by Sara Holland
I blink, startled at the sudden shift in her tone from guilt to challenge. “Um …”
Another classic bit of Marcus advice floats into my mind. People can sniff out lies. If you can’t share the whole truth, share whatever little bit of it you can to get people on your side. Quickly, holding Taya’s gaze, I assemble a new story in my head, fitting pieces together into something that hopefully makes sense.
“Okay, so you were kind of right that I was with someone last night,” I say. True enough, but I don’t mean Graylin in the woods, but earlier, in the hayloft. I don’t have to fake the ashamed blush I can feel burning my cheeks. “A guy. He, um, he stole my keys.” I need to pause to take a breath. It’s absurdly hard to get the words out. “And then disappeared.”
Taya is very still, her eyes trained on my face. When it’s clear I’m not going to say anything else, she lets out a slow breath. “Well,” she says, her voice quiet but still cutting through the noise of the common room. “That seems like a problem.”
I swallow. “Yeah.”
“And that’s why you’re on the lookout for anything weird.”
I nod. “So you’re sure you didn’t see anything?”
Taya hesitates. “Not in the tunnels … but there was something this morning.”
Her eyes cut from side to side, and my heart picks up. “What is it?”
She chews her lip for another moment before pulling a rolled-up newspaper from the pocket of her leather jacket. “I wasn’t going to be a snitch, but I saw someone walking outside today, off the grounds. After you told us at breakfast not to.”
My pulse races. “What did they look like?”
“One of the guests. An older lady,” Taya says. “She was wearing a long purple dress and this frankly amazing hat.”
She smiles, but I don’t, can’t. The picture forms in my mind right away. The Heiress.
“She had a big bag and this paper. She left it in the library.” She shrugs as she hands it to me. “Maybe that will mean something to you. I don’t know.”
I unroll the paper and glance at the date. Today’s. The Briar Star. A cheaply printed local paper that mostly features stories about the weather—consistent only in its strangeness—and yard sales and lost pets. I’m a little relieved when there’s nothing in there about otherworldly monsters or mysterious, gruesome murders. But we’re not in the clear yet.
There’s only one place the Heiress could have gotten the paper. She went to town. But how? The Silver Prince charmed the boundary of the property. The air around the perimeter is compressed, its gravity strengthened with Byrnisian magic so strong that anyone who tries to cross it without an amulet will get stuck there, rooted in place until Marcus’s guards come to collect them. Only Graylin, Willow, the Prince, and I have the charms to pass through.
So how did the Heiress get out? And what was the bag for? I hand Taya back the paper, unsure what to make of this new information.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Taya says, her gaze intent on mine. “But I can talk it through with you, if that helps. You can trust me.”
Trust. The word is a dagger in me, though Taya couldn’t know that. She couldn’t know how bad my track record with trust really is.
I want to talk to someone. I’ve only been here a day, and I can already feel everything swirling around inside me, too tightly bottled. Graylin and Willow have enough on their minds, the delegates would gossip, Marcus is unconscious, and Brekken—my best friend—is gone. Maybe it’s better to let someone like Taya in, just a little, rather than keeping everything locked up and risk it spilling over to any old delegate with too much evening champagne.
But on the other hand, it could all backfire. Humans are hard to predict, and if Taya somehow got ahold of a phone or left the inn, forgetting-wine wouldn’t keep Havenfall’s secrets safe.
But then, if she told anyone, who would believe her?
“There’s only one way to find out what the Heiress is up to,” I finally say, deciding to throw caution to the wind just this once. If I’m Innkeeper-for-a-day, I can’t just sit back and wait for threats to make themselves known. “Let’s ask her.”
Taya is quiet, staying a few steps behind me as we climb the stairs to the Heiress’s room. We start down the long, sunlight-dappled hallway on the top floor. There are windows on either side and only one door at the end: the Heiress’s quarters.
What is the Heiress really up to? If all this had gone down a year ago, I might have asked her advice. I might have trusted her with the secret of the open door to Solaria. She’s been a constant presence at Havenfall and has always been kind to me.
Brekken’s face still hangs in my mind, though, reminding me that I really shouldn’t trust anyone. I still don’t know what happened between the Heiress and my uncle, and with Marcus still asleep—I think the word firmly, asleep—I have to tread carefully.
I knock on the Heiress’s door, but she doesn’t answer.
I knock again, a little louder, nervousness crawling in my stomach. The Heiress is known to be wrathful when her writing sessions are disturbed. But one old woman being mad at me is the least of my problems right now. Again.
There is only stillness behind the door.
I turn my head to the side and lean in close, seeing Taya shift on her feet as I put my ear to the smooth wood. She’s stuck her hands deep in the pockets of her bomber jacket, shoulders drawn down and face etched into a faint scowl. On the other side of the door, I hear nothing.
The Heiress scarcely ever leaves her room except for long walks in the mornings, meals, and the evening balls and parties. Otherwise, she’s always sequestered up here, working on her epic history of the Realms. She’s never much cared what goes on outside Havenfall. When I tell her stories of the outside world, she just gets stressed out—all the tech, all the wars, an existence she doesn’t understand. Her interest has always been here, in the inn and the relationships between the Realms.
At least, that’s what I thought. A sudden idea seizes me, and I take my hand out of my pocket, my new keys clenched in my fist.
Willow would kill me for going into a delegate’s room without asking, much less the Heiress’s. But I can’t shake the feeling that something is off. And—technically—this is Marcus’s inn. At the end of the day, the Heiress is only a guest here—an honored guest, a longtime guest, but still a guest. And it’s Marcus’s responsibility—and mine, for the moment—to keep everyone safe.
At least that’s what I tell myself as my fingers find the skeleton key.
“What—okay,” Taya says, letting out a breath as I stick the key in the lock and turn it carefully. “We’re doing this?”
“It’s fine,” I lie. “I know her.”
“Sure, you don’t know her name, but you know her.” Taya’s voice is brittle. “Invasion of privacy much?”
But the lock clicks beneath my fingers, and Taya hears it too and stops talking. I step forward before she can say anything else, pushing gently on the door so it won’t creak as it opens. If I’m going to do this, I need to do it fast, before the Heiress comes back from wherever she is. But then the door opens and that thought flies out of my head.
I’ve been in the Heiress’s room plenty of times before by invitation. Pretty standard old lady stuff, if all old ladies had access to three worlds. There is an explosion of pink and porcelain and velvet, curios from all the Realms displayed in glass-fronted cabinets, intricate lace doilies beneath bowls of shiny candy, and bookshelves crammed with dusty gold-edged books in all sorts of languages. Her belongings give the feeling of only slightly faded glamour, of luxury. The dragon hoard of a traveler between worlds.
I hardly notice any of it, though, because arranged in neat rows on her desk is a crap-ton of Haven silver.
Taya steps in beside me and pulls the door closed. She whistles, low and soft. “Damn. Did she buy out a Tiffany’s?”
I drift across the room toward the desk without quite meaning to, eyes glued to the brillia
nt shine of the silver. The desktop is covered with teapots and statuettes, goblets and silverware, jewelry and coins and even plain ingots stamped with the word HAVEN. It all gleams, the pieces seeming to give off their own light. Next to the desk on the floor is the bag, now empty, that Taya mentioned the Heiress had been carrying.
“What is this?” I murmur.
I don’t really expect an answer, but Taya’s hand shoots out to grab my arm, gripping a little too tight. I turn to look at her in surprise.
“This isn’t our business,” she says. She looks paler than usual, freckles standing out on her face. “We should leave.”
“It is my business.” I break away from her and reach out to the desk, but stop short of touching the nearest object. It’s a necklace that looks familiar.
“I …” I stumble, trail off. Something about this feels wrong to me. And to Taya too, judging by her stiff demeanor. And the fact that she looks like she might throw up all over the Heiress’s gold-and-green embroidered rug.
I open the top drawer of the desk, hoping to find the manuscript for her book. Maybe the Heiress is writing about the silver trade? It’s the one industry that keeps Haven afloat. Guests from Fiordenkill and Byrn wear it as a sign of status. It means you’ve been invited to the summit and you’ve traveled the Realms.
But when I look in the drawer, there’s no manuscript. No book. There’s money, and lots of it.
My heart speeds up, a feeling taking residence in my stomach like I’m climbing up to the top of a roller coaster. There’s a jumble of U.S. dollars, Fiorden wooden coins, and Byrn glass beads, all piled together haphazardly, shoved toward the back of the drawer. It’s more money than I’ve ever seen in my life, so much that it almost doesn’t seem real. Back in the real world, where money means possibility, a tenth of this would have fixed Dad and Marla’s problems forever, but nothing registers for me now except dread.
There are letters and receipts in the drawer too. I pull a handful out carefully, bills and coins and beads rustling together as I do. In the note on top, which looks half-finished, brief lines of text are written in the Heiress’s careful, slanted hand, beneath yesterday’s date.
I will meet you at the antique shop when the sun is highest on the third day of the summit with the money you’ve requested. I’ll require proof that the objects do bear magic.
A familiar green wax stamp sits in the upper right-hand corner. It’s the image of a great flowering tree. My stomach drops even further. It’s the official stamp of Myr, the Fiorden queendom Brekken serves and which houses the door to Haven. It usually appears on official documents, letters carried out of Fiordenkill or contracts hammered out at Havenfall. Not hastily handwritten notes on scraps of paper, clearly meant to be a secret.
What the hell? One of the first things Marcus told me about Havenfall was that its magic lay in its occupants. That there were no such things as magic wands or enchanted swords or spelled treasure. People—people, not things—were precious; people, not things, carried magic.
And more than that … I know so little about my uncle’s running of Havenfall, but I know that he would never, ever allow enchanted objects to be traded outside the inn’s walls if they existed. The inn and everything in it are supposed to be secret. It’s a joke between my uncle and me that what happens at Havenfall stays at Havenfall, and that’s the only thing that keeps us all safe. That ensures this place can exist.
How long has the Heiress been undermining that? Maybe this—whatever this is—was what caused the rift between her and Marcus. I spread the papers on the desk, and words jump out at me: Brekken, silver, private, Innkeeper, cost. Brekken. Brekken!
Then something else in the drawer catches my eye. It’s metal, but different from the Haven silver. I recognize it even before I reach down to fish it out of a tangle of bills.
My key ring, complete with the cat-ear brass knuckles. The keys that went missing last night. My stomach drops into my feet.
It sinks in for the first time that Brekken really did take it. He kissed me and stole my keys from my pocket. He’s mixed up in this with the Heiress somehow.
For a second, all I can do is stand and stare, wishing I could forget the knowledge away, wipe my brain clean of the humiliation, the betrayal, the guilt. My knees feel weak. It’s too much. My palm presses into the edge of the Heiress’s desk hard enough to bleed.
Then a gasp from behind me pulls me back to reality. I whirl around, my fingers closing around the keys, in time to see Taya stumble back. She’s standing by the Heiress’s nightstand, and a vase with a silver lily plummets to the hardwood floor. Its shatter is loud in the silence.
I shove the keys in my pocket and cross the room to grab Taya’s shoulder and guide her into an overstuffed armchair embroidered with vines. She’s pale, bordering on green. Her shoulders are trembling.
“What’s wrong?” I croak, still not fully in control of my voice.
She doesn’t meet my gaze. Her eyes are fixed off in the distance as she shakes her head. “I just … something just came over me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” I take my hand off her shoulder. I want to make sure she’s okay, but I’m also nervous that someone heard the crash of the vase breaking. We need to leave.
I turn and start quickly plucking up the shattered pieces of porcelain, dropping them carefully into my palm. I wrap them in tissue and drop them into a nearby wastebasket, crumpling a few more tissues on top for good measure. I hope the Heiress won’t notice, or one of the maids will stop by before she does.
“Wait!” Taya’s weak voice freezes me as I reach for the silver lily on the floor. She stands and takes a shaky step toward me. “That … that’s what caused it. I touched the flower, and I felt something …” She trails off, her brow creasing.
I smile at her, trying to look reassuring even as worry unfolds inside me. Maybe the forgetting-wine has side effects I don’t know about. “It’s just metal. Just a decoration. Look, see—”
I pick up the flower and tuck it beneath the tissues in the wastebasket. I ignore the strange, uneasy thrum of the silver stem between my fingers. It has to be just my imagination. Just something that Taya’s words planted. Doesn’t it?
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Grateful for the distraction, I fish it out, but the gratefulness dissipates as I see Graylin’s text message: The Fiorden princess is here.
“Crap.” All at once, everything crashes back down on me—the papers, the keys, the Heiress, Brekken. I don’t know who to trust, but I need to run this inn anyway. I hurry back to the desk and gather up the papers, but then stop, the stack trembling in my hands. I can’t carry these around with me.
Taya watches me, cautious, and with her dark eyes on mine something occurs to me. It’s a risk. A huge risk. But at this point, everything is risky. All I can do is choose the options that pose the least danger. And we’ve already come this far together.
“Taya, could you do me a favor?” I ask.
Her eyes turn hard, wary. It stings a little, but—fair. So far, our friendship—if you can even call it that—has consisted of me making her crash her motorcycle, appearing out of the woods in the middle of the night looking like death, giving her forgetting-wine, and dragging her up here, where she still looks like she might throw up any second. Not exactly a solid foundation.
But to my surprise, she asks slowly, “What do you need?”
I lift the papers. “There’s somewhere I have to be, like right now. Can you put these in your room for a bit? I’ll come by later tonight and pick them up.”
I want to add and don’t read them, but I know if she’s anything like me, that would make her only more likely to do so. Plus, I’m asking for her help; it’s not like I can be the one setting terms and conditions.
With her hand on the back of the chair to steady herself, she keeps her eyes on mine for another long moment. But finally, she nods and comes toward me, reaching out for the papers. “I’m in room five eighty-eight.”
> Relief washes over me. “Thanks so much.”
Taya puts her hands on the papers—and over mine. Her skin is cool, but I can feel her pulse fluttering through her palms and fingers. “At some point, though,” she says, holding my gaze, “you’re gonna have to tell me what else is going on here.”
I swallow and try not to blink. “Of course,” I lie.
Taya and I part outside the reception room, the opulent private den where we entertain distinguished guests. She goes off to stash the papers in her room while I head inside. The wallpaper—a green leaf pattern with touches of gilt here and there—and the potted palms that Willow has placed around the room at strategic locations lend the feeling of standing in an enchanted forest, all dappled with afternoon sun from the skylight above. Graylin is chatting with Princess Enetta, one of the members of the Myr royal family and the head delegate to Haven this year.
Brekken told me that she’s skeptical of Havenfall and the alliance with Byrn, so there were rumors that she wouldn’t come at all, but she must have thought better of it.
What I don’t expect is for the Silver Prince to also be there, pacing the room, looking angry.
I pause at the doorway, taking the situation in, but Graylin catches my eye and beckons for me to enter as he pours Enetta a drink. I’ve seen her before at previous summits, but I’ve never spoken to her. She’s in her thirties and pretty, with skin a little lighter brown than Graylin’s. Her shimmery silver-white hair is woven into a net of thin braids, and a cloak of sleek purple fur is wrapped around her shoulders. Beneath that, she’s dressed in simple but elegant traveling clothes. Only the diamond-like gems climbing her ears mark her as royalty.
Once, when I was fourteen, I was morose for two weeks when I was convinced—for some reason I don’t even remember—that Brekken was in love with Enetta. Until Graylin took me out to lunch to ask why I was being so mopey, and I burst into tears and told him. He laughed and informed me that Fiorden soldiers and princesses couldn’t marry.
As I hurry into the room and bow low, I silently review what Marcus has told me about the royal family. Most of the important decisions in Myr are made by the elected members of the High Court, but the royal family is still important in a ceremonial way, like the British royals. They’re respected by all, revered even. Princess Enetta is beloved. So it makes me uneasy seeing the Fiorden princess’s eyes follow the Silver Prince pacing. Now that I’m paying attention, I realize that her manner is serious, far from the young and inexperienced monarch Brekken told me about. My stomach clenches. Was it possible he lied to me about Fiorden politics too? What else don’t I know?