Anne Bishop - Sebastian

“Find what?” he snapped. “You want to spread a rumor that a myth—”

“That wall wasn’t created to contain a myth, Bridge,” she snapped back.

He seemed thoughtful, willing to bend to the idea that the horror that had caused the first Landscapers to break the world into pieces was once more free to unfurl Its full power and turn Ephemera into a nightmarish hunting ground. Then he shook his head, and his face firmed into stubborn lines. “There’s enough uneasiness because of the incidents without—”

“What incidents? When did they start?”

“Three weeks ago, right after Lukene disappeared.”

Glorianna stared at him. “Lukene disappeared three weeks ago and no one checked the wall?”

But he was staring back at her, as if finally seeing her. “Where’s your badge, Landscaper? You’re supposed to wear your badge when you visit the school.”

A stab of shame, the scrape of old memories, must have shown in her eyes.

“You’re—”

She raised her hand in a sharp move to silence him. It wasn’t safe to have anyone speak her name. Not here. Not now. “It doesn’t matter who I am. Warn the Landscapers, Bridge, before it’s too late.”

“And tell them what?”

“That the Eater of the World is hunting in Ephemera.”

Something rippled under the land. Something dark and predatory.

Did It have a lair at the school? It wouldn’t want to keep Its pieces of the world in that old garden. Too much possibility that the Landscapers might be able to reestablish the boundaries, repair the wall, and trap It again. But because of Ephemera’s nature, this was the only place that would give It access to all of the landscapes.

At least, all of the landscapes that were anchored in the gardens at the school.

The man facing her looked feverish. Ill. Ugly emotions swam in his eyes—and weren’t quite banished by his true nature.

“Get away from this path, away from that garden,” she said, her voice low and urgent. “Warn the Landscapers.”

Another dark ripple. Closer this time.

She had to get away from here. Now!

Turning, she strode away from the archway, ignoring the shouts of the Bridge, who, for his own reasons, didn’t follow her.

At least, she hoped they were still his own reasons.

Guardians and Guides, let the Bridge turn away from that garden and give the Landscapers her warning. Not that they’d believe a warning that came from Belladonna. She was a rogue, a “threat” to maintaining the landscapes that made up Ephemera.

She wouldn’t be surprised if they decided she was the cause of the “incidents.” After all, an embittered Landscaper who had, somehow, escaped the wizards’ justice would want to cause mischief and harm to those who could achieve what she had not—status among her own kind and an acknowledged place in the world.

They had condemned her because she had made a patchwork out of some of the dark places in the world and shaped them around the Den of Iniquity.

Did any of them realize she had also made a patchwork of the most powerful places of Light? Did any of them know she was the Landscaper whose power resonated through Sanctuary?

She came to the circle of sand-colored bricks and walked toward the sundial at the center of the circle.

The Landscapers and wizards had wondered all these years how she had escaped from a magically sealed garden. This was part of the answer.

Students were taught that their walled gardens were their anchor points to the school. Every connection they established with one of Ephemera’s landscapes was anchored within their individual gardens, so they could return to the school from any of those places without needing a bridge to cross over.

The walled gardens were the Landscapers’ anchors to the school. Students never questioned that teaching. Neither did the Instructors, since all of them had been students here as well.

Having another anchor point between her garden and the classrooms had seemed a practical way to give herself a little more time to work without having to run all the way back to the school building to be on time for her classes. She’d chosen the sundial as the second anchor point simply because she liked the look of it, the warmth of its stone. And because it was a daily reminder that Dark and Light were together in an eternal dance, and where there was one, the other also dwelled.

That day, fifteen years ago, when she’d discovered a solid stone wall where her garden’s gate should have been, she’d assumed it was another part of the “test.” She might have spent weeks without realizing the meaning of that solid wall if the Instructors had given her all of her books when they’d closed her in for the “test.” So she’d crossed the boundary between here and there, stepping from her garden to the sundial in the space of a heartbeat.

But she hadn’t gone back to her room at the student lodgings. Instead she’d walked back to her garden to look at the gate from the outside in order to figure out why it had become solid stone so she could change it back and pass that part of her “test.”

That was when she’d found the wizards’ seal on the wrought-iron gate and realized the solid stone existed only for someone inside the garden. That was when her trust in those who were supposed to be wise enough to make decisions about other people’s lives turned to ash swept away by the sharp winds of anger and hurt…and fear.

She lost her innocence that day, and in losing it, began the next stage of the life journey that would make her as dangerous as the wizards and Instructors had feared.

Glorianna shook her head. This wasn’t the time or place for dark memories, especially if the Eater of the World was hiding somewhere in the gardens. It would be drawn to the resonance dark memories produced in the heart, and she wasn’t ready to fight It. Didn’t know if she could fight It.

She brushed her fingers over the sundial as she walked past it, keeping her mind focused on where she needed to be. In that moment, between one step and the next, the ground beneath her changed from sand-colored bricks to an overgrown path in the abandoned garden.

A pang of sorrow pierced her, making her stop and look around.

The garden should have been lovely, should have been tended and nurtured. It should have been hers.

You’ve no time for this. Get what you came for and be gone.

Clenching her hands to resist the temptation to free some of the flowers that were still struggling to grow despite the smothering tangle of weeds, she walked to the center where the small fountain, the garden’s focal point, still burbled, spilling fresh water over the stones into the surrounding pool.

She’d run home the day she’d discovered the seal. Had rushed back to this garden just long enough to cross over to the landscape that was her mother’s domain—a place where she safely could weep out the hurt and bitterness.

“You must find another place to anchor your landscapes, daughter. You must build another garden in a place that can’t be reached by your enemies.”

“There isn’t such a place!”

“There is. If you want it to exist, there will be such a place. Break your ties to the school, and I will teach you all that I can.”

“I’m a rogue now, Mother. If you help me…”

She looked into her mother’s eyes, stunned by the anger she saw in them.

“You’re going to break your ties to your garden at the school. Aren’t you?” she said.

“Sending you to the school was a necessary risk, just as your grandmother took that risk when it was my time to go for the formal training. Now there’s another risk, one too great for me to take chances. So, yes, I will break my ties to that garden. But I promise you, Glorianna, I will not lose anything I do not choose to release.”