Belladonna (49 page)

"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 guest house. 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 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."