Anne Bishop - Belladonna

So he soaked in the hot water and tried not to think about what was to come.

She’d been hesitant at first, almost shy when she brought him to her bedroom last night. It made him wonder how long it had been since she’d had a lover. Then he’d stopped wondering and just enjoyed the way her mouth had opened for him, the butterfly touch of her tongue against his. The feel of her skin beneath his hands. Her moan of pleasure when he’d suckled her breasts. The way her strong fingers had gripped his shoulders the first time he’d stroked her body over the edge of pleasure. And the way…

Michael blew out a breath and sat up in the cooling water.

“Maybe you don’t need to be remembering quite so much right now,” he muttered as he picked up soap and washcloth.

Keeping his mind on the mechanics of what he was doing, he got washed and dressed, and walked into the kitchen. That’s when his heart got the first of what, he knew, would be many bruises.

His pack was still by the door. He’d removed his clothing and personal gear last evening while she’d been putting together a bit of dinner for the two of them. The pack was too big and heavy for a woman to carry for long, but it had everything she would need to set up a camp—sleeping bag, pots and pans, candles, matches, lantern. Plenty of room for her clothing and female things. A camp, that’s what he’d been thinking. And she hadn’t argued with him, hadn’t disagreed.

But she hadn’t taken it with her, had turned away from even that much comfort. Had turned away from even that much of a reminder of him.

The perk pot still held koffee, so he heated that up instead of making the tea he would have preferred.

He didn’t have an appetite, and lost most of his interest in food when he realized she hadn’t taken any of that with her either, but he ate one of the eggs she had hard-boiled yesterday, then took his cup of koffee and a thick slice of bread and butter out with him. He didn’t look at the walled garden, didn’t even consider going in. Not yet. Instead, he went to the new bed that held his heart’s hope and the belladonna.

“Wild child,” he called softly. “Ephemera, can you hear me?”

It heard him, but he sensed a resistance, almost as if it feared what he might ask of it. Did the world know what she intended to do?

“Listen to me, wild child. Don’t let her Light scatter. Find a place for it where it can be cherished and kept safe.”

Ephemera didn’t understand. Not yet.

Door of Locks. Stories and spirits and keys. He’d chosen a lock, based on dreams of a black-haired woman he’d fallen in love with before he’d truly seen her face or heard her voice—or known her heart. But she, as Guide and spirit, had used that key in his heart to open the door and show him a life he couldn’t have imagined. Because he hadn’t known the possibility of being accepted for what he was had existed.

He ate the bread and drank the koffee. He washed the dishes and the perk pot. He repacked his clothes into the big pack, then took them out and put them in the smaller travel pack. A change of clothes, a canteen, and his whistle were all he needed right now. He slipped one of the one-shot bridges Lee had made for him into his coat pocket. The others, wrapped in scraps of cloth and stored in a drawstring pouch, he tucked into the pack.

Give me enough time, Magician, she had said. I couldn’t bear it if someone else was caught when I altered the landscapes.

He waited while the minutes crawled by. When the sun had risen high enough that he could be reasonably sure that the folks in Aurora would be up and about, once he actually got there, he picked up the travel pack and left the house.

As he followed the path that would lead him to the river, he slipped his hand in his pocket, wrapped his fingers around the one-shot bridge—and crossed over to the Den of Iniquity.

An abandoned garden. A small plot of ground compared to what she had ended up creating on the Island in the Mist, but it had been hers once, and there was just enough of her resonance left for her to take the step between here and there, to cross over to this enclosed piece of ground.

Safety first. It would all be for nothing if the Eater’s creatures killed her before she finished her task. Afterward…Maybe it would be a blessing afterward.

Sixteen years ago, the Dark Guides had tried to seal her in by poisoning her mind. If they had succeeded, she would have altered the landscapes to create a smothering cage, and never would have realized she had been the instrument they had used to destroy her, never would have realized it was her power and not theirs that had chained her to a barren existence.

Now she was going to do what the Dark Guides had failed to do. Now she was going to do much more than they had intended to do.

Much more.

“Ephemera,” Glorianna Belladonna said softly, “hear me.”

The Eater of the World, in the form of an elegantly dressed, middle-aged gentleman, stepped onto the rust-colored sand that spilled out of the back of a smelly alley. Its mouth fell open in astonishment. Its eyes widened in shock.

A dissonance in Its landscapes! New, strange flavors of Dark—and delicious ripples of Light that winked out. Then It felt Ephemera manifest a will, obey a heart. It felt the ripples of that command in the currents of power that flowed through the world. Then It felt…

It looked down at the sand beneath Its feet. “No,” It whispered. “The bonelovers are mine. That landscape is mine .”

But some sly, dark heart had slipped into Its landscapes and stolen the bonelovers’ landscape by altering the resonance just enough to shut It out. Something had shut It out of a landscape It had made.

Thief!

It staggered back a step, braced a hand against a dirty wall.

She walks in the gardens, a voice, harsh yet oddly melodious, whispered through the currents of the world. She walks in the gardens, stealing all your work, all your creations. All your puny little creations. Boo, hoo. Boo, hoo. Poor little Eater, not brave enough to do anything but hide. She already controls the Light. Where will you go, little Eater, when she rules the Dark?

Ragged breaths as the body trembled. Fear and rage as It considered the message in those whispers.

The True Enemy had come to the Landscapers’ School. Was in the Landscapers’ School, taking Its dark landscapes and making them her own.

Not fair! Not fair!

Coward, the voice whispered. Even the Dark Guides have come to play.

It wasn’t a coward. It wasn’t afraid. It was the Eater of the World. It was feared . Even the world feared It.

Laughter whispered through the currents of the world. Cruel, mocking laughter.

We’re connected with the world again, another voice whispered through the currents. We’re connected to the school!

It remembered that voice. Harland. The head of the Wizards’ Council. The leader of the Dark Guides.

Our own magic wasn’t enough to seal her in, Harland’s voice whispered. And we didn’t know the bitch could use Heart’s Justice the way she did. But we canuse the creatures the Eater has at the school. Use them up to wear her down. And then…DESTROY HER!

Laughter whispered through the currents of the world. Cruel, mocking laughter.

Were there ripples of fear beneath that laughter?

She wasn’t as strong as she wanted them all to believe. Had never been as strong as she wanted them to believe. She was on Its ground, where It had slaughtered so many of her kind.

It would have her. In the end, It would have her. Its creatures would attack her body. The Dark Guides would attack her mind. The Light inside her would beckon all the dark things.