Belladonna

Chapter Twenty-eight

Glorianna walked the paths inside her walled garden on the Island in the Mist, wandering without destination. Despite being out there in the cold hours of the night, the lantern she carried remained unlit, the matches in her coat pocket untouched. She didn’t need those things when she walked these paths.

I want to go home. I need to go home.

After he’d told her the story about the Warrior of Light, Michael hadn’t questioned her need to return to her island, hadn’t argued about the lateness of the hour. She didn’t know what explanation he had given to Shaney and the others. And she didn’t know what any of them had thought when she and Michael walked out of the tavern and vanished as they took the step between here and there.

He hadn’t argued about being given a guest room instead of being invited to her bed. But she couldn’t have him there, not yet. Not quite yet.

The Warrior of Light must drink from the Dark Cup.

Listening to him tell the story had been like having a memory rise up through her skin. She’d heard the echo of his words in her blood and bone.

The Guardians of the Light had kept themselves apart from the everyday life of humans, devoting themselves to nurturing the Light so that it would always shine in the world. But the Guides of the Heart had walked in the world. Had fought for the world.

Had died for the world.

She had come from them. She was one of them. She would follow their path.

But this…This would be worse than dying.

She knew how to build the cage. Had known for sixteen years without realizing it. And because this would be her choice, she knew how to lock the door of that cage and seal it tight. So tight.

Maybe it was just as well she hadn’t met the Magician earlier in her life. That much less to remember. That much less to regret leaving behind.

Ephemera, hear me.

Questions asked. Answers given. It would be all right. She could give him this much. And he would be the Guide he was meant to be.

The Light called.

She smiled when she saw where her wandering had ended. Even as her eyes filled with tears, she smiled.

And took the step between here and there.

“Glorianna? Glorianna!”

Michael held the lantern up and looked around. A waste of breath to swear, but he swore anyway. Without heat, but with a great deal of creativity. The woman may have followed the literal meaning of her promise but she’d fallen short of the spirit of that promise. Which was something they were going to discuss when he found her.

If he could find her.

He would find her. Oh, he would. A note slipped under his door wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he said he wanted to know where she was going.

Magician, I’m taking a walk in the garden. If I cross over, it will be to a Place of Light. And I will be back.

Well, good. Fine. When?

The wild child circled round him, anxious and confused. Did he want something? Should it make something? What? What?

He paused long enough to grab hold of his own emotions and consider where he was—and what might happen if he got careless about how he expressed his feelings.

“Nothing,” he muttered. “It’s nothing. Well…” He paused. Considered. Surely that couldn’t hurt her landscapes, and it would certainly help him and the wild child calm down. “Maybe we could find a place to play a little music while we’re waiting for her to come back.”

Here here here. This way.

He followed the “tug” in the currents of power, not exactly sure where he was going, but since he was still within the walled garden, he wasn’t worried. He had acquired a heavy coat before he and Glorianna had crossed over to Dunberry—this one a loan from Jeb—so he was warm enough despite the chilly autumn night. If worse came to worst, he would simply wait for sunrise before looking for the gate that led back to the house.

But as he stepped off one path and onto another, the change in the feel of things was enough of a jolt to make him stop.

This part of the garden didn’t feel like Glorianna.

The buzz of the land flowed through him, making him want to scratch an itch he knew wasn’t physical.

Potential. Possibility. Change.

He set the lantern down, then spread his arms, raising his hands up shoulder-high. He closed his eyes and lifted his face to the night sky.

A month ago he would have felt foolish standing like this. Now he felt the power and duty and joy of what he was.

“Ephemera, hear me,” he said softly. “It is Michael. The Magician.”

He was a tone that flowed through the currents of the world, both Light and Dark. He was a clear, powerful song. He was a Magician, and he heard the music of the world.

The buzz of the land kept shifting until it fit the tone that was him, became part of the song that was him.

Most important, this odd place, while it didn’t have quite the same feel as the rest, now belonged in Glorianna’s garden.

Then he opened his eyes and looked at the ground in front of him.

“Lady’s mercy,” he whispered. “What have I done?”

“You’re up early,” Glorianna said as she stepped into the kitchen of Sanctuary’s guesthouse. She saw the woman stiffen, saw the wariness in the eyes before Brighid recognized her and relaxed.

“I’m thinking the sun has been up quite some time in Elandar, and my body still answers to that sunrise instead of when the sun awakes here,” Brighid replied as her hands worked a mound of dough.

“Yes, the sun is on the other side of dawn over there.”

“I missed the songs,” Brighid said quietly. “Lighthaven is a beautiful place, but the only thing I truly missed was the songs that marked the points of the day, the cycle of the moon, the turning of the seasons.”

“What kind of songs?” Glorianna asked, slipping into a chair by the table where Brighid worked.

“Chants, mostly. Not what most people would consider singing.”

“What kind of chants?”

Brighid hesitated, then sang very softly:

“We lift our voices to the Light.

We lift our faces to the Light.

We give our spirits to the Light,

To shine in us forever.”

“You don’t sing those songs anymore?” Glorianna asked.

Brighid shrugged. She set the dough in a bowl and covered it with a cloth to let it rise. “Tried for a while when I first went to live in Raven’s Hill. But it made me sad to sing them there, so I stopped. At Lighthaven, even if you were alone when it was time to call that part of the day, you knew other voices were rising with yours, saying the same words. Even if you couldn’t hear them, you knew. There was comfort in that, peace in that.”

“You can sing them here,” Glorianna said.

“They aren’t a tradition here.”

“If you don’t share them, how can another heart embrace them?”

Brighid looked at her for a long moment, then said, “A Guide of the Heart even for a Guardian of the Light?”

Glorianna smiled. “Why not?”

Brighid walked over to the counter. “Would you be wanting some of this koffee, or has Michael enlightened your palate with a good cup of tea?”

Tears stung her eyes. Emotions stormed through her. Just hearing his name rubbed her heart raw.

“Ah, now. You’ve not had a parting of the ways, have you?” Brighid pulled up another chair, sat down, and took Glorianna’s hands in hers.

Not yet, she thought. Not quite yet.

“He’s a good man, Glorianna,” Brighid said, her voice filled with earnest conviction. “I couldn’t see it when I lived in Raven’s Hill, and I’m sorry for that. I’m not saying there isn’t a bit of Dark in him, because there is. Has to be with him being a Magician. But he has a good heart.”

“I don’t want to love him,” Glorianna whispered. “I think I do, am almost sure I do. But I don’t want to.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because there has to be a parting of the ways.”

“You don’t think he could fit into your life?”

“He could, yes.” He already fit so well it was as if he’d always been there. And yet everything was new with him, and there was so much they didn’t know about each other, about how it might be with each other.

She didn’t want to talk about Michael—didn’t want to think about Michael. So she pulled her hands out of Brighid’s and wiped away the tear that had dared spill over. “I know why the Places of Light need currents of Dark. Why do dark landscapes need currents of Light?”

“For hope,” Brighid said with such certainty Glorianna just stared at her. “Even a dark heart hopes its plans will succeed, that it will be the victor in the struggle against its adversaries. More than any other reason, that is why the Places of Light exist. Love, laughter, kindness, compassion. These feelings will take root in a heart on their own. But it is hope that flows through the currents of Light. Because without hope, those other seeds will never find fertile ground.”

“There are people who have no hope but are still able to love, to offer kindness and compassion.”

“A heart that stands deep in the Light can give those. And when it does, what is the seed that is planted in other hearts called?”

“Hope,” Glorianna whispered. “The seed is called hope.”

“Glorianna…”

She shook her head. Pushed her chair back. “I have to go.” She pulled a folded, wax-sealed paper from her pocket. “Would you see that Yoshani gets that?” She waited for Brighid’s nod, then hurried to the kitchen door. As she reached for the knob, she paused and looked back. “Travel lightly, Brighid.”

She hurried away from the guesthouse. There was only one person she wanted to see. Then she wanted the rest of the day to herself. With Michael.

Surely one day wasn’t too much to ask. Not when she was about to sacrifice the rest of her life.

Brighid stood at the kitchen window for a long time. Still too dark to see outside, but that didn’t matter.

A parting of the ways. Why? There was a spark between Glorianna and Michael. She’d seen that for herself when they’d all sailed to the White Isle. If there was more interest on Michael’s side and wariness on Glorianna’s, well, so be it. A woman was entitled to be wary about where she gave her heart, wasn’t she? And with the bridges these folks knew how to make, neither of them would have to sacrifice their pieces…of the…world…

She stared at her reflection in the window.

She’d forgotten. Or hadn’t wanted to remember. A riddle. An answer. And a story about love—and sacrifice.

She went back to her work, doing her share to provide food for the guests and residents of this house in Sanctuary. But even as her hands performed familiar tasks, nothing was quite the same. Would never be the same again.

Travel lightly, Brighid.

Advice and blessing from a Guide of the Heart. She would heed that advice, honor that blessing. And when the sky began to lighten, she would walk out to the koi pond and, for the first time in many years, lift her voice in celebration of the dawn.

“Is there a reason you’re here at this hour, emptying my pantry?” Nadia asked, pushing her sleep-mussed hair away from her face as she eyed the supplies spread out on the kitchen table.

“Just need a few things,” Glorianna muttered as she packed a couple of items into one of the two market baskets. “Michael will be awake soon and I didn’t think about getting supplies on the way back to the island.”

Nadia tightened the belt of the robe she’d thrown on over her nightgown. “You could always just bring him around for breakfast and then do some marketing on your own.”

Too many people. Too many distractions.

“Glorianna?”

“I want a day with the Magician. Alone. On the island,” Glorianna said softly.

“Well, that’s fine, but that’s no reason to be taking all my eggs.”

“I know how to stop the Eater of the World. I know what to do.”

“Glorianna?”

The sharpness in Nadia’s voice warned her that her mother had heard what was under the words.

She raised her head and met Nadia’s eyes. “I know what to do.”

“Then we’ll talk about it. All of us. Jeb can fetch Lee and Sebas—”

“No.” She couldn’t have all of them around her. Not today. Maybe that was selfish—it was certainly unfair—but she couldn’t face all of them. And she couldn’t stand the thought that her last feelings for all of them would carry the resonance of an argument.

She walked around the table and put her arms around Nadia. Felt her mother’s arms tighten around her in response.

“He’ll be angry and he won’t want to do it, so lean hard on Lee to make the new bridges that will be needed. And don’t turn your heart away from the Magician. It’s not his fault. Opportunities and choices, Mother. He provided the opportunity, but the choice is mine.”

“Glorianna.”

She heard the tears.

“I love you,” Glorianna whispered. “When you think of me, remember that. I love you.”

They finished packing the baskets in a silence that held too many things that were said without words.

Then Glorianna walked out of her mother’s house, walked into the dawn’s light, and took the step between here and there.

Glorianna had called it virgin ground. He remembered that much now that his brain started thinking again. She just hadn’t explained the significance of virgin ground, which was going on the list of things he intended to discuss with her.

“You’ve had a busy time, haven’t you?”

Michael whirled around and saw Glorianna standing nearby, holding two market baskets. Since he didn’t think the Places of Light had markets, that meant she’d gone somewhere besides where she said she was going. And that was another something to discuss. They were going to have a plentiful amount to discuss, and to his way of thinking, that discussion would be held at full volume. The fact that she seemed amused by what she was looking at wasn’t doing anything for him either.

What what what?

And now the wild child was upset again.

He pointed to the ground in front of the new two-stone-high wall that formed a border around the virgin ground. If it could still be called virgin ground. “We need some stone there. A nice thick layer of pebbles, I’m thinking. In different colors.”

There. That should keep Ephemera busy for a while.

He watched the ground change with a speed that staggered him. And right before he closed his eyes to shut it all out, he saw Glorianna set the baskets on the ground, cross her arms, and tip her head to one side as she studied the addition to her garden.

A lesson to him. That’s what this was. If he ever had the luck to become a father, he would never ever give a flippant response to a child without considering the consequences of the child’s taking him at his word. No, he would never ever give a flippant response.

Especially when the wife was standing right there and could hear him.

He listened to Glorianna move over to the changed ground, heard her sift through the pebbles.

“Well,” she said. “I’m not good at identifying uncut stones, but I think you have some precious gems in here, along with a good haul of semiprecious stones.”

His eyes popped open. “Huh?”

She scooped up a handful of stones. “You asked for different colors. Here’s garnet and malachite. Lapis and citrine. Topaz. Oh, and here’s a lovely amethyst. And this might be an emerald.”

He crouched beside her. “I was just trying to distract the world, give it something safe to do.”

“And you did a fine job. We can pick through these later. If you take them to a gem dealer, you could get a good price for them.”

“I didn’t do this to line my pockets.”

Her free hand brushed his hair back, stroked his head. “Magician, how do you think we get by most of the time? Landscapers don’t get paid directly for what they do, so most gardens have a little ‘treasure spot’—a place where you can turn the earth and come up with the coins that were tossed in wish wells, or gold or silver nuggets—or gems—that come from Ephemera.”

So the story about a treasure hidden in Darling’s Garden wasn’t just a story. Did Caitlin know about having a treasure spot? “Is it always this easy?”

“Well, for most it’s not quite this simple. But the wild child is very responsive to you.”

Her lips touched his. Warmth rather than heat. Affection rather than lust. And yet the promise of heat was there, simmering between them.

Friend. Lover. Both.

“Show me what you’ve done,” Glorianna said. “Then let’s get some breakfast and put the rest of the food away.”

“Ah.” He cupped a hand under her elbow, helping her to her feet as he rose to his. “Didn’t know what I was doing. Still not sure what I did.”

“You made a garden, Magician.”

“I don’t know anything about tending posies.” And whether he was keen on it or not, he had a feeling he was about to learn.

“Then let’s see if you have any to tend.”

For a man who didn’t know what he was doing, he’d done well enough, Glorianna decided as she studied the newly made garden within her garden. All right, two rows of rectangles weren’t the most interesting configuration, but he wasn’t a Landscaper as such, so all he really needed was a basic garden that provided access points to his landscapes.

He had those. One rectangle was covered with fog over grass. Another looked like ordinary grass but she recognized the resonance of Dunberry. Another was cobblestones, but when she leaned in and sniffed the air, she smelled the sea. He confirmed Foggy Downs, Dunberry, and Kendall, along with three other places in Elandar that had made up his circuit of landscapes.

She pointed to the last two rectangles. “What are those?”

Michael shoved his hands in his pockets and mumbled, “Don’t know their songs.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He winced. “Don’t know those places. Never heard their songs before.”

She stared at him as she considered a possibility. “But you hear their songs now?”

He nodded warily.

“Can you play those songs?”

Another wary nod. Then he pulled his whistle out of an inside coat pocket, pointed to one rectangle, and began to play. After a minute, he pointed to the other rectangle and played a different tune.

Not Elandar. It took on a little of the flavor of that land because he was playing the tune, but those new landscapes weren’t in the part of the world he had known.

“Looks like Lee is going to have to create a couple of bridges,” Glorianna said.

Michael tucked the whistle back in his pocket. “Why?”

“A lot of Landscapers were lost when the Eater attacked the school. The bedrock in the landscapes they tended has been crumbling. Those landscapes have been crumbling, becoming mired in the manifestation of emotions without any guidance. But Ephemera wants guidance, and landscapes, like people, change. Some landscapes that were mine when I was sixteen were no longer mine when I was twenty-six. I let them go so that someone else would respond to their resonance. You opened yourself to the world, Magician, and Ephemera found two other places that need your music.”

He paled. “But…where? Am I adding another day or two on the circuit to get to these places or…” A little more color drained out of his face. “They aren’t in Elandar, are they?”

“No, they aren’t in Elandar.”

“Then how…” He put it together, piece by piece. “Bridges. You said Lee would need to create bridges.”

She nodded. “I recognize the tunes. At least, a similarity between what I’ve heard and what you just played. Lee could tell you better than I, but I think these new landscapes of yours are close to places Mother or I hold. Stationary bridges would let people cross over between the landscapes.”

“If those places had been connected to the school, won’t the Eater find Its way here?”

“No,” she said softly. “Different bedrock now, different resonance. The access point that was at the school no longer matches that place. But if the Eater has established any of Its dark landscapes in those places, you’ll have to deal with them, eliminate them. Anything that isn’t part of your song doesn’t belong in your landscapes,” she added when he started to protest. “I—Nadia can teach you how to cross over to your landscapes, and you talk to Ephemera as easily as I do—better than anyone else I’ve known, including my mother—so asking it to take away what the Eater brought in won’t be a problem for you. But don’t go into those new landscapes alone the first few times. Have Nadia or Lee or Sebastian go with you. There are still wizards and Dark Guides roaming the landscapes. Not all of them were trapped in Wizard City. They could hurt you before you realized you were in danger. So take someone with you who can show you what you need to know.”

“You’ll show me,” he said. “You’ll teach me.”

You know better, Magician.

She wanted to throw herself into his arms and hold on, but if she allowed herself to feel weak, she wouldn’t find the courage to take the next step of the journey. So she looked at the grassy space behind Michael’s garden, and at the young tree, its branches bare of leaves now, that would provide shade in the summertime. Did she have any bulbs? Maybe she could plant a few crocuses around the tree. That would be a cheery welcome when he walked there in the early days of spring.

“It would be nice to have a chair or a bench there,” she said, tipping her chin to indicate the grassy space. “You could sit and play your music. Jeb could make you a bench.”

He gave her a Patient Look. “Aye. Well, as soon as I have a diamond I can spare, I’ll be seeing about a bench—and a birdbath as well, so the fluffy things can have a splash and twitter.”

They heard the pop, like a kernel of corn in a hot pan.

He just closed his eyes. She pressed a hand against her mouth to keep from laughing.

“Haven’t learned yet, have you, Magician?” she asked when she could speak.

“Apparently not.”

“Then let’s gather up your diamond and go up to the house to make breakfast.”

She planted bulbs beneath the tree near his garden. Crocus, she said. He knew what those were. Maybe.

They didn’t speak much throughout the morning. What was there to say? So he helped her in the garden and did his best to soothe the wild child.

That was something whoever had first shaped the story about the Warrior of Light hadn’t mentioned—or hadn’t understood.

She was going to scare the shit out of the world.

“Where is the heart’s hope?” Glorianna asked.

The words stabbed him in the gut, in the heart, but he kept his voice easy. “Which bit? There were several I saw in the garden.”

“Yours. The plant you wanted to keep when…”

When I revealed my heart.

He stopped and listened to the island. “Over here.”

“Should be in the garden,” she said as she fell into step beside him. They left the walled garden and headed for the house. “It should have anchored in a bed that represents your home landscape.” Her voice trailed away as they stopped in front of an oval of recently turned earth.

He didn’t need to ask if it was a new bit of garden. He could tell by the look on her face she hadn’t created this new bed near the house.

His home landscape. Not in the walled garden. Not in the landscapes. But here, where it was personal. Where it was just between the two of them. Because that was what he saw—the stone, the grass, the heart’s hope. The things that had represented home and were native to Elandar. And behind the stone, forming a protective half circle, was belladonna.

My heart’s hope lies with Belladonna.

That truth had brought him to the Island in the Mist. That truth was now manifested in plants and stone.

“This is your home landscape,” Glorianna said quietly.

“I know,” Michael replied. “I knew from the moment I set foot here.”

“I left a note for Yoshani, telling him I was leaving the garden in your care because you can keep the landscapes balanced until they resonate with someone else. And I told him I was giving you the Island in the Mist and the house here. You’ll take care of it, won’t you?”

“I’ll tend to all of it. That’s a promise.”

He stepped behind her, put his arms around her, drew her back against his chest.

Her breath caught as her hands settled over his.

“When?” he asked.

“With the dawn.”

He rested his cheek against her hair. “Then I want this evening. Invite me to your bed, Glorianna Belladonna. Let me love you tonight with all my heart.”

“I won’t remember you,” she whispered.

The pain cut deep. “I know. I’ll remember for both of us.”

She turned in his arms and rested her hands on his chest as she looked into his eyes. Her lips brushed his once, twice.

“Come to my bed, Magician. Show me the magic of love.”