He turned and walked away, leaving me alone on the mosaic floor.
A while ago I told Sophie that George was merciless. She told me that he was compassionate and merciless at once, a contradiction. I understood now. There was no contradiction. George was merciless to himself. At the end of this, everyone, including me, would look for someone to blame for the pain and the suffering that lay ahead. We’d need a target, and he’d willingly painted a bull’s-eye on his chest. He took it all on himself, because the dead wept on Nexus when he returned their memories. He would take all the guilt and carry it away with him, absolving me because he had forced my hand. He had even done it a moment ago when he told me he had used me.
I would have to watch him very carefully tomorrow. He would give as much of himself to the psy-booster as he could. I didn’t want George to die.
Chapter Sixteen
I stood just beyond the door, watching the grand ballroom through a one-way mirror the inn had made for me. The hall shone tonight, the constellations on its ceiling bright, the floor all but glowing. The Holy Anocracy stood on the right in full armor, shoulder to shoulder, like a phalanx of ancient warriors using their bodies as shields. Across from them the Horde waited grim-faced, arranged in a wedge formation with the Khanum in front, a huge basher on her left, and Dagorkun on her right. Clan Nuan crowded on the left as well, some distance from the otrokars, shielding their matriarch with their bodies. Turan Adin in full armor stood between them and the Horde.
The wagons were circled, the weapons were primed, and the faces were grim. They eyed each other, ready for the violence to erupt, and they glanced at the four-foot-high bud growing from the center of the floor. The bud’s thick green sepals remained firmly shut.
My parents would be ashamed of me. Here were the guests of my inn. They had stayed at Gertrude Hunt for almost two weeks, a place where they were supposed to be protected and safe, yet they expected to be attacked at any moment. If the Innkeeper Assembly ever saw this, Gertrude Hunt would lose all her stars. There was no helping it now.
George stood by the bud, his handsome face solemn. The gold embroidery on his soft brown vest, the color of whiskey, glinted weakly in the light. His people had taken positions behind each of the factions: Jack stood behind the vampires, Sophie behind the Horde, and Gaston behind the Merchants. He had discussed it with me prior to the meeting, and when I asked for his reasoning, he told me that Gaston had natural resistance to poisons, Sophie had a strong psychological impact on the Horde, and Jack apparently had a lot of practice fighting soldiers in armor.
I ran through my mental checklist: Beast and the cat securely locked in my bedroom and the inn wouldn’t let them out, the sound dampeners activated, the street-facing facade reinforced. Yes, that was everything. You could set off an explosion in the grand ballroom now, and nobody outside the inn would hear a single sound.
A rustle of fabric announced Her Grace’s arrival to the bottom of the stairs. She wore a dark green dress with a silklike sheen, cinched to one side at her waist with a jeweled clasp and spilling down into a long skirt with a train embellished by glittering embroidery. Long, matching gloves covered her hands and arms. A luxurious fur collar, dark hunter green with individual hairs gradually changing color to bloodred at their tips, framed her shoulders. Black and green eight-inch spikes protruded from the collar, biological weapons of some long-dead alien predator. Matching small spikes decorated her elaborate bejeweled hair brooch. A necklace of emeralds, each the size of my thumbnail and framed in small fiery diamonds, graced her neck. She looked every inch exactly what she was: a ruthless, cunning animal of prey, armed with razor-sharp intelligence and unhindered by morals.
Caldenia saw my robe. Her eyebrows crept up.
Under ordinary circumstances, an innkeeper was an unobtrusive shadow, readily identifiable if the guests looked for her yet drawing no attention to herself. Our robes reflected that: gray, brown, dark blue, or hunter green, they served as our uniform. We had no need to impress. A bit of embroidery along the hem was as far as embellishment went. Yet once in a while, an occasion required that the full extent of our power had to be communicated. Today was that kind of day. I wore my judgment robe. Solid black, it swallowed the light. It pulled you in, and if you looked directly at it for too long, you would get the strange sensation that you were plunging into a bottomless dark well, as if someone had reached deep into the abyss, scooped out primordial darkness, then spun and wove it into a fabric. Lightweight and voluminous, the material of the robe was so thin that the slightest air current stirred it, and even now, without any perceptible draft, its hem moved and shifted as if some mystic power fanned it. The robe was impenetrable. No matter what sophisticated scanner a being might employ to augment their vision, I would appear the same, a specter, a chilling cousin of the Grim Reaper, my face hidden by my hood so only my mouth and chin remained visible. The broom in my hand had turned into a staff, its shaft the color of obsidian. I was no longer a person. I was an embodiment of the inns and innkeepers.
There were few universal principles in this world. That most water-based lifeforms drank tea was one. That we fear what we cannot see was the other. They would look at my robe, trying to discern the contours of my body, and when the abyss forced them to look away, they would search for my eyes trying to convince themselves I wasn’t a threat. They would find no reassurance.
“Well,” Caldenia said. “This should prove interesting.”
“Stay by my side, Your Grace.”
“I shall, my dear.”
The wall parted before me and I strode into my ballroom. They’d all had their show. It was time for mine.
The weak murmurs died. Silence claimed the hall, and within it I glided across the floor without a sound. As I moved, darkness rolled across the floor, walls, and ceiling, a menacing shadow of my power. The light dimmed. The constellations died, snuffed out by my presence. Watch me as I end your universe.
I reached the bulb. George didn’t step back, but he thought about it, because he unconsciously leaned back, trying to widen the distance between me and him. The darkness rolled behind me and remained there, an antisunrise blocking out the stars. Caldenia took a spot behind me on my left.
Nobody said a thing.
The floor parted in front of me, and a thin stalk of the inn lifted a platter supporting a glass teakettle half-filled with wassa tea. The light within the platter set the teakettle aglow, making the tea sparkle like a precious ruby. Or like blood.
The Horde stiffened. Nuan Cee visibly braced himself.
“There is a killer in this inn.” My voice rolled through the grand ballroom, a too-loud whisper charged with power. “A killer I will now punish.”
“By what right?” The question came from the vampire side. I had ratcheted the pressure to the limit. All of them were already on edge. If I weren’t careful, they would erupt.
“By the right of the treaty your governments signed. Those who attack guests within an inn lose all protections of their homeland. Your status, your wealth, and your position do not matter. You are in my domain. Here, I alone am the judge, the jury, and the executioner.”
I turned, my robe moving lightly along the floor, and began to circle the teakettle. A projection spilled out of the ceiling: me sitting on the divan, Dagorkun serving the tea, Caldenia picking up her cup.