“It’s sly,” she said, pushing back her hair as she concentrated on taking steady breaths.
“It’s here?”
She paused a moment, thinking something was wrong with her hearing. Then she realized all three of them had asked the same question.
“No.” She paused again. “My head hurts.”
She felt Michael’s lips against her ear. Felt those lips curve into a smile.
“Then stop pulling on your hair,” he whispered.
She put her hands down—and looked at two pairs of green eyes that were sharp with worry.
“I’m all right,” she said.
“You’re going back to the Den,” Sebastian said.
“No, I’m not.”
“Leave the woman be,” Michael said. “The land is sour here, and I’m thinking the badness that changed Dunberry spilled over a bit.”
“This has happened before,” Glorianna said, knowing by the way Lee sucked in a breath that he wouldn’t keep that bit of information to himself and that she could look forward to one of Nadia’s rare, full-tempered scolds when she got home. “The Eater tried to turn me away when I altered the pond to shut off the death rollers’ access to this landscape. Now Its resonance in the Dark currents around the bridge brushed against me, tried to turn me away from crossing the bridge with you.” She looked over her shoulder at Michael.
“Will crossing that bridge put you in danger?” Michael asked.
She gave the question serious consideration before shaking her head. She slipped out of their protective circle and retrieved her pack. Clothes, toiletries, some gold and silver coins, since those were acceptable tender in any landscape. Pencils and some folded sheets of paper to make notes of what she saw and how landscapes connected. A canteen clipped to the outside. Michael carried a bit of food, along with all his belongings—enough to get them through a lean meal or two if Dunberry turned elusive.
She had traveled farther with less fuss simply by crossing over to one of her distant landscapes. Wasn’t the same.
She hugged Lee, an awkward business since the pack got in the way.
“We’ll be back in a few days,” she whispered in her brother’s ear.
He kissed her cheek and whispered back, “Travel lightly.”
Sebastian next, and just as hard to say good-bye. Harder in some ways.
Don’t get maudlin, she thought. Don’t feed the Dark currents. You could get back to the Den faster than they can.
“Travel lightly,” Sebastian said, looking at Michael.
“And you,” Michael replied softly. Then he held out his hand to her, linked his fingers with hers.
Together, they walked across the bridge.
A familiar road. Familiar land in terms of the looks of it. But a terrible, sour music that ripped at the heart. When he’d last been in Dunberry, he hadn’t known what had caused the change in the village. Now his stomach churned with the knowledge of what had come to this place and what the Eater of the World had done to these people.
“Do you feel it?” Glorianna asked, looking around.
“Darling, the only good thing I’m feeling is your hand in mine,” he replied.
“There’s an access point nearby.” She moved toward the stream’s bank, tugging him with her.
He’d known the world had done one of its little shifts—no, that they had crossed over to another landscape—the moment his foot had touched the road, but he still looked across the stream to confirm Lee and Sebastian weren’t there.
“This is the spot,” she said, crouching down.
Since he wasn’t about to let go of her hand, he crouched with her. “I don’t see anything.”
“What do you hear?”
A dark song, but faint and scratchy. What he heard clearly was her—the light tones as well as the dark.
“It can’t touch me,” he said, staring at her as the wonder of that truth filled him. “When I fought It, I was being pulled into darkness—and I chose what darkness would be my fate. So I can hear what It has done to Dunberry, but Its song is nothing more than a scratchy annoyance.
“Then what do you hear?”
“You.” He watched her eyes widen. “‘Her darkness is my fate.’ That was the choice I made. And that choice has made me tone-deaf to the Eater.” He waited a beat, then tipped his head to indicate the stream. “So what is it you’re feeling here, Glorianna Belladonna?”
“This is the Eater’s point of entry when It comes to this landscape,” she said.
“Like those bits you have in your garden?” He waited for her nod. “So It’s made a garden?”
The arrested, thoughtful look on her face kept him silent.
“It turned the school into Its garden,” she finally said. “The school is now full of Its creatures, so that would be the safest place to maintain Its own dark landscapes.”
“Is that what Dunberry has become? One of Its dark landscapes?”
“A lot of Dark currents here, more than is natural for this place. But despite those currents, I don’t think it’s changed into one of the Eater’s landscapes. Not yet.” Glorianna rose to her feet and stepped away from the bank, her hand still linked with his. “Landscapes, like people, can change, Magician. This place didn’t start out this way. It doesn’t have to stay this way.”
“What about that?” He used their linked hands to point toward the stream.
She smiled. “Ask the wild child.”
He studied her a moment and decided she wasn’t teasing. Ask the wild child. Ask Ephemera. Lady’s mercy, hadn’t he seen what she could do by asking the world to make—or remake—itself?
“This feels foolish.”
“Then foolishness is all that will come of it,” Glorianna replied. “You are still the bedrock here. The connection hasn’t been completely severed. Ephemera will give you what your heart tells it to give you. If you believe you will fail, then that is what you will do—because that is your truth in this moment. That you want to fail. Maybe even need to fail because you’re not ready for the next stage of your journey.”
He couldn’t deny the truth of her words, even if he didn’t like the sound of them. “Would you mind standing over there, then? This is a private conversation.”
She looked at their linked hands, then up at him—and he realized he’d been the one holding on, reluctant to let go. He released her hand and watched her walk a couple of man-lengths away, the polite distance someone would give people who needed a moment of privacy. It felt too far. Much too far. Because he knew if she were standing no farther away from him than she was now but was in a different landscape, he wouldn’t be able to see her, or even know she was there.
Shaking his head to dislodge that thought, he went back to the stream and crouched on the bank.
“Wild child,” he called softly. “Can you hear me?”
He waited, almost called again. Then he felt it—that same sensation he had in the pubs sometimes, of a child hiding in a corner, listening to the music. But now the sensation was more like a child hiding behind him in order to escape being seen by something that frightened it.
“This access point,” he said, pointing toward the stream and wishing he’d asked Glorianna to show him the exact spot. “It’s a bad thing.”
No disagreement about that.
“Can you get rid of it?”
Hesitation. Confusion. Even a little fear? Well, the enemy was called the Eater of the World.
Still crouched, he pivoted on the balls of his feet until he could see Glorianna. “What happens if we don’t remove the access point, just try to change Dunberry?”
She walked back to him. “Depending on how often the Eater checks the daylight landscapes It is changing into dark landscapes, It will sense a dissonance and come back to restore the balance in Its favor.”