Sebastian

wizards' justice meant for the girl who was condemned."
    "But she was mad," Sebastian protested. "You don't know if any of it was true."
    Even in the lantern light, with his face half in shadows, Sebastian could see the pain in Lee's eyes.
    "She talked about her sister. How her sister would take care of the baby. And how the daughter of that baby would carry the seeds of the Dark as well as the Light—and would be an enemy not even the Eater of the World could survive if the Dark Guides didn't destroy her before she bloomed into her full power.
    "Then she broke off pieces of two plants and held them out to me. When I reached out to take them, I felt my hand pass through a barrier of power—and she disappeared." Lee rubbed the back of his neck.
    "Somehow my bridge had pierced the barrier enough for me to see her and talk to her but not enough for her to feel the touch of a human hand. I wandered those woods for an hour. Same land, but not the same landscape. Except… the plants were there, and I think I understood the message. I never told Mother or Glorianna about seeing that old woman because of that message."
    "Message?" What kind of message could be made out of two plants?
    "What she tried to give me was heart's hope… and belladonna."
    Sebastian felt his breath catch, felt his heart bump hard against his chest. But "belladonna" made his thoughts circle back to how this talk began.
    "Why would the wizards eliminate the best Landscapers? And why would the Landscapers at the school agree with it?"
    "How did the wizards become the Justice Makers, Sebastian?" Lee asked. "Why are they the ones who decide when a person is too… damaged… in some way to live in the daylight landscapes and must be sent to the darkest place that resonates within that person? No one remembers. The Landscapers are the ones who actually perform Heart's Justice and shift a person to another landscape, but its the wizards who decide when it needs to be done. How did they become such a powerful force in our world?"
    Sebastian leaned back, feeling uneasy about what he'd heard. If it were true that the wizards had been systemically eliminating the Landscapers with superior skills, it meant the Justice Makers had an agenda for Ephemera no one else knew about. But what? And why?
    "Well," Lee said, reaching for the lantern, "I don't know what part of the day you're in, but I need to get some sleep before I go to the school to record my working log."
    The school . For this little while, his personal discovery had blocked out the horror. Now it came flooding back. "You can't."
    "Have to. I don't have an established circuit of landscapes—at least, not that the Bridges' School is aware of—so I'm required to report in once each season to log the locations of any bridges I created and the landscapes they connect."

    Sebastian grabbed Lee's forearm. "You can't go back to the school. Everyone's dead."
    Lee stiffened. "What are you talking about?"
    "The Eater of the World escaped. It's loose in the landscapes."
    "Who told you that?"
    "Glorianna." He felt Lee tremble beneath his hand. "I think It attacked the school. There were creatures there—giant ants, giant spiders, other things—and I found a classroom full of bodies." Parts of bodies, but he didn't say that.
    "Everyone?"
    Hearing the shock in Lee's voice, Sebastian hesitated. "I don't know. We ran, made it to Glorianna's garden, and got away to here." Releasing Lee's arm, he pulled the piece of marble out of his pocket.
    "Using this."
    "A one-shot bridge," Lee said, brushing a thumb over the marble. "I made this for Glorianna on one of my visits home." He looked at Sebastian, his face hard. "I made three, to different landscapes. This was the bridge to Sanctuary."
    "When I put my hand in the fountain, I didn't feel anything from the other stones. Just this one." He hesitated. "There was a stone just outside the gate of Glorianna's garden."
    "Black marble?"
    "No, just a polished stone. I stepped on it, stumbled. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have noticed the plaque."
    Lee rubbed the back of his neck. "Then maybe the Guides of the Heart meant for you to find out about this now. Sometimes it's a small thing that can make a difference in someone's life." He sighed. "You must have stepped on the agate. It was a bridge to the entrance at the Bridges part of the school. The black marble connected to the Den. If it had still been hidden in the fountain, you would have felt it. Which means Glorianna must