Sebastian

already attacked there." He swallowed the lump in his throat and felt it lodge in his heart. When he went back to the Den, Lynnea could stay here in Sanctuary. Lynnea would be safe. "You have to let the Den go, or you won't have your safe ground."
    "There are ten stationary bridges that cross over into the Den. I created them, and they all connect with landscapes held by Glorianna or Nadia. It's the resonating bridges and any stationary ones other Bridges established since the last time I made a circuit around the Den that I have to find and break."
    "Didn't you hear me? The Den is already compromised.'"
    "Then the only thing I can suggest, cousin, is that you gather whoever you can to help you defend it.
    Because Glorianna isn't going to abandon the Den, and neither am I."
    We're not going to abandon you . That was the message. They didn't care if he was human or demon.
    He was family. That was all that mattered.
    "All right," Sebastian said. "I'll hold on to the Den." Somehow .
    They climbed the hill in silence. When they reached the door into the building, Lee paused. "Could you stop at my mother's house on your way back to the Den? Just to make sure everything's…" He closed his eyes. "There's a saying I learned in school. 'Despair made the deserts.' That's what the Eater of the World really does, you know. It's not the landscapes It twisted or the creatures It twisted into monsters; it's the loss of hope, the seeds of fear that almost gave It control of the world long ago. It feeds on those feelings, cultivates the dark aspects of our hearts. It's going to try to kill all the Landscapers. That's the only way to keep the world from holding on to the Light."
    "I'll check on Aunt Nadia."
    Lee nodded.
    They went inside, Lee to pack his things and begin his own kind of fight against the Eater of the World, and Sebastian to find Lynnea and tell her he was going back to the Den in a few hours. Alone.
    "There's something you need to see," Nadia said. She opened a kitchen drawer, removed two folded pieces of paper, and set them on the kitchen table in front of Glorianna.
    "Where did you find these?" Glorianna asked as she opened the papers and saw the heavy lines of masculine handwriting.
    "In the attic." Nadia latched the kitchen's screen door, locked the wood door, then walked over to one of the windows. "I didn't go up for anything in particular. Just to sort things out, I suppose, for something to do, since I was feeling restless. I found those at the bottom of a trunk of children's clothes, wrapped in your old baby blanket."
    Glorianna looked up. "You told me a dog stole my blanket."
    Nadia closed the window, then closed the shutters over it. "What was I supposed to tell you? It was so worn and tattered—and got more tattered every time I washed it. But you didn't want to let it go."
    "So you lied to me?"
    "I told you a lie that gave the loss meaning. You used to find comfort from thinking a small orphan dog was snuggled up in that blanket on cold nights."

    Glorianna watched her mother close the other kitchen window. "Why are you doing that? It'll be stifling in here."
    "For a little while. Read, Glorianna."
    So she read, and what she read chilled her to the marrow.
    "Guardians and Guides, can this be true?"
    Nadia sat down opposite Glorianna and said nothing for a long time. Then, "It makes a frightening kind of sense. Both sides lost some abilities, some aspects of their magic after the Eater of the World was fought and defeated long ago. But one side forgot its roots, except for the families who passed the truth down from mother to daughter; the other side did not. It hid in plain sight, keeping its bloodlines strong while depleting the strength of its enemy."
    Glorianna looked at the papers lying on the table between them. "Who… ?"
    "Your father. Peter. Shortly before he…"
    "Disappeared."
    "Yes." Nadia closed her eyes. "I thought he left because he was dissatisfied with his life, or with me. I thought he left because he'd grown tired of the secrets he'd insisted we keep—and because of the secrets he knew I kept from him about my family. I thought he left because he crossed into a strange landscape and couldn't find his way back—or didn't want to find his way back. I thought a lot of things during the months after he disappeared." She opened her eyes. "After reading that, I don't know what to think anymore."
    Glorianna looked at the papers, at the strong handwriting that looked as if the hand had