Graylin looks up from his book—Leaves of Grass—as we enter. “Maddie! And …”
His voice trails off in confusion as he looks at Taya, then back at me, and rises from his chair. He’s striking, over six feet tall with dark skin and light brown eyes, and despite spending so many years with Marcus on this side of the divide, he still has an otherworldly air about him. He’s a scholar of the Realms and still visits Fiordenkill every so often to give lectures. His walk is fast but light-footed, like he could pass through the woods in winter without leaving footprints in the snow. And even though he’s basically family, I still feel an instinctive rush of awe and unease, as I always do meeting anyone from the Realms. But the embrace he wraps me in is familiar, if a little sharp and bony.
“So good to see you,” Graylin rumbles in his deep, faintly accented voice. Then he pulls back, his brow creasing. “But I thought you weren’t coming this year.”
I guess Marcus didn’t get my texts, then. “I changed my mind,” I say, aiming for breezy. “Hope that’s okay.”
“Of course.”
Graylin studies me, blinking, and the soft look in his eyes makes me realize he probably knows about Mom and the death penalty. There’s nothing in all the worlds I want less to talk about, so I speak quickly, beckoning Taya forward.
“Graylin, this is Taya. She applied for a landscaping job …?”
Picking up my cue, Graylin turns to her and smiles. “Of course. Maddie will show you in and introduce you to Willow, the head of house. Won’t you, Maddie? But first …”
He reaches back, catching the carafe of wine and two glasses in his long fingers. He pours and extends the drinks to us. “Won’t you have a drink to celebrate the start of summer?”
Taya glances at me, uncertain, and I smile reassuringly, though a small pang of regret goes through me. We’ve built a weird little bond in the last half hour that it feels wrong to erase. But that’s just my loneliness talking, I tell myself. Someone almost hitting you on their motorcycle’s hardly a promising start to a friendship.
I tip the wine against my closed lips and swallow, pretending to drink, and Taya follows suit for real. I resist the urge to lick the flower-scented berry wine off my lips.
The effect on Taya is immediate. She blinks, dazed, and sways on her feet a little. Graylin takes her arm gently and settles her in his chair as she looks around, as if seeing the hall for the first time.
It’s necessary for the staff to let go of their lives before and to accept the existence of magic, I remind myself. And then it’s necessary for them to drink another glass before they leave at the end of the summer, to forget all they’ve seen at Havenfall and keep its secrets safe. So necessary that before the door to Solaria was sealed shut, the portal-keepers used to employ Solarians to track down anyone who let word slip about the other realms. Now, of course, that’s not an option. So we use the wine—made from Fiorden-grown enchanted fruit—to remove the possibility of any leaks.
Of course, a few whispers have gotten out over the years. Marcus thinks that in ancient times, there were other omphalos, other places where the worlds converged, and that our myths—of dragons, vampires, djinni, fae, what have you—stem from other realms. The myths, the stories winding their way through human society, sometimes bear a strange similarity to the Realms. Graylin swears that Narnia’s resemblance to Fiordenkill is more than just a coincidence.
“I’m so sorry we didn’t pick you up, Maddie,” Graylin says, sliding my duffel and backpack from my shoulders before I can knock over the wine. “Did you call?”
“It’s my fault. I decided to come at the last minute.”
“Well, of course you’re welcome anytime. But I will warn you,” he adds apologetically. “The Heiress returned this afternoon. So Marcus may be a bit … distracted.”
“The Heiress?” Surprise colors my voice.
The elegant elderly woman has been a fixture at Havenfall for as long as I can remember; she has her own suite in the north wing. And she likes to be referred to as “Heiress,” as if she never had a name—or has ditched it on purpose. She looks human, but moves with languor that seems a little unearthly. She claims to be a former member of the Fiordenkill High Court who wanted to spend her twilight years in the place she loves most, Havenfall. No one really believes that, nor do we know where she really comes from. She has tales and gossip from across all the worlds, and every summer when I’d return to the inn, she’d always have some little treat for me: Fiorden candy that tasted like sunlight or a Byrnisian glass figurine that whistled a song when you held it up in the wind.
That was until last year. When I arrived in June, she was gone, her suite empty, and all Marcus would tell me was that they’d had a falling out.
“Did they make up?”
“I don’t know.” Graylin’s mouth flattens. “They still don’t seem on very good terms, even though Marcus and I spent all afternoon moving her knickknacks into the suite. But your uncle won’t tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’m sure they’ll find a way to smooth things over,” I say, happy to hear that the Heiress is back, but unnerved because it’s not like Marcus to keep secrets—not from me, and especially not from Graylin.
Taya stands, a vacant smile on her face, and I find I can’t meet her eyes. I know the wine, the enchantment, is necessary to not blow the secret of this place wide open. But somehow, I prefer the scowling version of her.
“You probably want to clean up and join the party. Will you just take, ah—”
“Taya,” I supply, and she cocks her head at me, eyes bright.
“—Taya to the staff wing, and Willow can figure out where to put her.” Graylin smiles at me. “I’ll make sure your room is ready.”
He waves us off, and my heart lifts as I beckon to Taya and lead her up the right side of the grand staircase, the thick red-and-gold rug soft beneath our feet. I can hear the music from beyond the green curtain, the strange haunting melodies of the Byrnisian Elemental Orchestra, the laughter of the delegates, and it takes everything I have not to turn and run toward the sound. It feels like I’ve been awake for weeks, like my visit to the prison this morning was a lifetime ago. I need to call Dad and break the news that I’m not in Nebraska, and my muscles are sore from sitting so long on a bus and straddling a motorcycle. But I’m here, and that’s all that matters.
We reach the aged common room outside the staff wing, hearing chatter and laughter before we even round the corner, loud and loose with the influence of forgetting-wine. On the first day of employment, Willow always tells the human staff the basics about the Adjacent Realms and the peace summit, just enough so people can do their jobs and don’t get freaked out if they get a glimpse of weather magic or a glimmer of scales. Surprisingly, everyone usually takes it more or less in stride. There’s something about this place that makes people accept magic. That draws them in, along for the ride until the second dose of forgetting-wine in August.
In Byrn and Fiordenkill, the portals aren’t a secret the way they are on Earth. Most of those who attend the summit are upper-crust, Fiorden nobles or elite Byrnisian soldiers. But there are civilians, too, in each delegation, who come to supplement the inn’s human staff in housekeeping or security. Each spot is a huge honor, so I’m told, given out as a prize to the most promising youth among their peoples.