on it no more, lest it make me vulnerable once again. Suffice to say that I am much better now.” She stroked a fingertip over an icy white streak in her hair. “The strength of my queen prevailed, and my mind is mine own.”
“Ensuring the well-being of my spiritual self,” I murmured. Then I blinked. “The garden, the one on the other side of this place . . . It’s yours.”
“Indeed, child,” she said. “Did you not think it strange that in your turmoil-strewn time here none of your foes—not one—ever sought to enter from the other side? Never sent a spirit given form directly into your bed, your shower, your refrigerator? Never poured a basket of asps into your closet so that they sought refuge in your shoes, your boots, the pockets of your clothing?” She shook her head. “Sweet, sweet child. Had you walked much farther, you would have seen the mound of bones of all the things that have attempted to reach you, and which I have destroyed.”
“Yeah, well. I nearly wound up there myself.”
“La,” she said, smiling. “My guardians were created to attack any intruder—including one that looked like you. We couldn’t have some clever shapeshifter slipping by, now, could we?” She sighed. “You took a terrible toll on my primroses. Honestly, child, there are elements other than fire, you know. You really ought to diversify. Now I have two gaping maws to feed instead of one.”
“I’ll . . . be more careful next time,” I said.
“I should appreciate such a thing.” She studied me quietly. “It has been true for your entire lifetime, child. I have followed you in the spirit world. Created guardians and defenses ’pon the other side to ward your sleep, to stand sentinel over your home. And you still have only the beginnings of an idea of how many have tried.” She smiled, showing her delicately pointed canine teeth again. “Tried, and failed.”
Which also explained how she was always near at hand whenever I had entered the Nevernever. How she would be upon my trail in seconds whenever I went in.
Because she had been there, protecting me.
From everything but herself.
“Now, then,” she said, her tone businesslike. “You left a considerable trove of equipment in my garden for safekeeping.”
“It was an emergency.”
“I had assumed that,” she said. “I will, of course, safeguard it or return it, as you wish. And, should you perish, I will deliver it to an heir of your designation.”
I let out a weary laugh. “You . . . Of course you will.” I eyed Mouse. “What do you think, boy?”
Mouse looked at me, and then at Lea. Then he sat down—but still kept watching her carefully.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think that, too.”
The Leanansidhe smiled widely. “It is good that you have taken my lessons to heart, child. It is a cold and uncaring universe we live in. Only with strength of body and mind can you hope to control your own fate. Be wary of everyone. Even your protector.”
I sat there for a moment, thinking.
My mother had prepared protection for me with considerable foresight. She had anticipated my eventually looking for and finding my half brother, Thomas. Had she prepared other things for me, as well? Things I hadn’t yet guessed at?
How would I pass on a legacy to my child if I knew that I wasn’t going to be alive to see it happen? What kind of legacy did I have, other than a collection of magical gear that anyone could probably accumulate without help, in time?
My only real treasure was knowledge.
Ye gods and little fishes, but knowledge was a dangerous legacy. I imagined what might have happened if, at the age of fifteen, I had learned aspects of magic that had not come to me on their own until I was over thirty. It would have been like handing a child a cocked and loaded gun.
A safety mechanism was needed—something that would prevent the child from attaining said store of knowledge until she was mature enough to handle it wisely. Something simple, but telling, for a child. A wizard child.
I smiled. Something like being able to admit one’s own ignorance. Expressed in the simplest possible form: asking a question. And, as I now knew, my mother had not been called “LeFay” for nothing.
“Godmother,” I asked calmly. “Did my mother leave anything for you to give me when I was ready for it? A book? A map?”
Lea took a very slow, deep breath, her eyes luminous. “Well,”