“It’s fine.” Wait, what? It wasn’t fine. Why did I say that? “It’s been a long day for all of us. You must be tired. Our accommodations are probably more modest than what you have been used to.”
Oh yes, that was so subtle. Here, let me insult my own inn because I can’t figure out any other way to get you to tell me your room preferences.
“I’m used to war,” he said quietly. “Anything you offer me is better than what I have now.”
Said in a different tone of voice it might have sounded like grandstanding or an attempt to gain sympathy, but coming from him it was a simple, factual statement. I heard so much in those words: weariness, regret, grief, acceptance of inevitable violence, and an urgent need for distance. He was tired, bone-weary, and he wanted to be far away from the death he caused. The need to step away from it rolled off him. No innkeeper worth her salt could’ve missed it. He needed a retreat, and I would make one for him. That’s why I was the innkeeper.
He was definitely male. He was also Nuan Cee’s employee and a vital one, so he would be used to luxury, but more than that he wanted to be at peace. To be clean.
I feverishly moved things around in his room. We were almost to the door.
“Is the reputation of your inn irreparably damaged?” he asked.
“How much do you know of Earth’s inns?”
“I have been a guest before.”
“Then you know that our first priority is to keep the guests safe. I have allowed the Arbitrator’s orders to direct my actions because I believed his goal was peace between these people. I know these people now. I understand how much the war hurts them. I became emotionally involved, and it compromised my ability to think clearly. Now some guests are dead. I don’t trust George anymore, but worse, I don’t trust myself. The fault is mine. I bear the ultimate responsibility.”
And right after I was done here, I would go to the lab and throw myself into work, because if I stopped to consider all the ramifications of tonight, I would explode.
The door to his room swung open. I stepped aside.
Panels of rough fabric the color of beech wood sheathed the walls, framed by narrow polished wooden planks. The top of the wall was painted a soothing sage, the same color as the vaulted ceiling, with the kind of finish that put one in mind of parchment. A polished bamboo floor echoed the wooden accents on the walls, its boards the color of amber honey. A large platform bed stood against the left wall, simple and modern, yet retaining strong square lines. The bedspread was gray, the slew of pillows white edged with sage and gold. The fabric panels ended on both sides of the bed, letting the sage finish of the ceiling flow down to the floor, and an elaborate square Celtic knot formed from varnished bamboo decorated the wall. Two bedside tables flanked the bed, simple rectangles of nine square drawers, stained nearly black, then distressed so the pale golden grain of acacia wood showed through. The door to a private balcony stood wide open, offering a hot tub and a view of the orchard.
It was a tranquil room, high-end yet masculine, peaceful and clean without being sterile. Stepping into it was like entering a refreshing lake after a hard sweaty run.
“My deepest apologies,” I told him. “I’m sorry you were attacked in my inn. I’m sorry I didn’t keep you safe.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
The wall parted and a tray slid out, offering a plethora of food from the banquet: the starters, the drinks, the desserts in tiny cups, and in the center, the pan-seared chicken. Orro must’ve recovered enough to put a plate together.
“The best chicken in the galaxy,” Turan Adin said, a hint of something suspiciously resembling amusement in his voice.
“Of course,” I told him. “We only serve the best to our honored guests.”
I stepped outside and quietly closed the door behind me.
The trick to finding an invisible thief is making him or her visible, which sounds like the most obvious conclusion in the world. Teaching the inn to recognize the faint blur of the thief’s presence and target it was a lot harder.
I raised my head from the screen. I was sitting in my lab under the main floor of the inn. In front of me, the inn had formed a niche in its wall—five feet wide, five feet deep, and roughly nine feet tall.
“And go,” I murmured.
A holographic projector in the wall of the niche conjured up the close approximation of the blur. The wall split and a jet of mist erupted over the blur. The niche’s walls looked exactly the same.
“Lights,” I murmured.
The light died. A black UV lamp came on, rotating slowly. Its beam swept the niche. Once-sterile walls glowed with bright blue.
“Perfect.”
My screen blinked and changed into an image of my front room. George and Sophie were looking around as if they had lost something.
“What is it?”
The two of them spun around, back to back, identical neutral expressions on their faces. My voice had emanated from the walls. Usually I didn’t do this because it was bad manners and guests tended to react badly to disembodied voices echoing through their living spaces, but I was still annoyed.
“We came to check on you,” Sophie said.
Wasn’t that sweet? I could tell them to piss off. Unfortunately, I was still an innkeeper and they were my guests to whom I would afford every courtesy even if it made my insides explode from the strain of containing my rage.
I waved at the inn. A set of stairs formed in the wall and I walked up into the front room. The floor flowed closed behind me.
George and Sophie looked at me.
“I’ll get us some tea,” Sophie said and went into the kitchen.
“She made you come down here to talk to me.” I took a seat on the sofa.
“Yes.” He lowered himself onto a chair opposite me.
“And you humored her. Her feelings are important to you, so you weighed the odds and decided that whatever plan you have wouldn’t be injured too much by having this conversation with me, and here we are.”
“Yes.” He leaned back, his handsome face somber. She must’ve told him he had to be honest.
“Everything you have done since you arrived here, every word, every expression and every action, has been carefully calculated. You’ve destroyed the alliance between Robart and House Meer, isolating him from his peers. To Arland and Isur, he is damaged goods and to House Meer he is no longer an asset. He’s an embarrassment, a witness and facilitator of their dishonor. He will be desperate to make peace now. House Meer is huge and House Vorga is one-fifth of its size. If the knights of Meer choose to set aside the shame of Beneger’s failure and pursue House Vorga, Meer will swallow Robart’s House whole and barely notice. Robart has no choice but to throw his lot in with Arland and Isur now and pray for a strategic alliance. On the flip side, House Meer is dishonored. They sent three of their better fighters and they couldn’t take one man. They look weak and pathetic. Together with their excommunication, this will make them hard-pressed to form any alliances at all.”
“The region will be more stable for it,” George said, matter-of-fact.
“Then you’ve murdered the pride of the Horde in front of the otrokars. I saw Sophie’s face. She lives for the challenge. You knew that the moment you showed her Ruah’s image, she would target him and kill him. You didn’t check the Horde’s hubris, you annihilated it.”
“Yes,” George said.
“Now the vampires are desperate, and the Horde is desperate. Both are humiliated. Both are indebted to me and the peace talks are in shambles. All part of the plan?”
“Yes.”
If he said yes one more time, I would brain him with something heavy.
“And my inn is an unfortunate casualty of this process?”
“Perhaps.”
“Are you done?”
“Not quite.”
“What else is there? You could also make the Merchants desperate. Is that next?”
“Yes,” he said.
“George, stop with single-word answers. You came into my inn and you used me and Gertrude Hunt in the worst way possible. I deserve to at least know the final objective of this terrible mess.”