Anne Bishop: Sebastian

Philo and Teaser wouldn’t look at him. When he glanced at the crowd, none of them would look at him.

Finally Teaser asked softly, “Are we being punished, Sebastian?”

“How should I…” But he did know. Looking at the naked fear in Teaser’s eyes, he did know. He shook his head. “She wouldn’t do this. Belladonna wouldn’t bring something like this into a landscape.”

At the edge of the crowd, Mr. Finch made distressed chirpy noises.

Philo wrung his hands. “If we have done something to anger the Landscaper—”

“She wouldn’t do this!” Sebastian snapped.

Silence. Then Philo said, “Someone did.”

Keeping his eyes focused on the table, Sebastian sipped his whiskey, feeling the tug of conflicting loyalties. The Den was his home. He’d spent the past fifteen years living among these people. But every good thing that had happened in his childhood had come from Glorianna, Lee, and their mother, Nadia. Every happy memory from the years before he escaped his father for the last time had a connection to at least one of them.

And the year the wizards, those self-righteous pillars of law and justice, had tried to destroy the Den…

Six years after the Den was created, the wizards came with a Level Seven Landscaper whom they had convinced somehow to take over control of the Den and “balance” the landscape.

Sebastian stood on one side of the main street with Philo, Teaser, and Mr. Finch, watching the Landscaper take a position between the line of wizards and the line of residents, her hands slightly lifted, her head tilted back, her eyes closed. Then he stared at the wizards, at one in particular who finally met his bitter stare with eyes filled with hatred.

Demons were a blight on the world. Demons were a threat to humans. Demons had no place in Ephemera, and creating a haven for such vileness…The wizards hadn’t been able to prevent the Den’s creation, but now they were determined to put an end to it.

They could have done it anywhere. They could have picked a quiet place on the outskirts of the Den, wouldn’t have needed to go more than a few steps beyond the bridge they’d used to cross over into the landscape. It would have made no difference in terms of what the Landscaper could do. Instead, they marched into the Den’s main street, taunting the humans and demons who had gathered with the knowledge that their place in the world was going to be splintered beyond recognition. The changes were already in motion, and not even killing the Landscaper would have stopped what was to come.

Finally, when he felt something swirl around his heart and knew the Landscaper was tapping into the heart’s core of every creature that made a home in the Den, he looked away from the wizards and the woman and focused on the colored lights and the buildings and the small islands of dwarf trees and night flowers that could gather sustenance from the cold light of the moon instead of the sun’s warm glow. He wanted to remember the Den as it was in this moment—because when the wizards and Landscaper were finished, there was no telling what he and the others might be able to salvage.

The swirl faded. Everyone was silent.

Then the Landscaper, one of the most powerful of her kind, rubbed her arms as if chilled and took a hesitant step away from the wizards as she looked around. As they all looked around.

Nothing had changed.

“This landscape already has a signature resonance,” the Landscaper whispered. “A very powerful signature resonance. I’m…not welcome here anymore.”

“Stupid bitch,” Teaser whispered. “Did she really think she was welcome before?”

Sebastian just watched the woman, who looked more and more uneasy with each passing moment.

“Who controls this landscape?” the Landscaper asked.

The wizards didn’t answer her, so he did. “The Den belongs to Belladonna.”

She whirled around to face the wizards. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“It wasn’t significant,” one of the wizards replied.

“Are you mad?” she screamed. “No one touches one of Belladonna’s landscapes. No one!” Her voice broke on a sob.

Pity stirred in Sebastian. The Landscaper looked like a terrified child who suddenly realized all the bad things she feared were lurking in the dark spaces truly existed.

The wizards shifted uncomfortably. “Since there is nothing more to be done here, we will go,” one of them said.

“Where am I supposed to go?” she wailed. “There’s no safe place to go.”

The wizards stared at her in disgust. Then they walked away—and never looked back.

The Landscaper crumpled in the street.

Philo lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “Perhaps—”

“Daylight,” Teaser muttered, looking up the street.

Looking in the same direction, Sebastian felt his heart jump.

She stood beneath one of the pole-lights, staring at the Landscaper. He walked forward to meet her, once again startled by the fact that this slim, lovely woman with green eyes so like his own and a river of silky black hair could do things to their world that terrified even the fiercest demons.

“Glorianna,” he said softly when he stood before her.

“Sebastian.” Her voice still held a hint of the country lilt that had enchanted him the first time he’d met her.

“I don’t think the Landscaper truly meant us harm.” He studied her eyes, looking for the fiery compassion he knew burned within her—and found only ice. “Judge her with your heart.”

“It is not my heart that will judge her, Sebastian,” Glorianna replied. “It is her own.” She swung around him and walked toward the Landscaper.

He caught up to her, walking close enough to make it clear he was with her, whatever she chose to do, and still keeping enough distance so that she knew he wouldn’t interfere.

They stopped a few paces away from the Landscaper, who made no move to get to her feet and face them as an equal. She just looked up at them, knowing no plea she made would change anything.

No one around them spoke. No one so much as shifted a foot while Glorianna and the Landscaper stared at each other.

Finally, Glorianna said, “Go back to your landscapes.”

The Landscaper scrambled to her feet, wobbled as she took a few steps away from them, then turned and ran in the same direction the wizards had taken.

Sebastian looked at Glorianna. The sadness in her eyes was so unexpected it made him ache. He knew she’d been cast out of the school, had been declared a rogue Landscaper. Lee had told him that much, but not why. Never why.

He sidestepped, bringing him close enough to nudge her with his elbow. “Come on. I’ll treat you to Philo’s specialties—Stuffed Tits and Phallic Delights.”

No sadness now. Just shock swiftly changing to the suspicious look she used to give him and Lee when they’d try to convince her that something preposterous could really be true. Of course, they’d all been young enough then not to understand that nothing was preposterous in Ephemera. Especially for Glorianna.

“Stuffed Tits and Phallic Delights,” she said. “And what might those be?”

He gave her a wicked grin. “Come with me and see for yourself.”

So they went to Philo’s, and when the plates were set before her, her laughter rang through the courtyard—and for a few hours, while they drank wine and ate the various offerings Philo placed before them, he saw her as the bright-eyed girl he remembered and not whatever being an outcast and a rogue was shaping her into.