by Anne Bishop
“I…I have my work. Wouldn’t be easy to move my workshop. At least, not quickly. And Nadia has to tend her landscapes. I can’t be with her then.”
“But at night,” Sebastian persisted. “Here, at night.”
Jeb looked uncomfortable. “Aurora is a small village. What people suspect and what they know can make a difference. It’s your auntie’s reputation we’re talking about.”
“It’s my aunt’s life we’re talking about.”
Jeb nodded. “All right, then. I’ll talk to Nadia. That’s all I can promise to do.” He paused, then added, “What about you and the girl?”
“I belong in the Den. She belongs someplace else.”
“And you can live with that?”
“I have to live with that,” he snapped.
Jeb took off his cap and turned it round and round in his hands. “You asked me a question, and I know how my heart wants to answer. So I’ll ask you the same question. If you send her off to some landscape you think is the right place for her, someplace that’s more than a few minutes’ walk down a path…”
“This is different. The Den isn’t safe!”
“Will any place be safe?” Jeb asked quietly. “How will you feel if this trouble skips over the Den and lands square in the middle of this place you think is so safe and you can’t reach her?”
The thought made him sick. “I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“I can see that. But Sebastian? Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t the right thing to do.”
“Here,” Nadia said, caging the keet between her hands. “It’s time for him to go back in his cage.”
“Oh,” Lynnea said. It had been easier to tell Nadia about her life with Mam, Pa, and Ewan while she kept her eyes on the bird. Much easier to admit the thing Pa had tried to do that had led to her being sent away. When she’d told Nadia about the water and the sand, the older woman’s hands had trembled. But what had her stumbling was talking about Sebastian and those hours when he’d made her a tigress and she’d seen what it could be like to live without fear.
But even Sebastian was trying to send her away. He’d wanted her to stay in Sanctuary. He hadn’t argued when she’d told him she wanted to go with him to his aunt’s house, but he’d made it clear enough that he didn’t want her going back to the Den with him.
“Now,” Nadia said, returning to the table, “what do you want, Lynnea?”
I want Sebastian. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re free of the life you had. You have a chance at a new beginning. Where would you like to go?”
“I want to go back to the Den.” She didn’t have to think about that. It was a dark place, and a strange place, but she felt safe there. “But Sebastian doesn’t want—”
“Darling, Sebastian does want. That’s what has him tangled up in knots where you’re concerned.” Nadia smiled. “Don’t you see? If you’d been nothing more than a woman who had aroused his body, he would have been your lover by now.”
“But he knows I’m not…that I haven’t…”
“He’s an incubus. That wouldn’t have mattered in the least. But you’ve done more than arouse his body, Lynnea. You’ve touched his heart, and that’s something I’ve hoped would happen to him—that he would find someone who touched his heart.” Nadia patted Lynnea’s hand. “Frustrating for you, I know, and doubly so for him, I imagine.”
“He still doesn’t want me to go back to the Den.”
“That’s not his decision, is it?”
Lynnea looked at Nadia. She’d always been told where to go and what to do. “But—”
“Your life, your journey, your choice. Your opportunity.” Nadia leaned back. “Have you ever tossed a coin into a wish well?”
“Once. Just a penny.”
“The amount doesn’t matter,” Nadia said. “It’s how much heart is put into the wish.”
“But nothing happened.”
“Oh? And just how do you think the wish wells work?”
“You hold a coin, make a wish, toss the coin in the well as a tribute to the Guides. And then if you’re meant to have it, your wish will come true.”
Nadia sighed. “Yes, I suppose that’s how most people think it works. This is how it does work. You make a wish and toss a coin in the well as a declaration of your intention to have something in your life. Then what do you do?”
Lynnea shook her head to indicate that she didn’t know.
Nadia’s voice took on the tartness of impatience. “You roll up your sleeves and you work to make it happen.”
“But I don’t know how to make it happen!”
“Opportunity and choice, Lynnea. What the heart truly desires doesn’t come to you overnight, and it doesn’t always come in the way you imagined.”
Lynnea nibbled on her thumbnail. “Maybe I could find work in the Den. Maybe I could work for Philo. I know how to cook and bake. I know how to clean, wash dishes. I’d need to find a place to live.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Nadia said dryly. She pushed her chair back and stood up. “I’d better put something on under this dress before I shock my nephew more than I already have. Then, I think, it’s time to find out why Sebastian is here.”
Thank all the Guardians of the Light, Sebastian thought when he saw Nadia and Lynnea walk out of the house. Nadia had put something on under that dress. He’d already seen more of his aunt than he wanted to.
“Jeb?” Nadia called. “Why don’t you show Lynnea the flower gardens?” After giving Lynnea a friendly push, she walked off in the opposite direction, toward the back of her personal garden.
Figuring that was his cue to have a private talk with Nadia, Sebastian set the watering can down and followed his aunt. He caught up to her when she stopped at the fountain and frowned.
“The statue is gone,” she said, sounding annoyed and resigned but not terribly worried.
“Statue?”
“The statue the three of you bought me for my birthday one year. It’s gone.”
Being related to Nadia and Glorianna, he knew more about how the Landscapers’ magic worked than most people. His heart raced as too many awful possibilities leaped through his mind. “Someone stole it?”
“‘Stole’ is a harsh word, since I know Glorianna took it. I told her it wasn’t necessary, but I think she’s going to alter the landscapes to bring Aurora and all my other landscapes into her garden.”
His heart still raced, but the feeling of relief that swept through him left him shaky. “Good. That’s good.”
“It’s not good. She has enough to deal with without taking on more.”
“Aunt Nadia. There’s something I have to tell you.”
Nadia stared at the fountain. “The Eater of the World is loose among the landscapes. I know, Sebastian. Glorianna already warned me.”
“Does she know about the school?”
Frowning, Nadia looked at him. “What about the school?”
He rested his hands on her shoulders, offering silent comfort. “The Eater has taken over the school. The place is crawling with Its creatures.” Even through the thin material, he felt her skin growing cold beneath his hands as her face paled. “The Landscapers are dead, Aunt Nadia. The Bridges are dead. Everyone who was at the school—”
“Lee?”
“We saw him in Sanctuary. He knows. He said he was going to break the bridges that linked Glorianna’s landscapes to any others.”
Nadia sank to the ground. Sebastian dropped to his knees with her, holding her upright while she swayed.
“Aunt Nadia?” he asked sharply. He wouldn’t like it if she fainted, but he could deal with it. What brought him close to panic was the fear that he’d shocked her so much she was having some kind of attack.
“We’re the only ones left?” Nadia whispered. “Glorianna and I are the only Landscapers left?”
Sebastian rubbed her arms. “Maybe not. Plenty of Landscapers would have been traveling, checking up on thei
r landscapes, so—”
“But they don’t know!” Nadia’s voice rose.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian saw Jeb look in their direction and take a step toward them. Saw Lynnea reach out and stop him.
“The Landscapers who are traveling won’t know about the danger.” Nadia sounded panicked.
“If the Eater tries to connect one of Its bad landscapes to a daylight one, people will notice. Word will spread, right?” He wasn’t sure why he was arguing, since Lee had already told him what could happen to Ephemera without the Landscapers, but seeing Nadia distraught had him grasping for anything that might steady her.
Then something occurred to him. “Even if the surviving Landscapers have to use bridges to avoid going back to the school, and even if the Eater has been in a landscape, the Landscaper who controls that piece of Ephemera will be able to alter it back to—”
“No.”
“Glorianna did it,” Sebastian insisted. “The Eater had connected one of Its landscapes to the Den, and she altered the Den to break that connection.”
Nadia looked at him, her dark eyes full of despair. “Glorianna is the only Landscaper who can alter landscapes like that. The only one who can rearrange pieces of the world, bringing them together to form a new pattern. The only one, Sebastian.”
He sat back on his heels. “Then she’s the only real enemy this thing has, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is. And the landscapes she holds will be islands connected with one another but no longer quite part of the world, like a reflection you can see in a pool of still water, but when you turn to look at it directly, it isn’t there.”
Food, clothing, metal for tools, wood for building and fuel. How many of those things were in Glorianna’s landscapes?
“Well,” Nadia said. “There’s nothing we can do right this moment, so we’d best get on with the business of living.”
Rising swiftly, Sebastian helped her to her feet.
“Aunt Nadia, about Lynnea…”
“She wants to go back to the Den.”
“No.”
“Her life, her journey, her choice.”
“I won’t take her back to the Den.”
“Then she’ll have to find her own way back.”
Let Lynnea stumble around trying to find a bridge back to the Den? Unthinkable. Even if Nadia escorted Lynnea to the bridge he’d always taken to go back home after visiting here, there was no guarantee Lynnea would arrive at the Den.
Doing his best to look and sound menacing, he said, “If I take her back, I’ll take her.” Surely Nadia understood that message.
“It’s about time you stopped dithering and got down to it.”
His mouth fell open.
Amused, Nadia patted his cheek, then headed toward the part of her garden where Lynnea and Jeb were pretending to admire the flowers.
He ran to catch up to her, then grabbed her arm to slow her down.
“Aunt Nadia, I don’t think you understood—”
“I’m a grown woman, and I’ve had my share of lovers. I know exactly what you meant.”
“Lovers? Lovers?”
“Well, no one else since Jeb and I—”
“Have pity on me.”
Nadia laughed. “Very well. If you don’t ask about my sex life, I won’t ask about yours.”
“Right now, I don’t have one.”
She stopped before they got close enough to be overheard. “Tell me something, Sebastian. How long has it been since you’ve walked in daylight?”
“I…don’t know. A few years.”
She nodded. “That’s a long time. Even when you came to visit, you never showed up until the sun set—and you never stayed long enough to see the sun rise.”
Couldn’t. Especially in the last year or so. He wanted to see it, but it was the cruelest reminder of what he’d left behind when he’d turned his back on the daylight landscapes—because it was the one thing he’d truly loved about those landscapes.
“You may want to consider why you’re standing here in daylight,” Nadia said quietly. “Opportunity and choice, Sebastian. Lynnea isn’t the only one making a journey.”
He looked over at his little rabbit, who raised her chin as if getting ready to fight.
You started this, he thought. You’re the one who gave her a taste of being a tigress.
He walked over to her.
“I’m going back to the Den,” she said, sounding scared and defiant.
“I know.” He still thought she was making a bad choice, but he was too glad to have her with him a little while longer to argue about it anymore.
It moved through the landscapes, smothering the flickers of Light It found in the places Its lesser enemies, the Landscapers, hadn’t valued enough to give more than token protection. So easy to create an anchor for one of Its landscapes. Ephemera barely resisted when It imposed Its will in those places. But the shining landscapes, the places that would be such a feast when It destroyed the Light…It couldn’t find a way into those places. No matter how It twisted and turned through the landscapes, It couldn’t find a way in. And that dark landscape, that delicious hunting ground. It could feel the edges of that place, but no matter how hard It tried, It couldn’t breach the wall that surrounded the Den of Iniquity.
So many thoughts focused on a single thing, so sure that single thing would keep them safe.
Sebastian. Sebastian. Sebastian.
Humans and demons alike believed in this thing called Sebastian that kept It away from the Den itself, leaving It with no access except for the two anchors It had already established in the dark landscape that bordered the hunting ground.
What enraged It even more was the certainty that the choicest hunting grounds were landscapes controlled by the True Enemy. What troubled It was the feel of the Dark currents in the spots where It had managed to create anchor points in those landscapes. The old Enemies, the Guides, that had fought and caged It so long ago had resonated with the Light and held only a thread of the Dark. But this one held the Light and the Dark in equal measure. This one could do what the old Enemies never could: she could control Its dark landscapes.
She had to be destroyed before she realized how powerful she truly was.
But this time It wouldn’t be the one fighting against the Enemy. This time It would have friends.
It moved along the steep northern slope of Wizard City, a rippling shadow. It had found the Dark Ones’ weakness, the thing they feared to lose. In spider form, It had climbed the wall of the building to be sure anyone standing at a particular window would see what It wanted him to see.
Ready now, It reached out with a mental tentacle for the Dark One. It didn’t try to slip into that mind unobserved. It made Its presence felt—and relished the fear that flooded that mind before the feeling was controlled.
Come to the window, It whispered. Look at the steep land. Watch. It withdrew the tentacle, knowing the Dark One would obey.
Choosing ground that was a short distance from a flock of sheep grazing on the hillside, It altered the grass into a large patch of rust-colored sand, changing that piece of Wizard City into the bonelovers’ landscape.
Then It waited until It sensed the Dark One’s presence.
The simpleminded animals began to bleat and move away as It rippled beneath them. Already primed to bolt, they panicked when It transformed part of Itself and tentacles burst out of the ground in the middle of the flock. The ones in front of It ran straight into the patch of sand—and disappeared.
Satisfied, It pulled the tentacles into the earth, changing them back into Its natural form.
It felt the Dark One’s mind reaching out. Hesitant. Afraid.
We helped you, the Dark One said. All these years, we sent you prey.
More prey found its own way into my landscapes, It replied. You never freed me. Never tried.
We couldn’t! We didn’t know where the Landscapers had hidden—
Lies. It waited, savoring the fear
.
What do you want?
The True Enemy must be destroyed. She is one; you are many. It will be easy for you to destroy her.
We’ve tried to destroy Belladonna!
A shudder went through It. Belladonna. The first male It had killed at the Landscapers’ School had used that word as a shield for a kernel of hope. Now It knew what the word meant.
Destroy the True Enemy, It insisted.
Why can’t you destroy her?
A thread of hope flowed through the words, enraging It. The Dark One was too fearful to hide his thoughts completely. He hoped It and the True Enemy would destroy each other. Foolish creature, to think that It had learned nothing from Its prey when It had spent so much time absorbing Its prey’s deepest fears.
Don’t you want to be friends?
We are your friends!
Prove it. It projected an image of the females It had found—the females that had been hidden for generations. Destroy the True Enemy—or something besides sheep will disappear in the bonelovers’ landscape.
It felt the Dark One’s fear spike.
We…We will find a way to destroy Belladonna. The Dark One hesitated. Is there anything else we must do to prove we are friends?
It considered for a moment, thought about the dark hunting ground It wanted to claim for Itself. Yes. Destroy the thing called Sebastian.
Glorianna walked the paths in her walled garden, the statue of the sitting woman cradled in her arms, an old piece of towel tossed over her shoulder. Fifteen years ago, she had done what Nadia had asked—she had removed all the access points from her garden at the school and had rebuilt her garden on this small island. Then she had altered the landscapes, hiding this place so well it could not be found by conventional means.
Its existence was known in Sanctuary, but the Keepers of the Light did not talk to outsiders about the Island in the Mist—unless heart’s need compelled them to speak.
The wizards could not find her here. The Eater of the World could not find her here. The only way to reach this island was through Sanctuary, and Sanctuary was held, protected, within the walls of her garden.