Belladonna

dream lover.
    He looked at the two men he considered friends and felt as if he'd finally removed a mask he'd hidden behind all his life. "I'm going to see what happens to evil when a Magician does some ill-wishing." Turning away from Nathan and Kenneday, he walked to the edge of the spur.
    Light surrounded by a net of Dark currents. It knew the resonance of this heart, had felt the bedrock of it in the foggy village and the seaport. This was the resonance that was connected to the Landscaper in this village.
    Smash it! Destroy it! Once this heart was gone, there would be no bedrock. There would be nothing to protect the people who lived in this place. It would snuff out the Light in each heart, and this place would change, would fester, and the people would curse and wail at a world turned harsh and bitter and dark, never admitting that their own hearts had shaped the world they had to live in.
    But first, It would drag this male down into one of Its watery landscapes. And there It would feast.
    As It rose toward the surface, It changed into the monster men of the sea most feared.
    Michael felt his heart stop beating for a moment as tentacles rose out of the sea. This was the nightmare that destroyed ships and left dead men to haunt the sea.
    He could feel the song of its darkness, could almost find the rhythm that matched the seductive lure of it.
    No! He didn't want to find the rhythm of it. This thing had taken his sister, had used bad-hearted boys to hurt his aunt. This thing was going to dance to his tune.
    And what tune do you know that is dark enough? a mocking voice whispered to his heart.
    He didn't have an answer, and he faltered.
    The tentacles, which were flailing around him like whips lashing the air, came closer.
    No, Michael thought. No! But he suddenly realized the question hadn't been idle. The Destroyer knew something he didn't know, and his survival depended on that something. Which was why the thing was certain it would win.
    The ground beneath his feet became soft, fluid. A wind that didn't touch his skin blew through him. The harbor faded, the sounds of men shouting or crying out in fear faded.
    And what tune do you know that is dark enough?
    The question echoed in his mind.
    If I am condemned to a dark place, it will be a place of my own choosing, Michael thought with all the conviction he could summon.
    What place? the mocking voice whispered. I am the Eater of the World. I am the Destroyer of Light. There is no place you can go where I cannot follow.
    Despair filled him. He felt himself being lifted. Knew that his fate was about to be sealed.
    The world was in motion. He felt things that had no language but music. And then, as he felt himself plunging toward water, he heard another song — and had an answer.
    Once more, he filled his mind with the image of the black-haired woman of his dreams.
    Her darkness is my fate. Her heart is my world. Then is nothing else, nothing else, nothing. And when I stand within her heart, she and I will destroy you.

    The thing screamed in rage and fear. The world tore apart, pulling Michael and the Destroyer in separate directions.
    Michael fell — deaf, blind, helpless to do anything but cling to the image of a face ... and a riddle.
    Her darkness is my fate. Heart's hope lies within belladonna.
    Falling. Falling.
    Suddenly the world returned. Sound. Sight. He had one moment to see the land around him before he hit the water.
    And when the water closed over his head, there was only darkness.

Chapter Twelve
    G lorianna dashed from one section of her garden to the next. Looking. Searching. Listening with her heart and not understanding the messages coming through Ephemera's currents of power.
    This felt like Heart's Justice, and yet it didn't quite feel like someone had been swept away in the currents of the world to end up in the landscape that most reflected that person's heart. This felt like someone crossing over a bridge from one landscape to another, but normally she wouldn't have felt the resonance of a crossing because someone who truly didn't belong in her landscapes shouldn't be able to reach them. That was disturbing enough, but ...
    "Glorianna!" Lee caught up to her. "Glorianna?"
    "Someone — or something — tried to bring the Eater of the World into my landscapes," Glorianna said, staring at the part of the garden that held the access points to her dark landscapes.
    "What?" Lee skipped back a step, as if he expected the Eater to burst out of