by Sara Holland
“What happened to him?” I whisper. “Where is he?”
The Heiress looks down at her hands in surrender, like an old, defeated queen. “I don’t know,” she says. “He fled back to Fiordenkill, but why, I can’t say.”
That night comes flooding back to me. His kiss. I remember the heat of his lips on mine. His skin was cool, but his lips were warm, as if touching me set something ablaze in his soul.
So is this why Brekken was down in the tunnels that night, to go through Marcus’s office and steal these papers? If what the Heiress is saying is true, he had nothing to do with the Solarian door opening. The Silver Prince was wrong; Brekken is innocent. That should be a comfort to me, but I can’t forget that even if Brekken’s cause was noble, he still used me. I thought he always told me everything, that I knew him better than anyone. Instead, he had this whole plot, a secret life I hadn’t an inkling of. He took me to the stables, kissed me stupid, and stole my keys.
I push the thought away. I have plenty of more important things to worry about, like where Brekken is now. Maybe he crossed paths with the first Solarian in the tunnels and fled back to Fiordenkill for safety? Or maybe—my stomach clenches—Marcus caught Brekken snooping before the Solarian showed up, and Brekken had to run. In any case, the Heiress doesn’t know about the open door to Solaria—hopefully she believes the beast on the grounds wandered in from outside—and I don’t trust her enough to tell her. Quickly, I look back down at the desk, so she won’t read anything on my face. The papers take up fully half of the polished wood of the desktop, the rest taken up by a jumble of silver objects.
“What do these do?” I ask the Heiress, pointing to the silver, more to fill the silence and give myself time to think than because I really care.
She smiles sadly, like she knows I’m not actually looking for an answer, but humors me anyway. “I don’t know. They’re a Fiorden shipment I just got back. I need to test and catalog them.”
But my gaze has already been pulled back to the correspondence. There are years and years of it. I read enough already to know that she’s telling the truth about Marcus’s involvement, but it would take days to read through the stack of documents. I know I should read every single piece of paper. I need to understand, but the thought makes me so tired.
All I want to do is crawl into bed and wake up to find everything is back to normal. I’d go downstairs and listen to Marcus make the breakfast announcements. I’d spend my day hiking the grounds or trying to eavesdrop on meetings or sneaking out with Brekken. I’d practically be a guest of the inn. Everything would be out of my hands, and I’d experience all the beauty and grandeur of the summit from the sidelines. I wouldn’t understand the weight that comes with being at its center.
Instead, I’m the Innkeeper for now, and I hate it.
Something on the papers catches my eye, and my finger traces the ink on the page. A name: Sylvia Morrow.
Mom.
Her cell phone number is listed beside it. It’s still the only number I know by heart, the only number I could dial in my sleep. Forgetting to breathe, I scan up to the top of the page. The heading says HOSTS.
What the hell does that mean?
I look up at the Heiress for explanation, when a knock from the hall makes our hands freeze, our heads swiveling toward the door.
The Heiress’s eyes dart toward the papers, and she gestures at me to put them away. I hurriedly cram them into the still-open desk drawer and shut it, careful not to let it slam. Then I take a cup of tea from the side table and hold it mid-sip, like we’ve just been in the midst of a casual chat, as the Heiress opens the door.
Taya is standing in the hall, one hand raised to knock again. She sees the Heiress first and takes a step back, starting to apologize—but then she sees me in the room and freezes, her eyes darting between the old woman and me.
“Good afternoon, Heiress. Maddie, hi,” she says, clearly confused to find me here. “Graylin’s been looking for you all morning. We’ve checked everywhere.”
I get up and busy myself with the tea tray. The rows of Fiorden silver glint invitingly at me from the Heiress’s desk, especially a silver dish with a gold inlay of a winged snake wound around a staff, like you see on the signs of doctors’ offices. The familiar symbol—I can’t remember what it’s called, something Latin?—snags my attention, and I instinctively seize the moment to slip it from the table into my jacket pocket. Even as I do it, I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe to know what all the fuss has been about. To figure out how the magic works.
“Thank you for the talk,” I say to the Heiress, carrying the tea tray out into the hallway.
When Taya and I are on the staircase and out of earshot, my shoulders relax for the first time in what seems like ages.
“What’s going on? How are you feeling?” I ask Taya beneath my breath.
She shifts her feet. She still looks pale and tired, just like last night, but there’s something else buried there too. Shock. Fear.
“We have a problem,” she says darkly.
A groan escapes through my gritted teeth. “What is it now?”
Taya looks right at me. “News got out about the Solarian on the grounds. And that the door to Solaria is open.”
16
Someone is shouting in the reception room. “It only makes sense!” he yells.
Standing alone in the hallway—Taya’s gone to find Graylin—I recognize the voice as belonging to Lonan, the Silver Prince’s associate who traded gossip with me at the bar my first night here. His words are blunt and heavy, weapons that will shatter our fragile peace if I don’t disarm him and defuse the situation. I reach for the door, my breath coming fast.
“We didn’t open it,” Princess Enetta shoots back. Her anger suffuses the air, echoes ricocheting from wall to wall. “I already told your Silver Prince—”
She falls silent as I burst into the room. The door bangs off the wall and bounces back. I catch it with one hand and shut it quietly behind me, heart racing.
Lonan and Enetta face each other in front of the fireplace, a gaggle of concerned-looking delegates hanging back behind the circle of armchairs. The fire pops and flares dangerously, and maybe I’m imagining it, but the ground seems to tremble a little. The air crackles with tension and magic.
Lonan’s gaze moves to me and stops, cold. “Madeline,” he says. His voice is no longer loud, but flat and unnerving. “What is the meaning of this? Why didn’t you tell us that the door to Solaria was open? That there was a beast on the grounds?”
My breath, already ragged, vanishes in my chest. All eyes in the room snap to mine.
“It was for all of our protection,” I say in a rush. “We didn’t want to cause a panic. I’ve posted guards outside the door at all hours, and we’re in the process of resealing the door right now.”
My voice breaks on the lie. I must sound as hollow as I feel.
It’s a shitty excuse. Even I know that. Now that I’m pinned under the weight of their shock and searching gazes, all the reasons I had for keeping the news hidden evaporate from my mind. Didn’t the guests of Havenfall deserve to know they were in danger? What kind of stupidity or arrogance does it take to hide something like that?
“And this Solarian monster in the woods,” Lonan goes on. “Did it come from outside, from Haven, or did it come through the door?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
Their expressions are withering. I’ve never felt more useless, not even when I was a child at Havenfall. Not even the time when Enetta’s father Elirien caught me playing hide-and-seek with Brekken under the dinner table and reprimanded us in front of the entire delegation. I’ve never felt more unworthy to fill Marcus’s shoes, to take his place as Innkeeper.
“I will meet with the Fiorden delegation this evening,” Enetta says, raising her voice to address everyone in the room. “And if they decide that they wish to leave, we will do so.”
Betrayal shoots through me. Enetta knew the door was open
, but now that everyone else does, she wants to take her delegation and go? “But …”
The word sounds high and wild. I stop and take a breath, imagining stripping the jagged panic from my voice like bark, until it’s smooth and featureless. Take a breath, start again.
“Your Highness, with all due respect, I don’t think that’s a good idea. The magic of the doorways is delicate, as you know. An early exit by the Fiorden delegation could disrupt things. It could cause the Solarian door to open further.”
“And then we will be in our own world, ready with our army to meet anything that should come through,” she counters. “Not trapped here like … like …”
“Sitting ducks,” I supply, my voice popping out of its own accord. Again I feel the crazy urge to laugh, like at Nate’s funeral.
Now both Enetta and Lonan are scowling at me. They think I’m mocking them. I try to project a neutral expression, something appropriately contrite for keeping secrets from them, but not overly panicked. Something that says I’m sorry, but I know what I’m doing.
Judging from the level of emotion in the room, it doesn’t seem to be working. Where are Graylin and Willow? Why is Marcus still asleep? I need you, I think, willing him to hear me wherever he is.
The door to the hall slams behind us, and I turn around. It’s Taya.
“Maddie,” she says, ignoring the imperious glares of the delegates. “You’re needed at the infirmary.”
Marcus? “Is it Marcus?” I ask without meaning to.
Taya’s eyes flicker around to all the delegates, and my heart sinks. Whatever information she brings, she doesn’t want to say it in front of them. Not a great sign. I take a deep breath.
“Okay,” I say, and look back at the delegates and Lonan and Enetta. “We can—we will—talk more about this later,” I promise them. “Just please don’t do anything rash in the meantime. I swear to you I’ll fix this.”
The vow lands with a thud in the room. No one’s expression changes except for Princess Enetta’s, whose face hardens. And she’s right. I put her people in danger. That’s the worst part—that she’s right.
Taya doesn’t ask me what happened in the reception room as she leads me to the infirmary, and I don’t ask what’s waiting for us there. I know not talking won’t fix anything, but I need the respite. We use the twisty, narrow, back employee-only hallways, thankfully empty of delegates and staff. I have pretty much zero comfort to offer anyone.
But any shred of relief dissolves when we step into the infirmary. Graylin’s standing inside with a handful of other Fiorden healers. They are gathered around a form on the bed that seems very small. Too small. My stomach drops and my breath vanishes.
The crowd divides for a second as people shuffle around, and I see the patient—Max, a human, a busboy. Crap, he can’t be more than fifteen. He’s covered up with a white blanket, his face pale and breathing shallow.
“What happened?” I demand as I rush over, Taya a step behind me.
Graylin is the one who answers. He and the rest of the healers hover their hands over the boy’s body. Magic shimmers beneath them like distant rain.
“I don’t know,” he says hoarsely. “We found him on the grounds.”
I catch a glimpse of Taya’s face, and it’s a mirror of how I feel—confused, terrified. Horror curdles my insides.
“Is he going to be okay?”
Graylin’s mouth flattens. He pulls the blanket back for a moment, just enough for me to see the thick bandages wrapping Max’s thin, pallid torso.
“He’ll live, but it’s bad. This is a magic sleep, to help with the pain until we make more progress.”
“What do you think happened?” Taya asks quietly.
“The Solarian?” I guess.
Graylin considers, his lips pressed together. “Maybe. But his injuries are different from Marcus’s and yours, Taya. He’s been slashed.”
I open my mouth to say something else—I don’t know what—when the earth seems to shudder and groan beneath our feet. It’s over in a heartbeat, but everyone looks up at once and Graylin’s eyes fly wide.
“What the hell was that?” Taya asks in a low, husky voice that shows she’s scared.
Graylin looks at me. “The doorways.”
Graylin, Taya, and I rush down to find chaos in the tunnels. Fiorden and Byrnisian delegates swarm the juncture, the lamps on the walls barely enough to illuminate them, so it appears at first like just one seething ocean of bodies. Shouts echo off the stone, layering over each other until it’s all a jumbled mass of sound and panic. I want to hide away somewhere, curled up with my hands over my ears, until this is all over. But I can’t. I can’t.
“They’re going through! The Fiordens are going through!” someone screams when we stop in the entrance tunnel.
A knot of Fiordens at the front of the crowd has clustered around the tunnel mouth to their world, shouting at Sal, who they’ve pressed up against the stone wall. A few of the soldiers who joined yesterday’s hunt have gone farther down and formed a line across the hallway, weapons drawn, as if to catch anything that might come from around the bend of the tunnel and the Solarian door past it. Through the tangle of noise, words and phrases float to my ears.
You can’t keep us here.
Let us pass!
Graylin has his hand on my arm, protective, but I pull free and dart through the crowd, panic making my ears buzz, requiring that I move. I can’t hang back and watch this. I throw elbows until I’m at the front of the crowd and step up in the gap next to Sal, turning to face the Fiordens’ wrathful gazes. The door is not far behind us. An aching, cold, snow-scented breeze plays at my back, ghosting over the nape of my neck. Like it’s beckoning me through, inviting me to step across to a world where I might freeze to death in a matter of minutes, but at least that’s better than getting torn open by a Solarian’s claws and teeth. Or an angry crowd. I wonder where Brekken is now, somewhere in that cold universe.
I don’t know what I’m going to say, but I have to say something, because when I raise my hand, the crowd quiets all at once. I feel their eyes on me like heat-seeking missiles. Marcus would know what to do, what to say. But he isn’t here. Just Sal. And me.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Mads,” he says under his breath.
“Delegates,” I begin, willing my voice not to shake. Then I realize that wasn’t loud enough, so I try again. “Delegates. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the door to Solaria. I feared exactly this.”
Silence. I see Graylin’s face and Taya’s at the far end of the tunnel, but the crowd is pressed too tightly for them to come forward.
“I get that you’re scared,” I say. “I’m scared too. And with my uncle sick, I haven’t made all the right choices. But the last time Solarians threatened Havenfall, we beat them by coming together—”
“Not before the ice lovers allied with them!” someone shouts, using a derogatory Byrnisian nickname for Fiordens.
An angry ripple cuts through the crowd, and I see hostile glances shooting from face to face like wildfire, like infection. Tension churns in the air.
“That was over a century ago,” I say, trying for calm. “I know the Fiorden delegation is as committed to peace as any of us. Aren’t they?”
That last bit comes out with the hint of a challenge, directed at the Fiordens gathered around us as we block the door. The courtier Nessa is closest, and I hold her gaze, my head high. For a second I think I’ve convinced them, that I’ve won.
Then Nessa draws her sword—her pretty jeweled sword that I always thought was just ornamental—and lunges for the doorway.
Sal shoves me out of the way, his extender baton coming out just in time to meet the sword with a sharp crack. The people around us barge ahead, though, and when Sal spins one way to counter Nessa’s blow, a middle-aged delegate darts behind him.
The door ripples and there’s a fwoom sound like a drumbeat at the bottom of the range of human hearing, and a blast of icy a
ir and starlight, and the delegate is gone.
That’s all it takes. Nessa’s sword flashes and blood flies; Sal cries out and stumbles back, clutching his shoulder.
The clatter of his baton on the stone floor opens the floodgates.
Everyone surges forward at once, and I grab on to the rough stone wall to avoid being pushed through the Fiorden doorway. Bodies shove past me, indistinguishable in the rush and the noise. People shout and scream in three languages. I yell at them to stop, but no one hears me; if it weren’t for the scrape in my throat and lungs I wouldn’t be sure I was speaking at all. I can’t move, can scarcely breathe. I don’t know what to do.
Then lightning—lightning—branches across the top of the tunnel, searing my vision, leaving a forked trail of light behind my eyes. Heat scalds my upturned face, and the boom an instant later resonates in my chest and sends dust raining down. The noise dies at once, as suddenly as if someone pressed a mute button; everyone turns to the top of the tunnel, where the Silver Prince stands silhouetted against the light of the upstairs hallway.
In the still and the silence, I notice that the crowd is thinner. Some people are on the ground; some people are hunched and trembling; some people are gone. In the panic, how many people went through to Fiordenkill?
“Enough,” the Silver Prince calls, and his voice echoes the thunder. His gaze finds me and he beckons. “Madeline.”
A part of me resents being summoned in my own inn, but I am too shell-shocked to do anything but obey. The delegates who remain in the tunnels, sweaty and pale and wide-eyed, separate wordlessly and I walk up, past Graylin and Taya, to stand by the Prince’s side. He lifts a hand and points, past the doors to Fiordenkill and Byrn, into the darkness toward Solaria.
“There is the enemy,” he says, voice dark and scary and commanding. “We suffered through a decade of war to learn this lesson, but it seems some have forgotten.” His eyes drill toward the Fiorden door, the delegates still lingering around it, frozen in the act of trying to get through. “As the Innkeeper’s niece has said, only in unity will we triumph over them. We must preserve the peace at any cost.”
