“You can’t know that,” he says. His eyes light on me. He didn’t even notice me come in. “Madeline, this princess”—the word drips with condescension—“shouldn’t have been allowed through. Movement through the doors will disturb the balance of the Realms further.”
I automatically step between them, surprised. He’s not wrong—using the doors too much destabilizes the magic of Havenfall that keeps all the doors in equilibrium. But we knew the princess was coming late, and it’s not her fault the doors have already been disturbed in the last twenty-four hours. And now he’s offended Enetta.
“How dare you?” she asks, rising from her chair. She’s almost as tall as he is, and her eyes seem to shimmer.
Graylin raises his hands beside me. “There’s no need for unpleasantness,” he says evenly, but I realize with a jolt that it’s me Enetta is looking at expectantly.
“It’s all right.” I lift my voice, glancing around to try to address everyone at once. “Princess Enetta knows that she is welcome at Havenfall anytime. She was expected.” I try to picture Marcus here in my place, try to hear the words he would use and mimic them. “The doors are safe.”
My gaze locks with the Prince’s as I finish the sentence. I hold it, trying to communicate to him with my eyes. Stay calm. Keep the peace. But he still looks wrathful. After a long, tense moment, the Silver Prince inclines his head. He sweeps out of the room and I let out a breath, careful not to let my relief show on my face.
It’s not the elegant, fair solution Marcus would have come up with.
But Marcus isn’t here. Only I am.
10
By the time I drag myself up the stairs to the staff wing that night, I’m exhausted. My head aches and my limbs are heavy as stone.
I push one of the hallway windows open with a creak, desperate for fresh air, and poke my head out and stare up, trying to draw strength or serenity from the gorgeous spread of stars above me. They look like thousands of diamonds scattered carelessly over blue velvet. The music from tonight’s dance still echoes in my head, an enchanting siren call. A part of me wants to keep drinking and dancing until this day is scrubbed from my head. But I know I can’t do that. The delegates can distract themselves with dresses and jewels, liquor and music, but I need to keep my head clear.
I don’t know how Marcus does this. After I got Princess Enetta settled in her suite and soothed her scorched pride over the Silver Prince’s treatment—you know how Byrnisians are, I’d told her, smiling like we had an inside joke, no manners—I had to rush off to “hear petitions and moderate grievances” in the dining hall, per the schedule. Then to dinner and dancing. All the while I had to keep a smile on my face; all the while I had to squash down any stray thoughts that crept in of Marcus, or Brekken, or what I’d found in the Heiress’s room.
She wasn’t in the dining hall at dinner, and though I glimpsed her across the ballroom once or twice when she was dancing, by the time I got out from behind the bar and wove my way through the crowd, she was gone.
What reason could she or Brekken possibly have to want the door to Solaria—a dark world, a hellscape, if Havenfall’s library books are to be trusted—open? And yet, how could Brekken stealing my keys and vanishing on that same night be a coincidence?
Now all the fear I pushed down all day bubbles back up with a vengeance, making my eyes burn. Fear, and anger too. Because if Marcus had trusted me sooner—if he’d let me help him with the day-to-day operations of the inn, like I’ve begged him to for years—I wouldn’t be so damn out of my depth now.
Most people are still downstairs dancing or working, so the hall is empty. I walk quietly, though, not wanting anyone to hear me and ask what I’m doing up here. I thought of telling Graylin about finding my lost keys in the Heiress’s desk, but I haven’t had a moment alone with him since this morning, and besides, I don’t want to heap more worry on top of his fear for Marcus. I want him to concentrate on fixing my uncle so that he can wake up and help us figure out how to seal the Solarian door so everything will go back to normal.
Please let everything go back to normal soon. I don’t think I can do this.
My knock on Taya’s door is soft, but she opens it right away. She smiles when she sees me, but it’s a guarded, grim sort of smile. She stands back to let me in, and the door falls shut behind me.
Her room is tiny. Since she was late coming to the inn, all the other staff got to choose rooms first, and she ended up with one that’s sparse, almost monk-like. Her bed is neatly made, her tattered backpack hanging off the foot of it, and a few shirts and pants are hung in the closet beside her bomber jacket. She’s wearing leggings and a thin, worn Rascal Flatts T-shirt, which has to be a hand-me-down. She doesn’t really seem like a Rascal Flatts kind of person.
The papers are stacked on her bedside table. I make a move toward them, but then the pressure behind my eyes rushes up again, and after a day of pushing it down, of smiling and shaking hands and assuring delegates that of course, of course my uncle will be fine, I suddenly can’t hold the tears back anymore. They flood my eyes all at once and swim there, blurring my vision. With my back to Taya, I blindly grab the papers and flip through them, trying to look busy while I furiously blink the tears away. But I feel my shoulders trembling.
“Maddie.” A small hand finds my shoulder. “Tell me the truth. Maybe I can help.”
Her voice is kind, with none of its normal snark, and it feels like a harpoon through me. I don’t turn around, don’t meet Taya’s eyes.
“You wouldn’t believe me.” The words spill out of me, too much, too fast.
“Try me. I’ve seen a lot of weird shit today.”
“I’m sorry, Taya, but I can’t.” I clutch the papers to my chest and nearly knock her chair over in my pivot toward the door.
But then Taya steps past me, faster than it seems like she should be able to. She stands between me and the door, her arms slightly spread and her face deadly calm. “No,” she says. “You’re not leaving this room until you tell me why.”
I stop, wiping my face with my sleeve. I hate that I’m crying and hate it more that I can’t stop. Marcus would never let any situation at the inn get to him like this. “I can’t. I really can’t. I’m sorry.”
“What if I told you I already know?”
That catches me off guard, my breath hitching. She read the papers.
“I read the papers,” she confirms.
Should have seen that one coming, Maddie, I think distantly.
But didn’t I? I knew it was a possibility when I gave her the papers, and I did it anyway. Maybe a small part of me wanted her to snoop, if only so I could finally talk to someone.
“So … what’s in them?” I ask carefully, or as carefully as I can through tears and a plugged nose.
“Where to start?” she says with a laugh. “One, that there are other worlds. That there are doorways to those other worlds right below our feet.” She points down, at—or past, I guess—her scuffed combat boots. “I wish I’d met your uncle. He seems like a cool guy.” She’s smiling, but I can’t figure out the implications of it. Does she think it’s a joke? Some kind of prank?