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 brilliant 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.