Belladonna

fog, but a person should be able to cross that distance."
    "Depends on the heart, doesn't it?" Glorianna said cryptically. She set her glass aside and scrubbed her hands over her face.
    "All right. If you're feeling up to it, it would be better to get ahead of the wildest stories. We'll figure out what should be connected and how once we know what we're looking at."
    "Done." Lee stood up and headed out of the room
    "If I'm not here when you get back, don't worry," Glorianna said as he opened the door.
    He shut the door with a control that was worse than a slam. "And where will you be, Glorianna Belladonna?" Lee asked, turning back to face her.
    She narrowed her eyes at him. He just stared back. Michael admired the backbone it took for a man to do that.
    Glorianna looked at Merrill. "Do you have riding horses here?"
    "Y-yes," Merrill stammered. "They're not fancy, but we have some."
    She turned those eyes back on her brother. "The Magician and I are going to ride the perimeter of this landscape and find out what it has and what it lacks."
    He was so surprised by her plans for him that he inhaled the fumes of the last swallow of brandy and coughed until he thought his eyeballs would bounce tight out of his head. Of course, then he got a double whack on the back, which helped neither cough nor eyeballs.
    "If you're done with killing me, then get me some water," he wheezed. He heard someone scrambling. Not either of the two who had been whacking him, but someone with a kinder heart.
    Then Caitlin was kneeling in front of him holding a glass of water.
    "Drink it down now. There's a lad," she said.
    I'm not seven, he thought, feeling surly enough to think it but still having enough sense not to say it. He took the water and drank it down — and got his breath back. "It's settled then," Glorianna said.
    "Now that you've settled things to your satisfaction, kindly satisfy the curiosity of the rest of us," Brighid said.
    Michael, hearing her voice edge toward the cold side of discipline, winced. Glorianna, however, just watched his aunt, as it looking for something no one else could see.
    "I won't know precisely until I ride the perimeter, which, I suspect, will take no more than a day," Glorianna said. "I'm guessing Lighthaven is now an island within an island. The connection between this Place of Light and the rest of the island was already fragile." She nodded at Merrill. "That, I think, was your doing. Your heart tears the world beyond these walls. You wanted Lighthaven to be unreachable, untouchable."
    "And you wonder why?" Merrill asked. She waved a hand toward Brighid and Shaela. "Look what the outside world does."
    "I didn't say you were wrong, Merrill," Glorianna replied. "I'm simply explaining." She waited, then she closed her eyes, as if she needed to shut them all out in order to make a decision. When she opened them, she looked at Brighid. Only Brighid. "The White Isle has been split into two separate landscapes. Maybe more. Until a Bridge comes in and establishes bridges that can connect those landscapes to other places, they stand apart from the rest of the world and each other. In Ephemera's attempt to balance the heart wishes that altered the White Isle, the Dark currents that had been cast out of Lighthaven have now formed a lake that keeps the Light from being touched by the outside world."
    "That isn't right," Brighid said quietly. "The Light should not be hidden away."
    "It should be protected!" Merrill protested.
    "A beacon of hope must be seen, Merrill, or it cannot shine in the dark and warm the hearts that need it most." She focused her attention on Glorianna. "What must we do to touch the world again?"
    "Glorianna?" Lee asked softly.
    She waved a hand in his direction. "Go. Travel lightly." She waited until Lee was gone before leaning back in her chair and looking up at the ceiling, as if she neededa moment to mentally step away from all of them.
    Michael watched her. There were fine lines at the corners of her eyes. Had they been there before now, or had the strain of this journey cut those lines into her skin? Was he partly responsible for those lines? Was Caitlin, with her childish tantrums that created consequences not easily fixed — ifthey could be fixed at all?
    "Is that how it is then?" he asked no one in particular. "People do foolish things, or say things in anger that they would regret in a clear-headed moment, and the world changes?"
    "Opportunities and choices, Magician," Glorianna