on the ground out here. You'll want no distractions."

He shrugged off the pack and set it on the ground, then looked at her, clearly waiting for more explanation.

She pointed to the gravel. "You can sit on the bench or stand on the gravel. But don't step into the part with the sand, or you might never find your way back."

She saw a flash of alarm in his eyes and watched his face pale. And wondered what kind of landscapes he'd already seen.

"Heart's hope lies within Belladonna," he said. No charm now. Not even any confidence. Just a vulnerable truth that she could feel resonating inside her like a pure note when he added, "My heart's hope lies with Belladonna."

"Maybe," she replied, her voice rough from trying to control her own tangle of emotions as she silently acknowledged the difference in those two phrases. "It depends on the test."

He hesitated a moment longer, then stepped into the wooden box holding the gravel.

"Don't leave this space until I return for you," she said. Ephemera, hear me. Show me the landscapes of this hart.

She walked away, ignoring his "Now just a minute here!" protest. She kept moving away until he turned his attention to the sand. Then she doubled back to quietly come up behind him.

"Fine," he grumbled, lightly kicking at the gravel. "Play tricks on a stranger just because he doesn't know much about ... Lady's mercy!"

Fist-sized stones — many with jagged edges — filled the box that had held sand. A moment later, half the stones sank beneath a foul-smelling bog.

"Just a trick," he whispered. "Can't be real. I can't be doing this. Land doesn't change this fast. Not this fast."

Yes, it can, Glorianna thought. Under the right — or wrong — circumstances, it can.

The far corner of the sandbox disappeared under a heavy fog.

Dark landscapes, she thought, feeling a chill go through her. Was there nothing inside him but dark landscapes?

"Lady of Light, have mercy on me," he said, sinking to his knees. Then he cocked his head, as if hearing something. His eyes widened in shock, swiftly replaced by wonder. "The wild child."

The words resonated through the currents of power, leaving Glorianna breathless. It wasn't the way she would have described Ephemera, but it felt exactly right.

"Come on, now. Come on," he said, his voice cajoling. "You know me. You listen to me when I play tunes in the pubs, when I've given people a reason to sing and laugh and put aside their troubles for a while. . And I've played tunes for you, when I'm on the road and it's just the two of us. I'm a long ways from home, and maybe you don't know me because of it, but ..."

Stone rose out of the bog in front of him. Not fist-sized rocks, but a hefty piece of granite that had veins of quartz glinting in the sunlight.

"Well," he said after a brief hesitation, "that's a good stone."

A patch of grass covered the area in front of the stone, and the bog under it turned to earth that smelled like fertile ground after a soft rain.

He laughed, sounding relieved. "Yes! That's the way of it."

A small heart's hope plant grew in front of the quartz-veined rock.

Hold, Glorianna commanded as she moved around the box to where he could see her.

He stood slowly. She kept her eyes on the box that now reflected some of the landscapes of his heart. She didn't need to see his eyes to know they held vulnerability and wariness.

A good heart shadowed by doubts. A hard life when he deserved something better. A balance of Dark and Light.

But the test didn't answer one question: What was he?

"Anger makes stone," she said quietly, pointing to the fist-sized, jagged-edged stones. Then she pointed to the granite. "And strength makes stone. Doubt and fear are bogs in the heart. Fog can come from many things, but despair makes the deserts — and hope the oases." Now she looked into his blue-gray eyes. "You don't understand the meaning of what you see, but you know the world listens to you, that you can make things happen. Don't you?"

He looked reluctant to admit to anything, but he nodded.

"What do they call you?" she asked.

"My name is Michael,"

She shook her head slowly. "What do they call you?"

A stronger reluctance. She watched his throat muscles work as he swallowed. "Luck-bringer. Ill-wisher." He paused, then added, "Magician."

He said the word as if it had been the bane of his life.

And it has been, she realized. Just as being declared rogue been the bane of my life.

She studied him a little longer. Then she smiled, "Welcome to the Island in the Mist, Magician."

There was real warmth in her smile, honest welcome in her words. And the music of her heart ... Bright notes entwined with dark tones, forming a song that held the promise of everything he had searched for, waited for, wanted with all his heart. Love and happiness and home all held within a body he hoped to be kissing by the end of the day — and to keep on kissing for the rest of his life.

He'd misunderstood, had gotten things tangled up in his own mind. But... No, that wasn't right. He'd gotten here because he'd told people he was seeking Belladonna.

He watched her smile fade and knew it was because he was staring at her, but the music inside her — and its possibilities — held him. Bright notes and dark tones. Could the answer be that simple?

"Glorianna ... Belladonna?"

Her green eyes chilled as she nodded. "I am Belladonna."

Her darkness is my fate. He grinned at her, and got a narrow-eyed stare in return. That was all right. He was here; so was she. They would build a grand life together — once they figured out how to deal with die Well of All Evil.

"What landscape do you call home?" Glorianna asked.

"My coun —" He stopped. Why bang his head against the wall of stubbornness these people had for refusing to understand

the word country? "My landscape is called Elandar. My family comes from a, village called Raven's Hill."

"Do you know the White Isle?" she asked.

Not knowing why she had tensed in response to his answer, he nodded. "I know of it. My aunt was a Lady of Light there before she came to live with us when my sister and I were children."

"Come with me." She turned toward the enclosure.

Michael started to follow, then stopped so fast he had to pinwheel his arms to keep his balance. "Wait. What will happen if I step out of this box?"

"Nothing. Your heart doesn't dominate here." Now she looked thoughtful. "But it does resonate here."

"Is that going to stay like that?" he asked, waving a hand at the bog, fog, and sand — and that little bit that, in his own mind, represented home and hope.

"No, it's just a playground where Ephemera can safely express itself. It will go back to resting sand when you step out of the gravel box,"

He stepped out of the box and silently counted. Before he reached "ten," almost everything had changed back to sand.

"Ephemera," Glorianna said in a warning voice.

"Can't it stay?" Michael asked, feeling a heaviness in his chest at the thought of the heart's hope going away.

"When you feel its resonance, what does it mean to you?" He gave her a puzzled look, so she pointed to the rock, grass, and heart's hope. "What does that represent for you?"

"My homeland," he said without hesitation.

She hesitated, then said, "An access point. All right. It can stay there for the time being. Come with me."

He picked up the travel pack.

She stared at the pack. He didn't see anything that would distinguish it, but when she looked troubled, he wondered if she recognized it as belonging to Sebastian. Should he say something? Reassure her that Sebastian had loaned it to him? Or should he reassure her that he barely knew the incubus-wizard-justice Maker who ruled a place called the Den of Iniquity!

Not sure what to say, he offered no information — and she asked for none as she led him to the gate in the walled enclosure.

Then he walked into a garden that would change his understanding of the world forever.

Glorianna fiddled with the gate to give herself a moment to think.

He was carrying Sebastian's pack. She recognized it because of the luck piece Lee had given Sebastian — a small, flat stone with a natural hole. It was tied to the pack with a strip of leather and wasn't something that would draw anyone's attention. But that stone was one of the two one-shot bridges Lee had created to assure that Sebastian would be able to reach the Den, no matter what landscape he might find himself in.

Which meant this stranger, this Magician, had been to the Den — or to Aurora — and had met Sebastian.

"How did you get to the River Guardians?" she asked.

"A man named Yoshani showed me the way to their part of Sanctuary."

So Yoshani and Sebastian had met Michael — and they, having ways to send her a message, had made the choice to let the river test him. Why?

So I would know he is worthy of what he seeks — even if I'm not sure I trust my response to him or his to me.

"There's something I'd like you to do while I show you the garden," she said, turning to face him.

"Another test?"

The weariness in his voice tugged at her. "Yes, in a way it's another test, but not a difficult one. I'd like to know which parts of the garden resonate for you."

"You mean which ones I feel in tune with?"

"Yes."

He immediately moved to the first bed on the left side of the garden and crouched in front of the statue of a seated woman. "A bittersweet tune for this one. A mother's tune."

"Why do you say that?" Glorianna asked, intrigued by his choice and the way he described his resonance.

"I look at this" — Michael waved a hand to indicate the bed — "and I hear the warmth and strength of a woman who loves and knows how to laugh but has also felt the sorrows that come in a life. So ... a mother's tune."

Glorianna studied the statue she'd taken from her mother's garden in order to protect Nadia from the Eater of the World. So. This Magician from Raven's Hill resonated with Aurora, which was Nadia's home village.

"Any others?" she asked.

With many of the access points to her landscapes, he held out a hand and tilted it back and forth to indicate a so-so response. He wasn't repelled by those particular places, but they also weren't landscapes that resonated with his heart.

Then they reached the part of her garden that held the dark landscapes. Michael immediately pointed to two of the access points. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he pointed to a third.

"You know the waterhorses," Glorianna said.

Michael nodded but gave her a puzzled look. "How did you know?"

"You pointed to their landscape."

That slight blankness in his eyes. He wasn't a Landscaper in the way she would normally use the term, but he clearly had a strong connection to and power over Ephemera. It scared her to think that he'd been going about his part of the world, influencing Ephemera when he had so little idea of what he was doing.

"And you know the Merry Makers," she said, and added silently, And the Den of Iniquity.

He nodded again.

"What about these?" Now she moved quickly through the garden, not giving him a chance to tell her about other connections he might have to her landscapes. She stopped in front of the section that held the Places of Light.

"Oh." He swayed to a stop, then closed his eyes and smiled. "Oh, this is a grand part of the garden."

She could see the truth of it in his face, could feel the air pulse between them as he resonated with those Places of Light. While it hadn't affected him in the same way, he had resonated just as strongly with the three dark landscapes he had pointed out.

"Does any one of them appeal to you in particular?" she asked softly.

He said he was from Elandar, came from the village of Raven's Hill. She wasn't sure what to think when he passed over the access point for the White Isle and pointed to the access point that led to the part of Sanctuary that was connected to Aurora.

Michael turned in a slow circle, but the way she had designed the beds that represented her landscapes made it impossible to see all of the garden from any one place.

"I wouldn't want her to face the dangers of the journey," he said, "but I wish my sister could see this garden. She found an old walled garden on the hill near the family home, and she's struggled for years to make something of it."

She could still hear him talking, but Glorianna was no longer listening to the words. "Your sister has a garden like this?"

"Oh, nothing so grand, but this place reminds me of her bit of garden."

Guardians and Guides, she thought. There are Landscaper out there who don't know who they are or what they can do when they play with a bit of land. Especially if they come from the old bloodlines and are like me.

Raven's Hill. A garden. A resonance that tangled with her own on the White Isle. And a man who had dared the river in order to find her. A dream lover who wasn't just a dream.

"Glorianna?" Michael reached for her. She took a step back. "What's wrong?"

"You came seeking Belladonna. Why?"

A blush stained his cheeks. "I've seen you in my dreams. Loved you in my dreams."

She could feel the warmth of his hands — a memory held within a dream.

"I came to find the answer to a riddle — and I found you. 'Heart's hope lies within belladonna.' " He looked around the garden. "I'm thinking the answer to defeating the Well of All Evil is right here in this garden. Because this garden is your heart, isn't it, Glorianna Belladonna?"

She felt breathless. Felt light enough to float with the clouds — and heavy enough to break the earth as she sank into it.

A test of the river to prove he was worthy of what he sought. A different kind of Landscaper who might be able to show her an answer she couldn't see by herself. And maybe — maybe — someone with whom she could share her home and the island.