The Silver Prince levels his gaze at me—not suspicious exactly, but curious, evaluative. He saw Brekken and me together in the ballroom. Does he remember us holding hands, or the way Brekken stepped protectively in front of me?
I can’t let my mind stray to Brekken now, or I won’t be able to think, or figure out what to do next. I lean against the wall, trying to focus on the feel of cold stone against my shoulders, as Sal takes his leave, saying something about moving more staff to guard duty, so people are watching the juncture at all times.
“How do we shut the door?” I hear myself say, once it’s just Graylin, Willow, the Silver Prince, and Marcus’s unconscious form left in the office.
Everyone turns to me. I don’t like the looks on their faces. From stricken (Willow) to scared (Graylin) to pitying (the Silver Prince), they all look like they know something I don’t. I zero in on Graylin, the most familiar face in the room—except for Marcus, that is, but he’s still out cold.
“Graylin, you’re a scholar.” I hate the edge of pleading I can hear in my voice. “Annabelle and her forces closed the Solarian door a hundred years ago, after the first attack. How did they do it?”
I don’t think he has an answer. I can tell from the dismay on his face, but I need to hear him say it.
“We don’t know,” he replies quietly. “No one knows.”
My knees go weak. I press harder against the wall to stay upright, tears burning behind my lids. Part of an Innkeeper’s job is to keep meticulous records of everything. I’ve lost count of how many times Marcus has impressed that upon me. “How is that possible?”
“Annabelle didn’t want people to have that knowledge,” Graylin goes on softly. “She was afraid that if anyone else knew how to close the doors, it would open Havenfall up to infighting and wrongful alliances. She closed the door to Solaria and kept the how a secret her entire life.”
I rub my eyes, stunned. The door to Solaria is open. Nothing at all between us and a world full of monsters who can take any shape, walk wherever they wish. And because of the shortsightedness of one Innkeeper a hundred years ago, we don’t know how to close it.
“The screaming,” I hear myself say.
The Silver Prince cocks his head at me.
“I heard it. Everyone did.” It occurs to me that I don’t know who was screaming. Was it the Prince’s dead servant? Marcus? No. That’s another place I can’t go right now. “What do we tell the delegates? The staff?”
Willow worries her lip. “Not the truth, not yet,” she says. “That will cause panic.”
I’ve never seen her so discomposed before, and a sharp pang of unexpected pity goes through me. This isn’t like the normal problems she faces, drunken fights between delegates or lackadaisical staff sneaking off to do God knows what in dark corners. She can’t fix this with a few soothing words or well-placed glares. This was a threat to Havenfall, Havenfall which is as much her home as it is mine. Maybe more so. She has nowhere else to go.
After a few moments of silence, Graylin speaks up. “There was that boy,” he says, “last year, who decided it would be a wonderful idea to sneak past Sal and into Fiordenkill.”
“Jayden,” I supply weakly. I remember the frostbite incident, but I don’t see where Graylin is going with this.
“We could say another staff member went through a doorway and got themselves injured,” Graylin says heavily. It sounds like it costs him to say it—I know how he prizes honesty. But his eyes flicker down to Marcus, and I see his shoulders settle and square.
He looks at me, and I nod. It’s a good idea.
Willow frowns but nods too. “I’ll tell them a new recruit got through the Byrn door. Got caught up in a solar storm.”
I nod, imagining the Byrnisian solar storms Willow’s told me about, where the atmosphere thins enough for the deadly heat of their two suns to pierce straight through. Numbly, I improvise an end to the story: “They made it back through the doorway, but we had to send them straight to the hospital.”
“So the summit will continue?” the Silver Prince inquires. His fury has cooled and now he seems the calmest of all of us, his voice light and level even as we stand over the corpse of the monster that ate his friend.
The sound of it chases away the panic a little, and I turn to look at him, studying the sharp, still angles of his face.
His magic tamed the storms that had nearly destroyed a whole continent. Surely with his help we can devise a way to close the door. The only other choice, as far as I can see, is to call the whole thing off—end the summit and send everybody home to their respective realms. But it would have to be tonight, while it’s still the solstice. And I can’t stand the thought of Marcus waking to find the inn empty and dead. We can fix this—we will fix this.
“Yes,” I say. My voice only comes out even because my panic has morphed into numbness, but the others don’t need to know that. “We’ll say the commotion was caused by a staff member, and post guards in the tunnels until we figure out how to reseal the door. There’s no need to send everyone into a stampede when the Solarian is dead.”
Assuming that was the only one that got through. I’m careful not to look at the bloody carpet-wrapped mound in the corner.
Willow looks grim but determined. “All right,” she says. “I’ll spread the word.” Then she’s away, hurrying off and leaving the office door open to the dark tunnel.
Anxiety crashes over me anew, but I know Willow carries a knife; she can defend herself. I hurry to close the office door with shaking hands. Somewhere down toward the juncture, I can hear Sal speaking to the guards, his indistinct voice echoing up to us. Now that I have my feet under me, I go to Graylin’s side, reaching for Marcus’s wrist to search out his pulse. It’s there, but weak. A new fear washes over me.
“What if he’s not awake by tomorrow?” I murmur to Graylin, very aware of the Silver Prince’s eyes resting on us both. “The summit is starting. The delegates need him.”
Everything that happens at Havenfall hinges on the presence on the Innkeeper. Marcus makes announcements every morning and evening at breakfast and dinner. He attends all the official summit functions—meetings and negotiations that require a neutral presence to moderate between Fiorden and Byrnisian interests. He resolves disputes. The whole point of the summit is to put the most important people from all the Realms in the same room, to ensure continued peace between the worlds. But that can’t happen without Marcus.
Plus—and I can barely bring myself to articulate this even to myself—he’s my uncle. The only family on Mom’s side I have left, the only person who I can talk to, really talk to, about Mom and Nate. If anything happened to him …
Graylin puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it—”
“No.” The word, soft but commanding, comes from the Silver Prince. He’s on his feet now. Looking not at Graylin, but at me.
“What good will come of waiting?” he asks us. “A leaderless society is a vulnerable one. There are plans to be made. We must close the Solarian door.”
I look to Graylin instinctively, but he shakes his head. “It can’t be someone from another Realm,” he says softly. “The laws are clear about that. The Innkeeper—or anyone acting in the Innkeeper’s stead”—he swallows, but goes on—“has to be neutral. Has to be human.”