Sebastian Read online

  “We take you. You ride.”

  In those moments when he tried to figure out how to refuse without getting hurt, the demons focused their attention on Lynnea.

  “Wanna ride?” they asked.

  The look on Lynnea’s face was answer enough. His little rabbit-tigress wanted to ride. He just wished the excitement he could read on her face had something—anything!—to do with his anatomy rather than a demon cycle.

  “Okay, let’s ride,” he said, trying to keep the growl out of his voice that might be misinterpreted as an invitation to a pissing contest. It wasn’t a contest he could win, and a gelded incubus wouldn’t be much use to anyone, least of all himself.

  He straddled one cycle, then had to bite his tongue to keep it from falling out when Lynnea straddled the other one—which made him desperate to find out if she was wearing anything but skin under that catsuit.

  Mr. Finch was, without doubt, a wicked, wicked man.

  It was less than a mile between his cottage and the streets that made up the Den proper, but the demon cycles couldn’t seem to find the lane that was the straight route. They zipped around the countryside, weaving between trees, zooming up a hill and down the other side, making strange sounds that might have been gleeful laughter while Lynnea whooped and squealed and giggled.

  Finally, when he insisted that she was too tired to play anymore—and she dutifully agreed with him—the demon cycles found the lane and took them to the cottage.

  “Good-bye,” Lynnea said, waving at the demons as Sebastian hustled her inside the cottage. “Thank you for the lovely ride.”

  He closed the door before the demon cycles decided to join them, then tensed when he realized there was a lamp glowing on the table in front of the couch. He never left a lamp burning when he’d be gone for hours. Too much risk of fire.

  “Stay here,” he whispered, moving cautiously into the room. Then he noticed the package wrapped in brown paper next to the lamp and the slip of paper tucked under the string—and breathed a sigh of relief when he recognized the writing.

  Glorianna.

  A careful, one-fingered poke at the package gave him the next answer. “I think my cousin brought the rest of your clothes here.”

  “Was that the wrong thing to do?” Lynnea asked, sounding baffled by his behavior.

  “No. It was a kindness.” Returning to where she waited, he reached past her and did something he’d never done in the ten years he’d lived there. He locked the door.

  “Come in,” he said, moving around to light more lamps.

  She wandered around the room, looking at everything. Then she stopped and studied two framed sketches on the wall. “Who did these?”

  “I did,” he replied gruffly, not sure if he was embarrassed to admit it or afraid of her opinion. He’d shown his sketches to Nadia a few years ago, after she’d bullied him into telling her how he spent his time when he wasn’t prowling the Den. She’d kept three of them—one for herself, one for Glorianna, and one for Lee—and had these two framed for him.

  He’d never told her how much that had meant to him.

  “They’re lovely,” Lynnea said.

  And he would never tell this woman how much her words meant to him.

  “I like your home, Sebastian.”

  He moved toward her without thinking, too desperate to feel to be able to think. His fingers tangled in her hair and his mouth feasted on hers, wanting anything, everything.

  And he could have everything. He knew it by the way her arms wrapped around him, the way she responded to his kisses. He could slake this terrible hunger and give her pleasure she’d remember for a lifetime. All she would forfeit was her virginity.

  But he could lose his heart, if he hadn’t lost it already.

  She doesn’t belong here.

  The thought intruded, rankled, savaged desire. He wanted one night with her, but he couldn’t have it. Not for her sake, but for his own.

  He gentled the kiss, lingering because it would be the last. Then he eased back, out of her arms.

  “After we get some sleep, I’ll take you to the Landscapers’ School.”

  “But…” She stared at him, unfulfilled desire shifting into the pain of rejection. “But I’m a bad person. Mam said so.”

  He shook his head. “You’re one of the finest people I’ve ever known. If she couldn’t see you for who you are, the flaw was in her, not in you. You don’t belong in a place where the sun never shines. You don’t belong in the Den.”

  When he took a step forward, intending to ease the sting of rejection, she hunched her shoulders and turned away.

  No comfort. No sweet ending to a sweet encounter.

  Maybe that was just as well…for both of them.

  “Bedroom is through that door. You can have the bed.”

  She didn’t ask where he would sleep. She just crossed the room, picked up her parcel of clothing, went into the bedroom, and closed the door.

  He stared at the bedroom door for a long time before he pulled off his shoes and stretched out on the couch.

  He had done the right thing.

  So why did the right thing make him feel so bad?

  Chapter Ten

  They rode the demon cycle in the fading light of a summer evening, Lynnea snug against his back, her arms wrapped around him. Even here, even now, he hadn’t escaped the night. The day was taking its last breaths before surrendering to its rival. Not that it mattered. He belonged to the night. And Lynnea belonged to the Light.

  The Landscapers’ School spread out over acres of land surrounded by a high stone wall. Borders and boundaries. A world confined in order to be free. Had the first Landscapers envisioned this when they shattered Ephemera? Had they intended for their world to be parceled out and held in pieces, or had they thought their descendants would be able to put the pieces back together?

  Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, Aunt Nadia had told him once. He hadn’t understood the meaning at the time, but now, as the demon cycle skimmed above the road next to the school’s wall, he wondered at the wisdom of controlling so much from one place.

  Not his decision. Of course, the majority of people in Ephemera didn’t have any say in the matter either. Everything was in the hands of the Landscapers. And, perhaps, the wizards, since they decided when a person was too unmanageable to live anywhere but a dark landscape.

  Travel lightly, Sebastian thought. Especially when entering this place.

  “There’s the entrance,” he said, raising his voice to make sure the demon heard him.

  A growl was the only response.

  It hadn’t been difficult to convince the demon to bring them to the school. All he’d said was that Lynnea might have to walk a long way.

  Maybe they should have walked. They’d had to cross through two other landscapes before they found a bridge that would cross over to the Landscapers’ piece of Ephemera. If they’d walked through those other landscapes, would they have found a place that would have called to both of them? A new place, a new start. With Lynnea.

  But the Den needed him, and every day he was gone could make the Den susceptible to another will. An evil will.

  They turned off the main road and went through the entrance to the school. The demon cycle slowed down as they passed empty pastureland.

  “Where are the animals?” Lynnea said, looking around.

  “Maybe they put them up for the night,” Sebastian replied. But something didn’t feel right. The silence was too heavy, too…expectant.

  They were halfway between the buildings and the school’s entrance when the demon cycle stopped abruptly and began gliding backward.

  Sebastian dropped his feet to the ground, dragging his heels. “No. Stop.”

  The demon growled and kept gliding back toward the main road.

  “Stop!” He tapped Lynnea’s hand to tell her to dismount once the demon came to a shuddering halt. “Daylight! What’s wrong with you?”

  “Sebastian?” Lynnea hug
ged herself. “Where are the people?”

  “Probably inside the buildings. It’s almost dark.” But something was making his skin crawl. Probably just the typical response when someone like him entered this place. After all, Landscapers didn’t think of demons as people. Aunt Nadia and Glorianna were the exceptions in thinking demons were entitled to their own little pieces of the world.

  “Here,” he said, “give me that.” He took the pack Lynnea had on her back. Glorianna had done a little more shopping on her way to the cottage. The trousers, shirt, and lightweight jacket Lynnea wore were good traveling clothes. Her other clothes were in his pack.

  Had she kept the catsuit?

  He slipped one strap over his shoulder, then took Lynnea’s hand and linked his fingers with hers. Giving the demon cycle a hard stare, he said, “Wait for me.”

  Did the school always feel like it was stretching and moving even when a person stood still?

  “I don’t like this place,” Lynnea whispered.

  Neither did he, and if he still felt uneasy after talking to the Landscapers, he’d make some excuse, get them both out of there, and take Lynnea to Aunt Nadia’s house.

  Which is what I should have done in the first place.

  “Come on,” he said, leading her toward the buildings. “Let’s find someone who can take us to whoever is in charge.”

  The closest building was two stories and square. Probably the classrooms. Not a promising place to find anyone at this time of day, but it was better than wandering around.

  He thought he saw movement above the first-floor windows, then decided it was nothing more than a bird or small critter moving in the branches of a tree that almost brushed against the building. But his nerves were humming, and the desire to get on the demon cycle and get away from this place was growing stronger.

  The building’s double doors were partially open, which didn’t seem right. Would they be that careless about closing up after lessons were over for the day? Maybe it meant someone was in the building—a student running in for a forgotten book and not checking that the door was closed because she’d be coming back out in a minute.

  A shiver went down his spine as he pushed one door all the way open.

  Lynnea grabbed her jacket and pulled the material over her nose and mouth as soon as they stepped into the building. “Oh. It smells bad in here.”

  It did smell bad. Which was why he had to look. If someone was alone and injured in here, he had to do what he could to help—or go and find help if there was nothing else he could do.

  He almost told Lynnea to stay by the door. After all, the first classroom wasn’t more than ten paces from the doorway. But even ten paces felt too far.

  Giving her hand a squeeze, he walked to the first classroom door, letting her trail a step behind him, their linked hands providing a tether. The door was ajar, but it resisted opening further when he gave it a light push, so he put his shoulder to the wood and shoved.

  And wished with everything in him that he’d left the door alone.

  “Sebastian?” Lynnea whispered from behind him.

  This time he gave her hand a hard squeeze, a command for silence. His heart pounded as he stared at what the room contained.

  They hadn’t had a chance. Something had attacked them so fast, most of the girls hadn’t had time to try to run.

  He shook his head, as if that would erase the carnage in the room. This couldn’t be real. These were the Landscapers, the women who were supposed to be able to protect the rest of Ephemera’s people until the Eater of the World was destroyed. For him to be looking at the aftermath of a slaughter inside their school…

  Then it hit him. The bodies weren’t fresh. Unless they were holed up in another part of the school and were still under attack, the other people who lived here should have removed the bodies by now instead of leaving them to decay.

  If there was anyone left.

  Cold conviction wrapped around him. This wasn’t an isolated attack. If he dared spend the time checking more rooms in this building or the other buildings, it would be the same. Death. Slaughter. Maybe most of the Landscapers escaped to their gardens and crossed over to other landscapes. Maybe the Bridges were able to get away before whatever swept over this part of the school reached them. Maybe.

  It didn’t matter if most of them had escaped or were still here among the dead. Right now, the absence of other people meant one thing: He and Lynnea might be the only people alive at the school.

  Which meant they were the only available prey.

  Spinning around, he pulled Lynnea to the outside door, desperate to get out of an enclosed space where they could be cut off from any chance of escape. Once they reached the demon cycle, they’d be able to outrun whatever was here before it sensed their presence. And once they got away from the school…

  They were out the door and running toward the demon cycle when they both jerked to a stop, frozen by the sight in front of them.

  The front end of the cycle was submerged in a pool of murky water. There was no sign of the demon, but something floated belly-up, just visible below the water. In the dusky light, the creature was too dark in color to make out its size or shape, but the paler belly was still visible and showed the lethal slashes of sharp claws.

  The demon cycle had fought, but it hadn’t won.

  “It’s like the horse,” Lynnea whispered. “When Ewan left me on the road, I ran after him. By the time I got to the bend in the road near the bridge, the horse was struggling in a pool of water and…something pulled it under.”

  The ground looked solid enough around the pool. They could skirt around the water and make a run to the main gate. Except…

  “That funny-colored sand,” Lynnea said, her voice barely audible. “I saw that sand on the road, too. It wasn’t there when I first ran to the bridge. It just appeared while I was trying to decide if I should cross the bridge or go back down the road to find help.”

  For a moment he was back in the alley in the Den, feeling sand beneath his feet.

  “The Eater of the World is free in the landscapes again…. The landscapes that were sealed up with It aren’t sealed anymore.”

  The Eater of the World was here, right now, changing the Landscapers’ School into pieces of Its own dark landscapes. But It hadn’t changed everything yet. As long as he and Lynnea stayed on ground that was still part of the school, they had a chance of getting away.

  Even as the thought formed, he watched the land beyond the sand and pool of water change into a bog that stretched back to the stone walls that enclosed the school.

  A feeling too primitive for words made him look back at the building. Was that just a shadow on the wall? Or was it a predator that blended in so well it was almost invisible?

  Releasing Lynnea’s hand, he eased the pack’s other strap over his shoulder to settle it on his back. More sensible to drop it, but he didn’t want to leave anything behind that might be used to trace them.

  Guardians and Guides! How were they supposed to get out of here?

  Sebastian’s breath caught as the answer came to him: Glorianna’s garden.

  They’d have to go deeper into the school, run straight into the enemy’s lair.

  Rustling sounds of things moving closer, hidden by the fading light.

  Only one chance.

  He reached for Lynnea’s hand. Both of them would get out of here or neither of them. He wasn’t going to let her fall behind and die like the people he’d seen in that classroom.

  He led her back toward the building. “We’ve got to reach my cousin’s garden,” he said quietly. “When I tell you to go, you run like a rabbit. Understand me?”

  Staring straight ahead, she nodded. “Something’s coming.”

  “I know.” He gave himself a moment to picture the map Glorianna had drawn, not daring to take the time to pull the linen napkin out of his jacket pocket. The sundial was the first marker.

  Glorianna. He focused his will, focused on th
e need to find her garden…and hoped that something—Guardian, Guide, or Ephemera itself—would respond to his heartfelt call for help in finding the piece of ground that resonated with her. Glorianna. Glorianna. “Ready?”

  Lynnea tightened her fingers around his in answer.

  “Run!”

  Things out of nightmares ran after them. Ants as long as his forearm. Spiders as big as dogs. And things he had no name for.

  The flagstone path beneath their feet felt spongy, fluid, as if the stones were about to change into something else between one step and the next.

  We’re in the school. We’re in the school. We’re in the school. Underneath that chant he hoped would keep them from stumbling into one of the Eater’s landscapes was another chant that came from his heart: Glorianna, Glorianna, Glorianna.

  The sundial should be there, right in front of them. But there was nothing but a circle of bubbling mud.

  No markers anymore. Nothing to guide them.

  “Where…?” Lynnea gasped.

  They had to keep moving or die.

  Glorianna, Glorianna, Glorianna. “This way.”

  He ran, pulling Lynnea with him, letting instinct—or something more—guide him. A maze of gardens, all the same. Walls and walls and walls. The light almost gone. They’d never find their way through this maze once the light was completely gone.

  But he turned from one path and followed another and another as if a string had been attached to his chest and were reeling him in.

  Glorianna, Glorianna.

  Then he saw it. No different on the outside from any of the others, but he knew it was hers.

  “Here,” he panted, rattling the wrought-iron gate as if that would be enough to break the lock. Even if he did break it, there was a wooden door behind the gate that was probably locked from the inside, since he couldn’t see any way to open it from this side.

  He didn’t have time to figure out if wizard magic could open doors. Somewhere in the twists and turns of the paths, they’d lost the predators, but the creatures wouldn’t stay lost for long. Not with fresh prey available.

  “Climb.” He clamped his hands on her waist and gave her a boost up to get her feet on a crossbar. “Pull yourself over.” Sounds coming from the intersection of two paths. “Now!”