He picked up the travel pack.
She stared at the pack. He didn’t see anything that would distinguish it, but when she looked troubled, he wondered if she recognized it as belonging to Sebastian. Should he say something? Reassure her that Sebastian had loaned it to him? Or should he reassure her that he barely knew the incubus–wizard–Justice Maker who ruled a place called the Den of Iniquity?
Not sure what to say, he offered no information—and she asked for none as she led him to the gate in the walled enclosure.
Then he walked into a garden that would change his understanding of the world forever.
Glorianna fiddled with the gate to give herself a moment to think.
He was carrying Sebastian’s pack. She recognized it because of the luck piece Lee had given Sebastian—a small, flat stone with a natural hole. It was tied to the pack with a strip of leather and wasn’t something that would draw anyone’s attention. But that stone was one of the two one-shot bridges Lee had created to assure that Sebastian would be able to reach the Den, no matter what landscape he might find himself in.
Which meant this stranger, this Magician, had been to the Den—or to Aurora—and had met Sebastian.
“How did you get to the River Guardians?” she asked.
“A man named Yoshani showed me the way to their part of Sanctuary.”
So Yoshani and Sebastian had met Michael—and they, having ways to send her a message, had made the choice to let the river test him. Why?
So I would know he is worthy of what he seeks—even if I’m not sure I trust my response to him or his to me.
“There’s something I’d like you to do while I show you the garden,” she said, turning to face him.
“Another test?”
The weariness in his voice tugged at her. “Yes, in a way it’s another test, but not a difficult one. I’d like to know which parts of the garden resonate for you.”
“You mean which ones I feel in tune with?”
“Yes.”
He immediately moved to the first bed on the left side of the garden and crouched in front of the statue of a seated woman. “A bittersweet tune for this one. A mother’s tune.”
“Why do you say that?” Glorianna asked, intrigued by his choice and the way he described his resonance.
“I look at this”—Michael waved a hand to indicate the bed—“and I hear the warmth and strength of a woman who loves and knows how to laugh but has also felt the sorrows that come in a life. So…a mother’s tune.”
Glorianna studied the statue she’d taken from her mother’s garden in order to protect Nadia from the Eater of the World. So. This Magician from Raven’s Hill resonated with Aurora, which was Nadia’s home village.
“Any others?” she asked.
With many of the access points to her landscapes, he held out a hand and tilted it back and forth to indicate a so-so response. He wasn’t repelled by those particular places, but they also weren’t landscapes that resonated with his heart.
Then they reached the part of her garden that held the dark landscapes. Michael immediately pointed to two of the access points. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he pointed to a third.
“You know the waterhorses,” Glorianna said.
Michael nodded but gave her a puzzled look. “How did you know?”
“You pointed to their landscape.”
That slight blankness in his eyes. He wasn’t a Landscaper in the way she would normally use the term, but he clearly had a strong connection to and power over Ephemera. It scared her to think that he’d been going about his part of the world, influencing Ephemera when he had so little idea of what he was doing.
“And you know the Merry Makers,” she said, and added silently, And the Den of Iniquity.
He nodded again.
“What about these?” Now she moved quickly through the garden, not giving him a chance to tell her about other connections he might have to her landscapes. She stopped in front of the section that held the Places of Light.
“Oh.” He swayed to a stop, then closed his eyes and smiled. “Oh, this is a grand part of the garden.”
She could see the truth of it in his face, could feel the air pulse between them as he resonated with those Places of Light. While it hadn’t affected him in the same way, he had resonated just as strongly with the three dark landscapes he had pointed out.
“Does any one of them appeal to you in particular?” she asked softly.
He said he was from Elandar, came from the village of Raven’s Hill. She wasn’t sure what to think when he passed over the access point for the White Isle and pointed to the access point that led to the part of Sanctuary that was connected to Aurora.
Michael turned in a slow circle, but the way she had designed the beds that represented her landscapes made it impossible to see all of the garden from any one place.
“I wouldn’t want her to face the dangers of the journey,” he said, “but I wish my sister could see this garden. She found an old walled garden on the hill near the family home, and she’s struggled for years to make something of it.”
She could still hear him talking, but Glorianna was no longer listening to the words. “Your sister has a garden like this?”
“Oh, nothing so grand, but this place reminds me of her bit of garden.”
Guardians and Guides, she thought. There are Landscapers out there who don’t know who they are or what they can do when they play with a bit of land. Especially if they come from the old bloodlines and are like me.
Raven’s Hill. A garden. A resonance that tangled with her own on the White Isle. And a man who had dared the river in order to find her. A dream lover who wasn’t just a dream.
“Glorianna?” Michael reached for her. She took a step back. “What’s wrong?”
“You came seeking Belladonna. Why?”
A blush stained his cheeks. “I’ve seen you in my dreams. Loved you in my dreams.”
She could feel the warmth of his hands—a memory held within a dream.
“I came to find the answer to a riddle—and I found you. ‘Heart’s hope lies within belladonna.’” He looked around the garden. “I’m thinking the answer to defeating the Well of All Evil is right here in this garden. Because this garden is your heart, isn’t it, Glorianna Belladonna?”
She felt breathless. Felt light enough to float with the clouds—and heavy enough to break the earth as she sank into it.
A test of the river to prove he was worthy of what he sought. A different kind of Landscaper, who might be able to show her an answer she couldn’t see by herself. And maybe—maybe—someone with whom she could share her home and the island. Someone who could accept Belladonna as well as Glorianna.
“I think I need to hear the whole story of how you ended up here, but I would rather you tell it to the whole family at the same time,” she said. “So we’ll have to go to my mother’s house.”
“She lives on the island?”
His hopefulness was so transparent that she had to smile. “No, she lives in Aurora. We’ll have to cross over to that landscape.”
He paled. “Cross over. Then it’s a ways from here.”
“Yes, in some ways it is a ways from here,” she replied. “And in others it’s no farther than a heartbeat away.”
He took the step that brought him close enough to brush a finger along her cheek. “Well, that’s true of a good many things, isn’t it?”
Who are you, Magician? “Yes,” she said. “It is.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Damn the darkness,” Michael said, bracing his feet as if that would help him regain his mental balance. Glorianna had told him that reaching Aurora and her mother’s house required nothing more than taking a step between here and there, but he’d expected a little more ceremony. He’d expected a little more warning than “hold my hand and take a step forward.” Although why he should keep expecting something more was a puzzlement.