Anne Bishop - Bridge of Dreams

What disturbed him even more was the note about Guides being able to talk to the world.

Did the world ever talk back to the beings it had created?

There was someone he could ask, but he wasn’t ready for the answer. Because he knew, with absolute certainty, that his life would change into something he couldn’t yet imagine once he had the answer.

Tap tap. Tap tap.

“Branch,” Sholeh said, grabbing Lee’s left arm. When he stopped moving, she released him, and he heard her flipping through the pages of some kind of book. “I’ll make a note for Zhahar. She’ll have the groundskeepers take care of it.”

“Are you sure she’ll tell the groundskeepers?” he asked. “She’s still not feeling friendly toward me.”

“She’s my sister. The three of us look out for each other.” A pause. “ I wasn’t insulted that you wanted to walk in the moonlight with Zhahar instead of me.”

“She told you what I said?” That wouldn’t be kind, and he couldn’t picture Zhahar being insulted on her sister’s behalf and then telling Sholeh.

A hesitation. “I sort of overheard you.”

Now, how could you have done that? Lee thought. Unless…

He was free of the drugs, he knew he wasn’t crazy, and he’d seen his share of unusual races. Not as unusual as what he’d been thinking about Zhahar and her sisters, but he’d had plenty of time to think lately. He just needed some physical information to help that thinking along, and right now, if he could trust the single resonance that was Sholeh, baby sister was on her own during this interview. Since they were out walking the Asylum’s grounds and there was no one around them, how fast would her sisters show up if Sholeh was goaded into saying something she shouldn’t?

Once he knew what he was dealing with, he’d figure out how he felt about it. Zhahar’s compassion for others pulled at him and pulled hard. She could fit in with his family in the same way Lynnea fit, and he wanted a chance to see how well she could fit with him. Her reaction to the moonlight-walk comment made him hopeful the attraction wasn’t just on his side. He’d like the chance to know the woman, to touch the woman, and…

“Ready?” Sholeh asked.

“Ah…sure.” Maybe a little too ready, and this wouldn’t be a good time to let his mind wander through that particular daydream.

He let Sholeh guide him around the branch, then began tapping the long stick again. The paths were made of some kind of stone or brick that sounded different from the ground when he tapped them. By using sound instead of sight, he could keep to the paths and learn how to reach some parts of the Asylum on his own.

This morning he had awakened to a lighter darkness. His window looked out on the part of the porch that received the morning light. Since being given that room, he’d stood at the window in the morning just to breathe in the cooler air, but today there were dark stripes on a lighter gray—porch posts and daylight.

He didn’t tell anyone, not even Zhahar, that the eyedrops were helping, that some of his sight was returning. The wizards stopped by the Asylum several times a week to check on him—and to remind him that if he tried to leave, tried to get back home, someone would be close enough to go with him, to open a way into Belladonna’s landscapes.

He didn’t think there was anything in Belladonna ’s landscapes that couldn’t take care of a wizard or two, but there was always the chance of one of the bastards stumbling into Sanctuary, always a chance that the damn Dark Guide could somehow touch the Places of Light.

So he said nothing. As long as his “uncles” thought he was blind and helpless, he was no use to them. As long as he was no use to them, they had no reason to harm the other people in the Asylum.

Except that they were wizards and fed the Dark currents of the world.

“What would you like to talk about?” Sholeh asked.

Oh, they would get to what he wanted to talk about, but first he needed to get her involved enough to speak without thinking. “Lady’s choice. Do you want to know about places, people, or demons?”

“Demons?”

He could picture her eyes going wide—excited and a little scared. Talking about Guardians and Guides yesterday had been interesting, but they weren’t nearly as interesting as Ephemera’s demon races. At least not to someone who was sheltered by two older sisters.

Sometimes the baby in a family should be allowed to scrape her knees and learn about life directly instead of just watching her sisters.

“Demons it is.” Tap tap. Tap tap. He followed the sound, hoping he was heading away from the buildings and all the potential eyes watching them. “There are the waterhorses. They come from a country called Elandar. They’re beautiful black horses that act as tame as a cosseted pet and are more than willing to let you climb on their backs to take a ride.”

“That doesn’t sound bad.” Pencil scratching on paper.

“Up to that point, it’s not. But their magic binds you to them. Once you mount, you can’t get off until they release you. They’ll take you for a ride—and most of the time that ride ends at the bottom of a pond or a lake or a deep river. Doesn’t bother the waterhorse. He stays down until the rider drowns.”

Scratch scratch. Hesitation. Scratch scratch.

“Then there are the Merry Makers,” Lee continued. “They come from Elandar too. They live in the bogs and have a humanlike body but are not human. They look like they were made from the bog—moss and twigs. They’re strong and they’re deadly. Travelers who get lost in their pieces of Ephemera see the light from lanterns and hear music and think they’ve found some help. What they’ve really found is an invitation to be the Merry Makers’ dinner. Sometimes you can barter for your life, but not often.”

The Magician had crossed paths with the Merry Makers twice and walked away. The first time they let him go because of his music; the second time, they took him to Sebastian because Michael had told them he was seeking Belladonna, that her darkness was his fate.

Michael had been right about that. Her darkness was his fate.

And mine? Lee thought. Wasn’t blindness another way to snuff out light?

The scratching stopped.

“Bull demons,” Lee said. He heard Sholeh gulp, and clenched his teeth to stop the grin. Zhahar met the world through a passionate heart but was practical as well as compassionate. Zeela leaned toward the physical and was, he admitted, a bit scary. But Sholeh’s passion was knowledge, and she sounded so gleeful about having an opportunity to learn, he almost felt bad about tricking her into revealing something about her own people.

“Bull demons,” Sholeh said, her tone a reminder that he’d drifted from the topic.

“We’ve never seen a female, so I can’t tell you what they look like. The males mostly look like large, strong, well-muscled men, but their heads are bovine—like a bull, horns and all. It’s said they eat meat— all kinds of meat—but they consider vegetable omelets a delicacy and barter olives and olive oil for the treat.” He paused. “Now it’s your turn.”

Scratch scratch. “What are olives?”

“Your turn,” he repeated. “Fair exchange, remember?”

Hesitation. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about a race of people from this part of the world.”

“I don’t know about any demons from this part of the world.”

That wasn’t what he’d asked, but he found it interesting that it was what she’d heard. “Then any demon you’ve heard about.”