Teaser saw him first.
Michael had a moment to feel grateful that Lee wasn’t at Philo’s place with the two incubi. That would buy her a little more time. Besides, he wasn’t looking forward to facing Glorianna’s brother.
Then Sebastian turned around, and those sharp green eyes looked right at him. Right through him.
He kept walking toward the courtyard. Sebastian stepped away from the tables and chairs, meeting him on the cobblestone street. They stopped just out of reach of each other.
“Threat and promise is what you called me,” Michael said quietly. “I’ve made good on the threat, for the sake of the world.”
“What have you done?” Sebastian asked, his voice rough with restrained, but rising, anger.
“Told a story. Provided a key to a locked door.”
“In clear words, Magician.”
“I told Glorianna how to stop the Eater of the World. She’s gone to the Landscapers’ School.”
Chapter Thirty
They couldn’t reach Lee, who had used his little island to go to the Island in the Mist, and Michael thanked the Lady of Light for that blessing. The timing had been a little off. Just enough. Based on what Yoshani had told them, Lee must have gone to Glorianna’s island within minutes of Michael crossing over to the Den.
So Lee was wasting time checking the house and the walled garden, while Glorianna…
They were all at Nadia’s house now, waiting for Lee because his island was the best chance of reaching the landscape that held the school. Nadia couldn’t cross over from any of her landscapes. Yoshani and Teaser, as unlikely a pair to become friends as he’d ever seen, had tried, separately, to cross over to the school by using the resonating bridge near Nadia’s house. But the bridge no longer worked. At all.
Ephemera was frightened. It wasn’t words he was picking up from the world, it was story-songs. Mood-songs. It was being asked to do things it didn’t want to do—was afraid to do. Asked by a heart it trusted. Commanded by a will so strong it couldn’t disobey.
Hearts had no secrets from Glorianna Belladonna. She understood the people who loved her all too well.
And they were all here now. Teaser and Yoshani. Lynnea and Sebastian. Nadia and Jeb. Even Caitlin Marie and his aunt Brighid.
It felt like a deathbed vigil—the women talking in the kitchen while they made mountains of food no one wanted to eat; the men in another room, talking in hushed voices, trying to fill time with words while they all waited for the transportation that would take them to the site of the grave.
Not enough room in the house. Not enough air in the house.
He was outside, staring at a flower bed in Nadia’s personal garden, with no clear memory of how he’d gotten there. He didn’t turn around to see who had followed him out of the house. Didn’t have to. Even lowered by sorrow, the music of Yoshani’s heart was a clear song.
“What brought you here this morning?” Michael asked.
“Your aunt,” Yoshani replied. “All day yesterday, she had been quiet, thoughtful. Except when she would go to the koi pond and ‘sing the day’ as she called it. There was a radiance in the air around her in those moments, and what flowed through Sanctuary made a person want to weep and smile at the same time. This morning she gave me a letter Glorianna had left for me and said she needed to speak with Nadia. She asked me to come with her.”
“And Caitlin Marie came this morning for her lesson.”
“Yes. So you, too, have your family around you during a difficult time.” Yoshani paused. “This story you told Glorianna Dark and Wise. Would you tell it to me?”
Michael shook his head. “Maybe sometime, but not now.”
For a moment, he thought Yoshani would argue, but the man simply bowed his head.
“It took courage to let her go, Michael the Magician,” Yoshani said gently.
Before Michael could think of a reply, Lee hopped over a broken part of the wall. Looking toward the house, he hollered, “Hey-a, what’s going on? The resonating bridge near the house is gone, just gone, and I can’t find…”
Lee saw him and stopped. Stared.
Words had not been spoken yet, so Lee’s mind didn’t understand what his heart already knew.
His expression turned grim. He took a step toward Michael.
And Sebastian was suddenly out the kitchen door, both distraction and threat. The Justice Maker flicked a glance at Michael, then focused on his cousin.
“Lee,” Sebastian said. “We need to talk.”
It tasted her fear in the currents that flowed through the school. It tasted her doubts. And It lapped at the Light as It flowed beneath the paths of the school, easily evading the silly traps the True Enemy had set to capture It.
The Dark Guides had succeeded in trapping the True Enemy in a landscape where she could be destroyed! They had finally succeeded! She was tangled up in Its landscapes at the school, unable to cross over to any place that didn’t resonate with It. When she realized she was trapped, she had tried to change Its landscapes and make them hers, but It had been too strong, too powerful, and It had reclaimed what belonged to It. Now she was drawing in all the Light, trying to make a Place of Light, thinking that, somehow, she would be safe and beyond Its reach. How delicious! How wonderful! How tasty!
It couldn’t wait to feast on the heart of Belladonna.
She listened to the Dark Guides’ whispers, let their verbal rape wash through her heart, while building walls that would stand far longer than stone.
And while she listened, while she waited for the right moment, she gathered the Light. She wasn’t able to destroy all the currents of Light completely, so she sucked them dry until the threads that were left were so weak and thin that they couldn’t support the smallest seed of hope.
The Eater of the World was in the school. Was coming toward her.
She altered the landscapes and closed the last door. Turned the key in the last lock. When she destroyed the key, there would be no getting out, no turning back. When she destroyed the key, she and the Dark Guides and the Eater of the World would be locked in this landscape forever.
She closed her eyes, denying the tears that wanted to fall.
“I am the Warrior of Light,” she whispered. “It’s time to drink from the Dark Cup.” Her voice broke. She paused to steady herself. Then she added, “Ephemera, hear me.”
“Daylight!” Sebastian said as he stepped off Lee’s island. “Why does the school look like that? Why is it doing that?”
Michael didn’t answer. Lee swore. Caitlin gasped.
The school faded a little more, just as the White Isle had faded when Kenneday’s ship approached it. It wasn’t quite in the world anymore, but it wasn’t completely beyond reach yet.
Michael watched as the rest of his companions stepped off of Lee’s little island. He listened to their music and assessed what he heard in each of their hearts.
Wild child, he called. We need to do a bit of ill-wishing.
She felt their resonance through the currents that flowed through the world. Sealing this cage hadn’t severed this landscape’s connection to the world quite enough. It wouldn’t be possible to get out, but it was still possible to get in.
She couldn’t let that happen.
Not your part of the task anymore, she thought. The Magician will look after the others.
Despite the risk that one of them might figure out how to cross over and become trapped in this landscape, she gave herself a moment to picture each of them, and let her affection for each one flow through her.
Caitlin and Brighid. They were finding their true places in the world, and their joy would feed the Light.
Teaser. Cocky grin and swagger—and a vulnerability and yearning to be more that was being answered by his friendship with Lynnea.