That’s right. It didn’t. Maybe Elandar and this island weren’t as seamless as people thought, but it was still a whole, unbroken piece of the world.
But that didn’t answer the question of why Ephemera was altering a border to become a boundary that would make the separation of places apparent. Was it because she and Caitlin were on the island together? Or was something else spurring this change in the world?
The currents swelled suddenly, washing through her. She spun around and looked at the people standing on opposite sides of a gate.
Three women—Brighid, Merrill, and Caitlin Marie. Three heart wishes in conflict with each other. And yet…the same heart wish.
“Guardians and Guides.” She staggered as the ground suddenly dipped and swayed beneath her, as the world itself cried out for help.
“Hey!” Lee grabbed her. “Don’t you faint on me again. Don’t you do that, Glorianna.”
She gave him a shove that had him stumbling back a step and uttering a shocked curse. “We have to stop them before…” No time to explain. The bedrock of a Landscaper’s heart wasn’t established well enough here, so Ephemera was gathering itself to manifest those heart wishes without guidance.
She ran for the gate, aware that an argument was taking place, aware that the Dark currents in this place had been extinguished to the point where they couldn’t absorb the bad feelings now swelling in a Place of Light, aware that the ground had become soft and the air heavy, that every heartbeat was a distant clap of thunder, a warning peal of the storm about to break.
She couldn’t move fast enough. She would never reach them in time to tell them to stop, to wait, to think. So she did the only thing she could since she had a connection to the White Isle and Ephemera trusted her to guide it through the most ever-changing landscape of all—the human heart.
Ephemera, hear me. Give those hearts what they desire. But manifest those heart wishes through me. Through ME.
As she felt the world gather itself to obey her command, she heard two voices, raised in anger, say at the same moment, “I don’t want you.”
Thunder. Avalanches. The crash of the sea. The scream of the wind when it was filled with wild insanity.
The roar of a world tearing itself apart.
Everything snapped back into focus. Her last step had her knocking into Caitlin before she put her hands out to catch herself as she fetched up against the stone wall beside the gate. She leaned against it, rested her cheek against it as she closed her eyes.
Good stone. Solid stone. Not the stone of anger, but the stone of strength.
All the tangled currents were no longer tangled. Her resonance formed the bedrock for Lighthaven, but what lay beyond the boundaries of this landscape…
“I thought shattering the world had been difficult, but it wasn’t,” she said as strong hands settled on her shoulders. “The difficult part is keeping the pieces in harmony enough to stay together.”
For a moment, she thought it was Lee standing behind her. Then she realized the shape of the hands wasn’t quite right. And the warmth of those hands, the way they touched her…No, those weren’t her brother’s hands.
“Darling, I’m hearing the words, but they have no meaning,” Michael said as he drew her away from the wall and back against him. “And if you’re going to be scaring me on a regular basis, I’m telling you now I want kisses. The kind that make a man’s head swim and will kick his heart back out of his stomach.”
“Isn’t there a saying about the connection between men’s hearts and stomachs?” Foolish to be flirting, but she felt oddly light and happy, as if she’d taken in that first breath of spring after a hard winter.
“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,” Michael said, laughter in his voice.
Then Lee said in a strained voice, “Fog is a good way to describe it,” and the breath of spring vanished as she eased away from Michael and looked back toward the place where she had tripped.
Dark currents flowed through Lighthaven again, but they were slender threads that resonated with her. That fog, however…
She brushed her fingers over Michael’s arm. “Go with Lee. See if you can find out the source of that fog.”
He gave her a questioning look, then nodded. Good. Since they both knew he didn’t have the training to figure out the reason for the fog, he was assuming she just didn’t want her brother going alone to investigate. Which was true.
The other part of the truth was she wanted the men out of hearing before she let her anger flow.
She waited until Lee and Michael were halfway between the gate and the fog before she turned to look at the women. Shock and fear on Merrill’s face. Fear and confusion on Caitlin’s. Confusion…and an awakening…in Brighid’s eyes. And a recognition: I know you.
Merrill first.
“Open the gate,” Glorianna said coldly. “You got what you wanted. More than you wanted. Now you have to live in the landscape your heart helped shape.”
“I don’t…,” Merrill stammered.
“Open the gate.”
Pebbles popped out of the ground all around the gate.
“Sorceress,” Merrill whispered.
“Landscaper,” Glorianna replied.
This time, the stones that popped out of the ground in response to her anger were fist-sized and had sharp edges.
Shaela stepped up to the gate and nudged Merrill to one side. Her hands shook as she unlocked the gate, but she pulled it all the way open.
Satisfied with that step, Glorianna glanced toward the spot where Lee and Michael were standing, thankfully still visible. Since the men didn’t need her, she turned her attention—and her temper—on Caitlin Marie.
“Did you learn nothing in the past few days?” she asked, making her voice as sharp and hard as stone. “You have seen what happens to the world when you become careless. You have seen, Caitlin Marie. You no longer have the excuse of ignorance for what you do or the harm you cause.”
The girl took a step back, shocked by the deliberately aimed emotional blow.
“I didn’t do anything,” Caitlin said, now looking sick and scared.
“You’re a Landscaper,” Glorianna snapped. “You can’t lie with words when your heart knows the truth. Feel the difference. This place has changed.” For the better, she added silently, but she still had one more of them to deal with before she acknowledged that.
“It wasn’t just me,” Caitlin cried. “It wasn’t. Why aren’t you yelling at her?” She flung out an arm to point dramatically at Merrill. “She started it by saying I don’t belong here. She—”
“—is right.”
Silence. Shock and pain. And in that silence, when the hearts of those women had no defenses, Glorianna, as Landscaper and Guide, heard all their secrets. Especially the ones they had kept hidden from themselves.
Now she could gentle her own heart. Because now she understood the tangles between herself and Caitlin.
“You don’t belong here, Caitlin Marie,” Glorianna said quietly. “You never did. If you had come when you had first learned of Lighthaven, if you had been welcomed when the dream of it was still a fluid dream, I think you could have walked here in harmony with this Place of Light. But always as a visitor. Now you resent the place and feel bitterness toward the people who live here. Now you are a dissonance. You are not the bedrock of Lighthaven.” She turned to look at Merrill. “I am.”
Merrill’s eyes widened. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry. Then her hand slowly lowered as she stared at Glorianna in wonder. “I know. I feel you in the Light in a way I couldn’t before.”
“I am the bedrock. And you are the anchor.” She looked at Brighid. “Just as you were once the anchor.” She saw wariness in Brighid’s eyes. It must have been hard for the woman to hide her true nature, even from the people she loved.