Anne Bishop - Belladonna

The music rang in the air, calling him.

He ran, knowing exactly where to look, with Yoshani right behind him.

Had it been there all these months, waiting for him to find it? He hadn’t heard a single note of this when he was in the walled garden. Hadn’t suspected it was here.

He skidded to a stop in front of a bed near the house. His heart’s hope plant looked brittle. Dead. But there was one little patch of new, green leaves. And one tiny bud struggling to bloom.

Beside his little plant was a glory of Light. A heart’s hope bigger than any he’d seen and covered with buds.

“Michael?” Yoshani asked, looking at him, then at the bed, then back again.

He pointed to the heart’s hope. “Her Light.”

Yoshani frowned. “Nadia, Lynnea, and Caitlin have all been here to tend the gardens and do the mundane work. Lee was here to make the bridge. Even Sebastian has been here. They said nothing.”

“They don’t know,” he said softly, as stories and memories and all the things Glorianna had told him about the connection of Dark and Light spun through his mind.

My heart’s hope lies with Belladonna. Her darkness is my fate.

The key had been inside him all the time. Had he realized the answer too late, or would he be able to open that locked door?

“Forgive my doubt, Michael, but how do you know?”

He gave Yoshani a brilliant smile. “I can hear the music of her heart.”

The sand in the box Glorianna had referred to as a playground didn’t change. Hadn’t changed in the handful of days since this idea had taken root. He hadn’t been rewarded with a pebble or a weed or even a tiny patch of bog. Nothing. He had hoped that music could be a bridge between landscapes, could touch what, otherwise, couldn’t be reached. But there had been no indication, not the slightest, that his music was reaching the woman he played for.

Discouraged, he tucked the whistle in his pocket, then let his hands fall into his lap.

“I don’t know, wild child,” he said. “Maybe I left it too late, didn’t figure things out fast enough.” It had occurred to him, while he was doing the washing up after dinner last night, that time was a factor. Every day Glorianna Belladonna remained a heart divided was another day she would change a little more, become someone different from the woman he’d known—and the song he remembered would no longer be the song that matched the whole of her heart. Months had already gone by since she’d taken the Eater and Its landscapes out of the world. Who was she now? Did she remember anything about her family, about him?

He’d played the music that was Glorianna Belladonna. And he’d played the music that was Michael the Magician, hoping the memory of being with him would stir something in the currents of the world.

The only thing it had stirred up was his longing for her.

As he sat there, staring at the unchanging sand in the box, his mind drifted, and an image from a story floated up to the surface of memory.

A door with a hundred locks. A key that came from the heart.

His breath caught. He sat up straight, his blood pounding in his veins.

“One lock this time,” he whispered. “And only one key that will open it.” Then he felt a stab of sorrow so fierce that he bent over, pressing his forehead to his knees to try to ease the pain of it.

Only one would open that lock. And he wasn’t the right key.

“Well, look who’s here.”

It wasn’t the warmest welcome, Michael thought as he stepped into Philo’s courtyard, but at least Teaser wasn’t hurling threats at him—or stones.

“Michael!” Lynnea hurried over. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen you. Where have you been? Have you eaten? You haven’t eaten, have you? Sit down right there, and I’ll bring you something. Teaser, you keep him company.”

“You don’t have to be fussing over me,” Michael protested. “I just…Is Sebastian around?”

“You’re nothing but skin and bones,” Lynnea said.

A little worse for wear, maybe, but hardly skin and bones.

“You will sit, and you will eat.”

She suddenly sounded like a younger version of his aunt Brighid, which scared him enough to make him keep quiet and pull out a chair at a table. When she swung into the building to place his order, he looked at Teaser, who shrugged.

“She’s practicing to be a mommy,” Teaser said, dropping into the opposite chair.

“She’s pregnant?” That would be good news for the family, wouldn’t it?

“They’re working on getting her that way.”

Michael scratched his chin. “They weren’t working on it before?” He couldn’t picture Sebastian abstaining from sex.

“Nah,” Teaser said. “Before, if it happened, it would have been an accident. Now it’s deliberate. Don’t ask me what the difference is. I’m just an incubus, and from where I’m standing, it looks the same to me.”

He smiled, finding comfort in the ordinary. And he could admit to himself that that was the reason he’d avoided the Den over these past few months—he hadn’t felt he deserved the comfort he’d found in this landscape, with these people.

Then he heard the song, before he turned his head and saw the man. A dark song, full of power, threaded with Light.

“Word has it that you’ve settled into the house on the Island in the Mist,” Sebastian said as he joined them.

“I have, yes.”

Lynnea came back and set a plate in front of him piled with roast beef, potatoes, and some kind of casserole. She placed a bowl of melted cheese and a basket of Phallic Delights between Sebastian and Teaser.

“The man isn’t taking care of himself,” she said, glaring at Sebastian. “Don’t let him leave the table until he eats.”

“What’s he supposed to do?” Teaser asked, reaching for a Phallic Delight. “Give Michael a bit of a sizzle?”

Lynnea whacked the incubus on the shoulder and huffed off to a table full of visitors, who cowered at her approach.

“She tangled with Lee over something this morning and has been a bit pissy ever since,” Sebastian said, swirling a Delight in the melted cheese.

“Over me, is what you’re not saying.” Michael started to push the plate of food away, then glanced up and saw Lynnea glaring at him, so he picked up a fork and stabbed a piece of potato.

“Good choice,” Sebastian said. “Anyone who tangles with her today is on his own.”

The first few bites didn’t go down easily, but as he listened to Teaser and Sebastian talking about the Den, he began to relax and enjoy the meal.

Lynnea returned, declared herself satisfied that he’d eaten enough, and removed the dishes.

“Well,” Teaser said, looking from him to Sebastian. “I’ll just take myself off and do…something.”

When they were alone, Michael could feel those sharp green eyes staring at him, so he lifted his head and met Sebastian, look for look.

“Threat and promise is what you called me,” Michael said quietly. “I made good on the threat by helping Glorianna cage the Eater of the World—and cage herself in the process. Now I’m asking for your help, Justice Maker, in order to make good on the promise.”

“In clear words, Magician,” Sebastian said.

“I think there’s a way to get her back. And I think you’re the key to doing it.”

Sebastian stared at him for a long time. Then, softly, “What do you want me to do?”

“It might not work,” Michael said as he and Sebastian walked over to the sandbox.

“You said that.”

“I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

“You said that too.”

“I just don’t want you to hope for too much.”