Lee pushed away from the table. Everyone in the tavern tensed—but no one dared move.
“I don’t know,” Lee said. “He crossed over to whatever landscape most reflected who he was at that moment.”
“So he’ll be able to come back?”
A sick, nasty expression flickered across Lee’s face, like a note that was out of tune and out of tempo. “Depends on whether or not he can survive what lives within his own heart.”
Michael rose to his feet. “How can you be so callous with a man’s life?”
“Callous?” Lee let out a harsh bark of laughter. The nastiness gave way to something darker and more honest—and more painful. “He comes at us, wanting to shed blood, with everything in him resonating a pleasure for inflicting pain, and you think I’m callous? Don’t stand there and tell me you couldn’t feel it. Not when you were that close to him. And the truth is, if he really belonged here, nothing would have happened when he caught that stone. Nothing, Michael. That’s how the world works. And if he didn’t belong here but wanted to stay, something would pull him away from this place, no matter how hard he tried to hold on. That, too, is the way of the world.”
“All right, fine,” Michael said, just wanting to get them out of there before the other men began to consider the odds.
“No, it is not all right!” Lee shouted. “My sister is going to die trying to save Ephemera from the Eater of the World. So is yours. So are you. You’re Ephemera’s defense against It, so you are going to die, Michael. And then they are going to die.” He swept his hand out to indicate the men in the tavern. “There is nothing they can do to fight something that was formed out of the darkness that lives in human hearts. They can gather armies to fight this thing, but without the sorceresses and Magicians that they hold in such contempt, their own fear will kill them. Their own despair will consume them. Their own doubts will devour their families. Do you know what is out there, Magician? Do you want to know what the Eater’s landscapes hold?”
No, he didn’t.
“The bonelovers look like ants, but they’re as long as your forearm. They’re called bonelovers because that’s all that’s left of anyone who stumbles into their wasteland. The trap spiders are big enough to pull a full-grown man into their lairs. The wind runners are as big as dogs and have jaws powerful enough to crush bone. The death rollers—”
“Stop it,” Michael said. “Stop it now. That’s enough.”
“—are like the crocodileans, which are native creatures that live in the rivers of warmer landscapes. But the death rollers are bigger, meaner—they are crocodileans swelled by human fear. That’s what is out there, Michael. That’s what is going to sink its teeth into your villages and your people. You think these are stories. I’ve lived with the truth of it all my life. I trained in the school where the Eater had been caged. I felt Its presence under all the currents of Light that flowed through the school. But all those currents of Light, all those hearts…” Lee’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I knew a lot of the people who were slaughtered when the Eater destroyed the school. And in the days to come, most of you will stand at a memorial stone and grieve for lost comrades or loved ones.”
“We have graveyards here,” Michael said softly.
Lee wiped his eyes and gave Michael a smile that was painfully sad. “Magician, most times there won’t be anything left to bury.”
He saw Kenneday shudder, and he thought about the fishermen who now haunted a stretch of sea. And he thought about what it would be like for men to take out the boats in order to feed their families if most of the sea was haunted with the dead, and there were only pockets of safe water left.
“Are you saying there’s a war coming?” a voice asked.
Michael looked toward the door. Nathan stood there—and the dark, jagged notes that had filled the tavern faded away, replaced by a rhythm that was as strong and steady as a heartbeat.
“It’s already started,” Lee replied wearily. “And it’s already reached your shores.”
Kenneday stared at the table for a long moment, then looked at Michael and Lee before nodding sharply. “I’ve got a duty to my ship and my crew, so I can’t be putting aside all my cargo runs. But she’s a good ship, and they’re good men. I’ll put them all at your disposal whenever I can to haul cargo or passengers. Whatever you need.” He stood up and looked around the room. “I sailed through the haunted water, and I was glad to have Michael on board.”
“Ill-wisher,” someone muttered.
“That’s enough,” Nathan said sharply, coming into the room. He tipped his head toward Lee. “I don’t know this man, but I heard what he said. And I’m wondering if we haven’t misunderstood some things about sorceresses and Magicians—and the world—for a long time now. So I for one am willing to offer a hand in friendship.” He held out a hand to Lee, who clasped it.
There was no actual sound in the room, but Michael could hear a dissonance shifting into the harmony of a different tune.
Something has changed.
He looked at Lee, who sank into a chair at the table, and he thought about the woman climbing the hill with his little sister.
Neither Glorianna nor Lee understood the world as he knew it—but they understood it in ways he’d never even dreamed.
Who was this woman? Caitlin wondered as she watched Glorianna study the outer walls of Darling’s Garden. What kind of person talked about resonances, dissonances, and currents of power flowing through the world?
And what kind of power flowed through Glorianna Belladonna that she could change the physical world simply by asking it to change?
“Ephemera, hear me,” Glorianna had said.
Caitlin stood beside her, trying not to look at the burned husk of the cottage that had been her family’s home. In front of them, the rust-colored sand had swallowed even more of the meadow.
“This sand does not belong here,” Glorianna said. “This landscape is not welcome here.”
Listen to her, Caitlin thought as fiercely as she could. Please, listen to her.
A quiver along her skin, as if the air had asked a question. Glorianna watched her, waiting.
Feeling self-conscious and foolish, Caitlin stared at the sand and said, “This is my place. The sand that comes from that dark…landscape…does not belong here. It is not welcome here. I do not want that sand to touch what is mine.”
Something rippled through the land, then flowed through her, making her feel as if she were being lifted up to ride a wave in the sea. And then she watched the land change right before her eyes, and within moments, bare earth replaced the sand.
Filled with a blend of delight and disbelief, along with a helping of fear, Caitlin laughed nervously. “Isn’t Ephemera going to fill in the bare spots?”
“Yes,” Glorianna said. “The meadow will reseed itself, as it does every year.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know. But there is a difference between being playful and being careless with what you ask of the world.”
“This garden is loved,” Glorianna said, brushing her fingers over the stones.
“I tend it as best I can,” Caitlin said, pleased that she sounded modest—and puzzled that Glorianna could tell what she’d done to the garden when they hadn’t gotten inside yet.
“You repaired the mortar?” Glorianna asked.
“What?” Now that it was pointed out, she could see signs of recent work.
“Maybe Lee’s ability to impose one landscape over another isn’t unique after all,” Glorianna said. Then she smiled at Caitlin. “The garden doesn’t actually exist on this hill. It’s here because you need it to be. But it is grounded somewhere else—and it is loved there, Caitlin.”