I hugged him. Quills poked me. “No, I don’t want you to pack. You’re my friend, Orro. You’re always welcome here. This is your home for as long as you want it.”
He sniffled.
“Besides, you’re a great chef. All the other inns envy me. Where else would I find a chef this amazing?”
He sniffled again. “I’m a better chef than Garry Keys.”
“That was never in doubt.”
8
Early the next morning, I knocked on the frame of Adira’s window. She stood with her back to me, reading a long scroll, but the sound hadn’t startled her. She turned slowly, smiled at me, and said, “Come in.”
I moved the glass and walked in. Adira looked at the plain grey robe in my hands.
“Are you busy?” I asked.
“Not particularly.”
“Have you ever been to Baha-char?”
Adira frowned. “No.”
“Then I propose that you and I go shopping, and then go have brunch at Baha-char.”
Adira looked at me, looked at the robe, and then looked at me again. “What kind of shopping is available at Baha-char?”
“Every kind.”
Adira took the robe and called out, “Imur, if Zedas asks, I am resting and am not to be disturbed.”
“Yes, my liege,” A female voice answered from the main bedroom.
Adira pulled the robe on and followed me out the window. We slid to the first floor, went inside, down the hallway, and to a door.
“What’s in the satchel?” Adira nodded at a large tattered bag on my shoulder.
“I have to run an errand to help a friend. It won’t take long.”
“Will the inn be alright without you?”
“My boyfriend will take care of it. He’s installing extra weapons for your meeting.”
Adira smiled as if I had said something amusing.
The door swung open and sunshine flooded the hallway.
“What is this?” Adira asked.
“Come with me and find out.”
We walked the sunlit streets of Baha-char under the purple sky, while the broken planet rose slowly above us. We gawked at strange creatures, ducked into little shops, and bargained with the shop keepers. I took her to the Fiber Row, where all things thread, fabric, and yarn were sold. She walked into a store the size of Wal-Mart filled with skeins of yarn in every color and didn’t leave for two hours. She bought yarn, or rather I bought it for her and she promised to reimburse me. I bought a short sword for Sean at a small stall a few streets over. It seemed very old, made of a strange dark blue metal, but razor sharp.
Afterward, tired, we sat at a small café, guarding the big sack of yarn and my sword with our legs, while a waitress with four arms brought us tall drinks filled with green liquid and bubbles. The bubbles would break free and burst with a loud pop, making the air smell like persimmons.
Somewhere between the first table of yarn and my sword purchase, Adira turned human. She smiled, and talked, and there was life in her face.
“What made you want to invite me?” she asked, sipping her drink.
“You seemed sad.”
“I was sad.”
“You can open a portal to Baha-char from your system,” I told her. “Baha-char is much easier to reach than Earth, and I know that other Dryhten visit it for trade. You can come here whenever you want.” I reached into my satchel and pulled out a small wooden amulet, a branch of striated wood braided into a circle. I handed it to her. “The entrance for Gertrude Hunt is in the alley by the Saurian merchant. He sells underwater lights. It’s the only shop of its kind at Baha-char. If you go down the alley to its end with this amulet in hand, Gertrude Hunt will let me know. You can visit whenever you want.”
“It’s a shortcut?”
“Yes, it is.” I smiled at her. “You promised Zedas that you wouldn’t open a portal to Earth. You didn’t say anything about Baha-char. He is an Akeraat. He will appreciate your cleverness.”
“Thank you.” Adira slipped the amulet into her robe. Her face turned grave. “Tonight, my uncle comes.”
“We will be ready. I’ll make sure you will have privacy.”
Adira’s expression turned sharper. “I don’t want privacy.”
“You don’t?” I thought this was a family matter and an awkward one at that.
“I want to meet him outside. I want everyone to see it, so every word is witnessed. I’ll be making a statement.”
“Very well.” I’d planned to make a special room, but I could move it outside, behind the inn.
“When the time comes,” Adira said, “I don’t want you to worry about my safety. Concentrate on protecting the inn and the other guests instead.”
“You don’t want me to interfere.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to you. I regret involving you in this. I hope your power will be enough to contain what is to come.”
“And that doesn’t sound ominous, not at all.” I sipped my drink.
“Dina, it can’t all be sunshine, shopping trips, and bubbly drinks.”
“But wouldn’t it be nice if it was?”
We left the café and walked down a winding street to a large restaurant. A line of beings stretched out the door. I approached the creature by the door, a big beefy beast with a ferocious face and fangs as big as fingers.
“I have a parcel for Chef Adri.”
The beast glared at me. “Chef Adri doesn’t cook here.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
I opened my satchel and took out a clear plastic container. Inside the container, secured by tiny prongs, sat a lemon muffin. A folded piece of paper waited next to the muffin. I handed it to the door beast, and we left.
“I had fun,” Adira said when we reached the alley. “Is there anything I can do for you in return?”
“It’s not necessary,” I told her. “I didn’t do it for a favor. I did it because it made me happy.”
Rudolph Peterson arrived at four thirty. He exited the car, flanked by two bodyguards in suits, and attempted to make his way up the driveway. He got two feet in before I turned the air toxic. After the three of them got done coughing their lungs out, they retreated to the car to wait.
I visited the koo-ko, informed them that the debate had to stop until the end of Adira’s meeting, relayed Adira’s request, and bribed them with an extra hour to finish their debate and a giant TV screen so they could watch the meeting. I created a gallery on the back wall of the inn, an armored room shielded by three feet of clear crystasteel, and invited Caldenia, Orro, and Qoros into it. When I left it, Caldenia and Qoros were chatting like old friends and complimenting Orro on the hors d'oeuvres he’d whipped up.
Sean had gone to the war room. My original plan was to join him there, but Adira asked me to sit with her. I had the absurd feeling that a duel was coming, and I would be her second.
I moved a table and three chairs out of storage and set them a hundred feet from the kitchen door. Gertrude Hunt had been spreading its roots, claiming the land I’d purchased, and my power extended over the three acres directly behind the inn. I hoped it would be enough.
At four fifty my cell phone rang. Mr. Rodriguez, Tony’s father. I answered.
“I called to wish you good luck,” he told me.
“How did you know?”
“She’s broadcasting it.”
What? “How?”
“I don’t know. But it’s on the main screen across every inn.”
I groaned.
“Do your best,” Mr. Rodriguez said.
“You don’t understand.” The nervous doubt that had been curling inside me broke free. “Ever since I came back from the death of the seed, there is this distance between me and the inn. It’s like the inn is holding back.”
“Dina, you have no time. Listen to me, I don’t know what you’re feeling, but the inns are like dogs. They give themselves completely. They don’t know how to hold back. You will do fine. You have my full confidence.”
He hung up.
He was right. The inns didn’t know how to hold back.
It was me.
The Drífen were coming down the staircase. I had only three minutes to spare.
I closed my eyes and opened my soul. The doubt, the guilt, the fear, I let it go, and Gertrude Hunt’s magic flooded into me, clean and strong. The past already happened; the future was now. I was an innkeeper, this was my inn, and everything and everyone within it was in my care.
I opened my eyes, folded space, and let the Drífen exit onto the back lawn.
The five retainers took positions on the back porch. Adira walked to the table alone and sat. She still wore her old cloak. Still ordinary.
I walked to the front door, opened it, and stepped outside in my robe. Rudolph Peterson saw me and charged up the driveway. He was halfway to the door before he realized his bodyguards hadn’t made it. He glanced over his shoulder at two men suddenly confronted with a wall of boiling hot air.
“Just you,” I told him.
He waved them off and they got back into the car.
I led him around the back, through the gate in the fence, to the table. He sat across from Adira. I took the chair between them.
There was a pitcher of iced tea on the table and three glasses. Adira drank from hers. Her uncle grabbed the pitcher and poured himself a glass.
An electric tension vibrated through me, not really nervousness, but anticipation. Something was going to happen.
“You look good,” Rudolph said. “You look like your mother.”
Adira drank some more of her tea.
“I tried to help her. I really did, but you know how she was.”
“My mother died five years ago. She suffered for a long time. I was there when she called you for help and you said no.”
Rudolph ‘s hands curled into fists. “I asked her for a simple thing. Just one thing, the only favor I ever asked. I would have given her everything for that.”