Belladonna

she waited by the stairs and watched Michael talk to Shaney and Maeve. No, not lovers. Not even friends. But there had been something between them.
    The party was breaking up. Families were gathering up their children and going home. No more music, no more laughter. Not tonight.
    It's time.
    He came toward her, his face tight with grim sorrow — and resignation. She'd seen that look on her mother's face. Had seen it in a mirror often enough over the years.
    Landscaper, Guide, Guardian, Magician, Shaman, Heart-walker, Heart Seer, Spirit. What difference did the name make? The feeling was the same. Sometimes you opened a door, revealed a path, provided that moment of opportunity and choice — and that choice, despite all its promise, turned bitter, turned tragic. Turned to sorrow.
    "Michael?"
    He shook his head, cupped his hand under her elbow, and guided her up the stairs. When they reached the door of his room, he stopped. "We need to talk."
    "About Doreen."
    "Not so much."
    He opened the door, then stepped aside, letting her enter first. When he came in, he locked the door. The sound scraped her nerves.
    "I think that monster is back in Kendall," Michael said. "The letter ... It was a hard death, Glorianna. Doreen wasn't a kind person, but no one deserves that kind of death."
    She turned to face him. "What does that have to do with you?"
    "Shaney emptied the till, bought her passage to Kendall." He hesitated. "Being a Magician ... It's not talked about, you understand. It needs to be talked about. I've learned that much from you and your mother — and from seeing the people in Darling's Harbor. Anyway, she tried to cause trouble for me after I left here because I wouldn't ..." He glanced at the bed. "She didn't belong here. Didn't fit the music of Foggy Downs anymore."
    "So she used a dark way of achieving her goal of leaving this landscape, and that attracted more darkness." Glorianna sighed, then sat in the chair, "And her choices in that time and place put her in the path of the Eater of the World."
    "Kendall is a seaport. Ships come in from all over the world. It could slip aboard a ship and end up in some part of the world I've barely heard of and you never have. And if It does that, It will keep killing, keep tormenting."
    "Yes," she replied, keeping her eyes on his. "That is Its nature."
    He swallowed hard. Seemed to brace for a blow. She could feel his heart crying out in pain.
    "I need your word, Glorianna Belladonna," hesaid softly. "I need a promise that will not be broken."
    "I don't give my word if I can't keep it," she said just as softly.
    "I need your word that you won't leave without me, I need your promise that when you go, you'll tell me where you're going.
    Exactly where you're going."
    "And if I don't promise?"
    "Then I'll bid you good night."
    "And what is left unsaid will remain unsaid?"
    Another hard swallow. "Yes."
    He meant it.
    She felt the currents of power flow through the room, flow through her. Felt them brush against her skin.
    When she had performed Heart's Justice to take the Dark Guides away from the Eater of the World, she had depended on Lynnea's love and courage to hold Sebastian's heart and keep him safe. She had come to that same moment, here and now, with the Magician.
    Opportunities and choices. She could turn away, keep her own landscapes safe, and try to build a life with a man she suspected she could truly love — even though they would always wonder what their life together had cost another part of the world. Or she could have the courage to accept the key Michael held inside himself and open a door that would take her to the next stage of her journey.
    "I give you my word," she said.

    He crossed the room, knelt in front of the chair, and took her hands in his.
    "In that case, I need to tell you the story about the Warrior of Light."

Chapter Twenty-eight
    G lorianna walked the paths inside her walled garden on the Island in the Mist, wandering without destination. Despite being out there in the cold hours of the night, the lantern she carried remained unlit, the matches in her coat pocket untouched. She didn't need those things when she walked these paths.
    I want to go home. I need to go home.
    After he'd told her the story about the Warrior of Light, Michael hadn't questioned her need to return to her island, hadn't argued about the lateness of the hour. She didn't know what explanation he had given to Shaney and the others. And she didn't know what any of them