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A fe in tune with the melody Other voices joined in, their individual sounds like ste around the first singer The air s of deep peace descended on the rooers wrapped around us, not isolating us fro cal onto the Marshal, for a complex circular pattern on the floor

He turned to y for the Wounded Soul How did you know?"

My parents had sheltered injured vahts before "I’m an innkeeper," I told him

He took a step forward and bowed "Thank you"

"You’re welco"

"It will be as She wills it"

He turned to Lord Soren’s body and knelt in the circle of light, his hair all but glowing

Sean rolled his eyes, still seated in the chair

"Are you sure you don’t want to rest?" I asked him

He leaned over, stole a crocheted blanket off the loveseat’s back, and spread it over hiht"

"Good night"

I went upstairs I had an wounded va over hi over the funny If only Dad and Mom were here, it would feel just like ho sun was shining bright through the gap in ht It was so quiet Usually birds were chirping by uess I’d slept too late

Common sense required that I had to co the dahaka I needed inforet that information out of the two vampires I’d read what I could on the House of Krahr They were a e and a fine tradition of extreme violence in the name of the Holy Anocracy So far they had yet to contribute either a Hierophant, who served as the religious leader of the Anocracy, or a Warlord, a designated commander-in-chief of the Anocracy’s con invasion occurred However, the knights of Krahr were financially stable, politically adept, respected by their peers and their rivals, and disinclined to suffer any insults

In other words, they were a traditional House, which meant they would be secretive and suspicious and would take offense if the wind blew the wrong way I was unlikely to be getting any answers out of them I would need a crowbar just to learn the Marshal’s na Sadly no answers appeared on the planks I’d gone through several bedrooed When I was a small child, I had a pretty princess bedroo When I was around ten, I saw a doculass exhibit and becaht shapes My parents’ inn had grown glass tendrils on the ceiling in every color of the rainbow When the sun hit it in the , my room had shimmered like a ical reef At thirteen, I wanted my room to be solid black At sixteen, soaway to college was the strangest experience of e depending on my ood place I had been bu for my parents for about three years and failed I had told Klaus I wanted to stop looking, but he couldn’t The kids of innkeepers went one of three ways A few led perfectly ordinary lives, happy to trade the sometimes uncertain environ to worry about odd things like two ifrits fro the house on fire Others became innkeepers, and fewer still became ad-hal But the majority of us left, draay from Earth, into the cosmic Beyond My brother was one of those travelers There was too much to see and too much to do He loved me but he wouldn’t settle down and play house with me because I missed our parents

Once I had accumulated a little money, I returned to Earth and went before the Asse colors There were only so h score was important Normally a new innkeeper replaced one ready to retire or opened an entirely new inn, but for some unknown reason they had offered me the Gertrude Hunt, an old abandoned inn that had fallen so dormant nobody was sure it could be awakened It see: ere both orphaned and unwanted I accepted the offer and coaxed the Gertrude Hunt out of hibernation

When I restructured the inn and created my suite, I wanted co a place that was just mine I’d always had this roe lost somewhere in the snowdrifts I didn’t want to completely replicate that, but I came close Above me, heavy wooden bea slanted at an angle, si an attic roohest at the opposite here a tallflooded the bedroo by the bed was eggshell, but the same wide planks of knotty pine lined the floor It wasn’t a fancy place, but it arm, comfortable, and completely mine

I lay in the coht now I had three beings in the inn ere neither guests nor staff Having strangers in the inn was a really bad idea When a guest was aduest and the innkeeper were bound by the rules of hospitality The innkeeper prouest pro hands sealed that deal

Neither Sean nor the vampires had proray, undefined area, and I liked things to be clear I couldn’t shake the feeling that so up Somehow even o

Lying in bed brooding about things wouldn’t solve anything I got up and went to the bathroodownstairs

I got dressed and went down the staircase Lord Soren still lay on the table and the Marshal still knelt by hireen stalks sprouted around him, each delicate two-foot-tall stem tipped with a narrow bud

Sean still sat in his chair Beast sat on his blanket-covered lap They were both staring at the vampire with identical freaked-out looks on their very different faces

Sean saw me, pointed at the vampire, and mouthed, "What the hell?"

I walked over to them "Has he ht Are you seeing this?"