Sebastian

that provided some stability in their ever-changing world. There had been others like her in the past, and the wizards had done their duty for the good of Ephemera and had sealed those perversions within their gardens, leaving them just enough access to the landscapes that they would be able to find food, clothing, and shelter but creating boundaries around those patches of Ephemera that couldn't be breached.
    What the wizards did when the perversion of magic surfaced in a student Landscaper was no different from what the first Landscapes had done to contain… contain…
    Vile creature. Vile, vile creature. The only perversion who had managed to escape the Justice Makers.
    He hawked and spit.
    Then he stared at the gob of phlegm on the flagstone, feeling queasy, feeling as if he'd just spit out something poisonous. Which was foolish. He was just feeling contaminated by having touched her , having spoken to her .
    But Lukene had believed the Instructors and wizards had made a serious mistake in how they had dealt with the girl. That they had judged without knowledge—and by doing so, had destroyed any chance of learning why a fifteen-year-old girl would create something like the Den of Iniquity.
    Fifteen years later, they still didn't know why. And they still didn't know how she had done it.
    The wall has been breached.
    Ridiculous. That wall would stand forever. Had to stand forever.
    Warn the Landscapers, Bridge.
    She was probably behind the incidents—the unexplained alterations in some of the students' gardens; the girl who woke up screaming each morning because, she said, there were spiderwebs all over her skin, and when her skin was completely covered, the spiders would burrow under her skin and eat her alive; the two boys who had tried to create a bridge to some dark street in a nearby town in order to have a tankard of ale and had, somehow, crossed over to a place so frightening that, after they managed to get back to the school, they were too terrified to use any kind of bridge.
    But would the girl Lukene feared and yet still believed had a good heart make two students disappear the way Lukene had disappeared?
    The wall has been breached.
    Probably a lie. She had been moving toward the archway when he'd stopped her, so how could she know?
    But if it wasn't a lie… ?
    Reluctantly, Gregor moved toward the archway. The daylight seemed to pale with every step he took, but he kept moving forward. He shuddered as he passed under the archway. His body shook as he crossed the ground covered with bloated mushrooms and shadowed by thorn trees. His heart raced as he stared at the broken lock and open gate that meant someone had done the unthinkable and entered that garden.
    Unwilling to open the gate any farther, he squeezed through the space. As he stared at the simple stone wall, he had a moment to feel relieved, to think it had been a lie after all.
    Then he noticed the stick… and the crumbled mortar… and the small hole in the wall.
    "Guardians of Light and Guides of the Heart, help us," he whispered.
    He turned away from the wall, but before he reached the gate, he heard…
    "Help me. Please. Someone help me."
    A familiar voice. A beloved voice.
    "Lukene?" He looked at the wall. Icy fear filled his heart. "Lukene?"
    "Gregor? Gregor! Help me."
    A patch of ground near the gate shifted, lifted just enough to reveal a dark space.
    He edged toward the gate, toward the dark space, toward the voice of the woman he loved.
    "Gregor.'"
    A pale hand, scraped and bruised, reached out from the dark space.
    Caution and love warred in his chest, making his heart ache. "How… ?"
    "I saw the breach in the wall and tripped into another landscape when I ran to warn the others. I… The tunnel is steep. My leg… Hurt. I can't… Gregor, phase ."
    He reached for her hand. He'd get her away from this garden, away from that wall. Then he'd leave her in the care of the first students he could find while he ran to the school to warn the Landscapes.
    For a moment, with her hand clamped in his, she resisted his effort to pull her out that dark space, as if she needed to savor the contact before gathering her strength.
    Then the ground lifted like a trapdoor. Tentacles whipped out and wrapped around him. A head emerged. A sea creature. But the body and other four legs were those of a large spider.

    Pain in his belly as It bit deep. Then he stopped thrashing as the toxins in that bite paralyzed his limbs.
    It pulled him through the