Belladonna

eyes.
    Kenneday jerked as if hit. "I've never known you to refuse to play a bit of music. What's troubling you? That your lady friend recognized that dark water and you didn't?"
    "I don't feel like playing," Michael snapped — and then flinched. What damage had he done in that moment?
    "More to the point, you don't want to feel at all," Glorianna said, joining them.
    "Leave me be," Michael warned. Those green eyes of hers saw too much. That heart of hers understood too much — and not enough.
    "To do what?" she asked. "Close yourself off? Refuse to be what you are? You can't hide from your feelings, Magician. You can't hide from your own heart."
    He surged to his feet, aware that the sailors near them had stopped their work, and that Kenneday was watching and listening.
    But the feelings bubbled over. "This morning we brushed the edge of a place dark enough to make you faint. A place made by ordinary people, if I understood what you were saying." He waved a hand to indicate the men on the ship. "For days now, you've been telling me I can do more to the world than the people around me. So how can I dare feel anything when so many people's lives hang in the balance of a mood? Happiness is safe enough, I suppose, but no one stays happy all the time. People call me an ill-wisher, but I've no desire to be the unintentional cause of misery." And how would he ever know how much misery he had caused — or if he had unknowingly created dark places in the world?
    "You are the balance, the bedrock, the sieve that protects Ephemera from all the wind wishes and surface feelings that flow through the hearts of all the people who live in your landscapes."
    "What about my heart, my feelings?" Michael asked raising his voice close to a shout. "What happens when I want to piss and moan about something?"
    Glorianna put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "You tell the world you have emotional gas and it should ignore you when you fart!"
    There was no sound except the wind in the sails and the ship slicing through the water.
    Then someone farted, a little poot that broke the silence.
    One sailor choked on a snort of laughter, which made another man sputter, which made another laugh out loud, and suddenly all the men around them were guffawing while Michael faced a woman who looked ready to tie him to an anchor and throw him overboard
    He opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to say but sure he had better say something. Before he had the chance, Glorianna turned on her heel and walked away.
    Scowling, Michael went to the rail, wanting no comments, no discussion, no company.
    "I've heard there's an art to groveling," Lee said.
    Figures that one would ignore the emotional "no trespassing" signs, Michael thought sourly. "I'm not groveling."
    Lee, the ripe bastard, laughed.
    Michael tucked his whistle inside his coat. "Maybe I'm groveling."
    "There's no maybe about it," Lee said cheerfully. "You make her nervous, so she's going to find you more annoying than most people."
    "I can't seem to keep my balance these days, Michael said softly. "I sound like a fool half the time and act like a fool the other half."
    "Not as bad as that," Lee replied, smiling. "Nothing has changed, Michael."
    "Everything has changed."
    "Yes. Exactly." Lee braced his hands on the rail. "You're beginning to understand the world, Magician."
    "Maybe." Michael waited a beat, then added, "I'm not groveling."
    Lee's smiled widened. "Suit yourself."
    The man could he more helpful, Michael grumbled to himself as he made his way to the bow, where Glorianna was doing a fine imitation of a merciless figurehead. After all, it's not like I can pick a few flowers and try to charm her out of her mood.
    He stopped suddenly, remembering another man trying to charm an unhappy woman by giving her a bouquet of wildflowers.
    He'd loved the man. Still did when the images came back to him so painfully clear. And he'd loved the woman, despite her pain and rages.
    "Nothing has changed, Michael."
    "Everything has changed."
    Feeling breathless, with his heart pounding, he joined Glorianna at the bow of the ship.
    "I'd like to tell you a story," he said quietly. "Will you listen?"
    Did she know how vulnerable he was at this moment? Could she understand what it meant that he was about to hand over the whole of his life to her judgment?

    "I'll listen," she replied just as quietly.
    Knowing he couldn't say the words if he was looking at her, he fixed his eyes on the sea. "My father