The town is diminished, as is Havenfall itself. The inn used to be the crossroads to uncountable realms, each behind its own door, and all but two have been sealed magically shut. There are only three worlds left—Byrn, Fiordenkill, and Haven, which is what everyone from the Adjacent Realms calls Earth; that’s how the town got its name. But even though neither the town nor the inn is what it once was, the air still feels laden with possibilities. Havenfall is the neutral zone between all the worlds, a peaceful, magical crossroads.
I pass the long, low brick diner, where I’m supposed to call Marcus. I’m pretty sure it used to be some sort of factory, but now the steamed-up windows illuminate a smattering of people eating in red-vinyl booths. I try to see if there’s anyone I know. Sometimes guests from Fiordenkill and Byrn will venture out if they need to have a conversation too controversial for the inn, or if they’re curious about the human world. But I don’t recognize anyone, so I keep walking.
And besides, I don’t want to be out once dark really falls. Even though I know the doors to Solaria have been sealed off since the postwar treaty over a hundred years ago, worry burns through me like a live wire when I remember that we are never fully safe. That plenty of Solarians crossed through into our world before the treaty, and not all of them were found. They’re shapeshifters, capable of adapting and living among us—of living in any of the realms. They wear monstrous forms when they’re hungry, using teeth and claws to hunt us and devour our souls, but the rest of the time they can look like whatever they choose. Can look human, can breathe our air indefinitely.
The rest of us—humans and people from the other Adjacent Realms—can’t make it more than a few days, or a few weeks for the strongest of constitutions, in a realm other than our own before gasping and flapping like fish out of water. We are not meant to travel between realms. Except at Havenfall.
That’s why the inn is so special. Its magic makes it different—makes it safe. It is truly the one place everyone can intermingle.
I shudder and walk faster, passing the ancient motel with windows too dusty to see inside, which for some reason has never been knocked down or repurposed, even though Haven types are usually all about resourcefulness and reinvention in order to avoid having to interact with the outside world. A busted car becomes a chicken coop, the skeleton of a burned-down miner’s cabin becomes an illicit playground, an old bomb shelter becomes a bar. (Where, as Brekken and I have discovered, they don’t card.)
The rain slackens enough for me to close my umbrella as I leave town behind and trudge up toward Havenfall—good weather always seems to wrap the inn like a bubble, no matter what’s happening in town. But it’s rapidly getting darker even as the clouds slide away, and here’s the part of my plan I wish I’d thought more about. There are no streetlamps, and the whispering pines block any light from the inn above or the town below. It’s twilight now, but soon I’m going to have nothing to guide me but the moon and stars.
I’ve been walking on the side of the road for half an hour, squinting at the ground to make sure I don’t misstep, when an engine sound from down the road makes me look up.
A motorcycle’s headed right at me.
I leap back just as the bike roars around the bend.
My chest jackhammers as I watch the driver swerve, tires skidding over the dirt road, the bike going out from under him. The rider tumbles into the road, rolling over, while the bike shoots across the gravel, the motor sputtering out, and tangles in the brush between the trees.
My duffel is on the ground, my hands over my mouth. I run to the driver, who pushes unsteadily to stand. “Are you okay?”
He’s wearing a helmet—one of those shiny black ones that make you look like a Martian—and a leather jacket. He pulls off the helmet and oh—not a he, I realize as two dirty-blond braids tumble on either side of a pale, heart-shaped face.
“No thanks to you.”
She’s pretty, with a thin, wide mouth. A white scar runs down her chin, like this isn’t her first fall. Dark circles beneath her blazing, dark eyes. She swipes the back of her hand across her mouth.
“What the hell were you doing in the middle of the road?” She reaches up and touches a silver locket around her throat, as if to make sure it’s still there.
“I’m sorry, the fog—” I start to say something about how she could have taken it easy on the turns, but then I register the smear of red across her cheek. “Shit, you’re bleeding.”
Panic speeds my heart. I yank out my phone, not sure if I should call Marcus or 911. If she’s really hurt, could an ambulance even get up here?
Her hand shoots out and grabs my wrist before I decide. Her grip is hot, too tight.
“Don’t. I’m fine. Just bit my tongue.” She lets me go and spits blood onto the road, then troops off toward her bike, fists clenched. “This bike is my everything, though, so you better hope it still runs.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, at a loss for what to do. A second ago I was panicked, then mad, and now guilt fills me as I trail after her. “Are you from around here?” I call out. “Is there someone you could call to—I really don’t think you should try to ride that thing right now.”
She glares at me as she drags her bike from the underbrush back onto the road. Besides the left rearview mirror being cocked at a funny angle, the bike looks fine to me, but then it’s not like I know anything about motorcycles, and the way she took that fall …
Once her bike’s back on the road, she props it on the kickstand and turns to me, crossing her arms. “Worry about yourself,” she says. “The real question here is why the hell are you wandering around in the dark?”
Around us, the chorus of frogs and crickets slowly starts up again. I didn’t realize they’d stopped singing.
I lift my head, trying to match her manner, though I can’t imagine I’m all that intimidating with my damp clothes and sagging umbrella. “I’m headed to the Inn at Havenfall.”
“What a coincidence, me too.”
“What for?”
Marcus always hires all sorts of people to work at the inn every year during the summer summit; the meetings, parties, and events require extra maids and stable hands, cooks and attendants. But I can’t picture this girl blending into the background like a staffer is meant to. Besides, all the new staff was supposed to arrive last week, a few days before the delegates, to get ready.
“I saw an ad in the paper for a landscaper.” She lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Seemed like a good deal.”
“You’re late,” I snap. Then realize I didn’t mean to say it like that, but the adrenaline from a moment ago broke down my filters. “I mean, it’s okay. I’m sure it doesn’t matter.” I feel myself blushing, and quickly bend down to pick up my duffel bag.
Her eyes are narrow. “I would be less late if you hadn’t been walking in the middle of the road.”
“If you hadn’t been taking that bend like a madman—” I stop myself. Becoming irritated won’t help things. “You know what, arguing about it isn’t going to get us there any faster.”
Havenfall’s got to be less than half a mile away now, and I can feel it, an insistent tugging like a balloon string tied to my breastbone. I don’t want to fight with this girl. I just want to get there, and I offer an olive branch. “I’m Maddie.”