Sebastian

we'd best get on with the business of living."
    Rising swiftly, Sebastian helped her to her feet.
    "Aunt Nadia, about Lynnea…"
    "She wants to go back to the Den."
    "No."
    "Her life, her journey, her choice."
    "I won't take her back to the Den."
    "Then she'll have to find her own way back."
    Let Lynnea stumble around trying to find a bridge back to the Den? Unthinkable. Even if Nadia escorted Lynnea to the bridge he'd always taken to go back home after visiting here, there was no guarantee Lynnea would arrive at the Den.
    Doing his best to look and sound menacing, he said, "If I take her back, I'll take her ." Surely Nadia understood that message.
    "It's about time you stopped dithering and got down to it."
    His mouth fell open.
    Amused, Nadia patted his cheek, then headed toward the part of her garden where Lynnea and Jeb were pretending to admire the flowers.
    He ran to catch up to her, then grabbed her arm to slow her down.
    "Aunt Nadia, I don't think you understood—"
    "I'm a grown woman, and I've had my share of lovers. I know exactly what you meant."
    "Lovers? Lovers ?"
    "Well, no one else since Jeb and I—"
    "Have pity on me."

    Nadia laughed. "Very well. If you don't ask about my sex life, I won't ask about yours."
    "Right now, I don't have one."
    She stopped before they got close enough to be overheard. "Tell me something, Sebastian. How long has it been since you've walked in daylight?"
    "I… don't know. A few years."
    She nodded. "That's a long time. Even when you came to visit, you never showed up until the sun set—
    and you never stayed long enough to see the sun rise."
    Couldn't. Especially in the last year or so. He wanted to see it, but it was the crudest reminder of what he'd left behind when he'd turned his back on the daylight landscapes—because it was the one thing he'd truly loved about those landscapes.
    "You may want to consider why you're standing here in daylight," Nadia said quietly. "Opportunity and choice, Sebastian. Lynnea isn't the only one making a journey."
    He looked over at his little rabbit, who raised her chin as if getting ready to fight.
    You started this , he thought. You're the one who gave her a taste of being a tigress .
    He walked over to her.
    "I'm going back to the Den," she said, sounding scared and defiant.
    "I know." He still thought she was making a bad choice, but he was too glad to have her with him a little while longer to argue about it anymore.
    *
    It moved through the landscapes, smothering the flickers of Light It found in the places Its lesser enemies, the Landscapers, hadn't valued enough to give more than token protection. So easy to create an anchor for one of Its landscapes. Ephemera barely resisted when It imposed Its will in those places. But the shining landscapes, the places that would be such a feast when It destroyed the Light… It couldn't find a way into those places. No matter how It twisted and turned through the landscapes, It couldn't find a way in. And that dark landscape, that delicious hunting ground. It could feel the edges of that place, but no matter how hard It tried, It couldn't breach the wall that surrounded the Den of Iniquity.
    So many thoughts focused on a single thing, so sure that single thing would keep them safe.
    Sebastian. Sebastian. Sebastian.
    Humans and demons alike believed in this thing called Sebastian that kept It away from the Den itself, leaving It with no access except for the two anchors It had already established in the dark landscape that bordered the hunting ground.
    What enraged It even more was the certainty that the choicest hunting grounds were landscapes controlled by the True Enemy. What troubled It was the feel of the Dark currents in the spots where It had managed to create anchor points in those landscapes. The old Enemies, the Guides, that had fought and caged It so long ago had resonated with the Light and held only a thread of the Dark. But this one held the Light and the Dark in equal measure. This
     
    one could do what the old Enemies never could: she could control Its dark landscapes.
    She had to be destroyed before she realized how powerful she truly was.
    But this time It wouldn't be the one fighting against the Enemy. This time It would have friends.
    *
    It moved along the steep northern slope of Wizard City, a rippling shadow. It had found the Dark Ones'
    weakness, the thing they feared to lose. In spider form, It had climbed the wall of the building to be sure anyone standing at a