Belladonna

slightly to settle Glorianna more firmly against him. "Just cry it out. You'll feel better for it."
    I have lived on that battleground my whole life.
    What must it be like to grow up in such a place, where you and everyone you loved was dependent on the caprice of the world? But it wasn't the world, was it? It was the heart that made things, changed things.
    "I've got you, darling," he murmured as one hand moved over her back in comforting circles. "We'll learn from each other, Glorianna Belladonna, and we'll find a way to do right by the world." And you don't have to be alone now.
    He felt her body tighten, felt her pushing against his chest in order to step away, get away, escape from the knowledge that she had shown a man she barely knew emotions she had kept hidden from her family.
    "I have to wash my face," she said, sniffling. "I can't go to a landscape looking like this."
    He let her go, watched her run to the house. Even with her brother here, she wouldn't leave without them. He didn't think she would leave anyone, even kin, alone on this island. Not when that walled garden held the lives of so many.
    "I've never heard her cry like that," Lee said, coming up beside him. "I don't think she has cried like that."
    "She's cried like that before," Michael said quietly. "But I'm thinking it's the first time she's let anyone witness the tears."
    "Maybe." Lee stared at Michael, and the bewilderment of dealing with Glorianna's tears gave way to a steely resolve. "She's not like the other Landscapers. She's more, and she was declared rogue because of it. Even now, with the world crashing down around us, the other Landscapers who survived won't acknowledge her."
    "And you're saying that if Caitlin and I learn from Glorianna, we'll be tarred with the same brush?"
    "That's what I'm saying."
    Michael looked at Caitlin, who was hovering nearby, and thought about a young girl shunned by the other children, a young girl who had found something far more wondrous than she knew when she had discovered Darling's Garden. And he thought about himself and his desire to hear the music in one woman's heart rather than experience the bodies of many.
    "Well, then," he said. "Since I've never enjoyed dealing with fools, it's lucky for me that I met up with you first," He hesitated, remembering what Nathan had told him just before that monster rose from the sea. "Lee, if it can be done, I'm thinking it would be better to go to Raven's Hill first. I'd like to check on my aunt, who was injured in a fire, and see the cottage to find out if anything remains." Like a box of books that might provide some answers.
    "Does your village have a beach?"
    "Aye. Nothing grand, mind you, but enough of one for those who want to wade in the sea or look for shells."
    Lee nodded and looked at Caitlin. "Then I think we have a way to get to your village."

Chapter Nineteen
    F or the second time in an hour, Glorianna stepped off Lee's island. But this time she stood on a beach that wasn't hers in a place that wasn't anywhere she knew. Not a comfortable place. Not a landscape that held a companionable resonance like she felt when she visited one of her mother's landscapes. She couldn't have reached this village by crossing a bridge. Her heart wouldn't have recognized this place.
    Which made no sense since this was Caitlin's home landscape, and the girl's resonance fit in just fine with hers and Nadia's.
    Caitlin doesn't belong here either, Glorianna thought as the currents of power lapped around her like the waves lapped the beach. She's a dissonance and ... someone else is the bedrock. Someone's heart anchors Raven's Hill against the influence of a Landscaper.
    She felt Caitlin come up beside her, heard Michael and Lee step off the island, but didn't turn her head to look at any of them.
    How did one explain the delicate and courageous act of relinquishing a landscape to someone who hadn't known there were landscapes until a few days ago? And it would have to be done with care since the Eater of the World already had some hold on this village.
    Guardians of the Light and Guides of the Heart, show me the right path for what needs to he done.
    The currents of power shifted around her, flowed through her, set things — Wait!
    — in motion.
    Glorianna stood frozen, scarcely daring to breathe. She had been offering up that small prayer since she was a little girl. She had never been answered like this. Not like this. She had been thinking about Caitlin, but