“It will only take a moment.” I stepped into the kitchen. Some things were constant in the Universe. Two and two didn’t always equal four, but every water-based species at some point had heated water and threw some plants into it.
Dagorkun followed me into the kitchen. I took two mugs from the cupboard, one with strawberries on it and the other with a small black cat, filled them with hot water from the Keurg and put two bag of chai in to soak. Dagorkun watched me like a hawk. Clearly he expected to be poisoned.
“Is this your first time on Earth?”
He waited for a long moment, clearly thinking over if it was wise to answer. “Yes.”
“You are now a guest of my inn. Your safety is my utmost priority.” I fished the tea bags out, put them into a small dish, got a canister of sugar that was made of thick blue glass and put a spoonful of it into my chai. “Neither my dog, nor my inn will hurt you, unless you attempt to harm another guest.”
“The vampires recommend you,” Dagorkun said.
I put a spoon of sugar into his cup. One, two… “Yes, but it doesn’t mean I’ll treat them any differently than your people. I’m a neutral party.”
Three… Four ought to do it. He looked like a northerner to me. The southern Otrokar had a greener undertone to their skin. I offered him the cup. He picked it up carefully.
“What if you stopped being neutral?”
“The rating of my inn would be downgraded. It would be known that this was an unsafe place to stay. No guests would visit, and without guests, the inn would wither, fall into hibernation, and die.”
“And the witch?”
“What witch?”
“The old witch who stays with you.”
Most people would’ve taken “witch” as a slur, but for otrokar a witch meant someone of great dark power. He was simply giving Her Grace the respect she had earned.
“Caldenia won’t interfere with the peace talks. This inn and I are the only reason she is still alive. She’ll do nothing to jeopardize that.”
Dagorkun mulled it over, raised the cup to his lips, and sipped. His eyes lit up. “Good.”
“Shall we see to the rooms?”
He nodded. I led him through the front room to a perfectly ordinary hallway. It matched the front of the house perfectly: wooden floor and plain beige walls. And the portrait of my parents in the dead center, in a small alcove just as you walk through the doorway. I’d moved it there just for this occasion. Dagorkun glanced at them. I scrutinized his face. No reaction.
One day someone would walk through this doorway, see my parents, and recognize them. When that happened, I would be ready. I just needed a faint trail, a crumb, some drop of information that told me where to start looking for them. I would not stop until I found them.
We turned right, walked a few feet to another plain doorway, and stepped through it. Dagorkun stopped. A curving stairway of dark wood led up, its rail decorated with carved stylized animals: the long-legged three-horned stag; the kair, a wolf-like predator; the massive armor-plated garuz that looked like a three-horned rhino on steroids… I went right down the list of otrokar heraldry in the traditional order. Light fixtures imitating the traditional torches burned in their sconces on the dark wall streaked with red and gold. Colorful banners of the Hope-Crushing Horde hung between them.
“Does the stairway meet with your approval?” I asked.
“It will suffice,” Dagorkun said carefully.
“Please.” I pointed to the stairs. He started up the steps. Here is hoping the pits were deep enough.
Twenty minutes later we established that the pits were perfectly proportioned, the faux-silk pillows were soft enough and in the correct array of colors, the arched windows were properly ornate, and the view of the orchard which had required enough dimensional finagling to make the entire university of theoretical physicists beg for mercy was stimulating enough. The orchard was seen from every new guest room I had built for the summit, which should’ve been impossible, but I never bothered too much with the laws of physics anyway. If they decided to jump out of their windows, they would end up in my orchard behind the house and out of site of the main road and subdivision. Not that I had any intention of letting anyone exit the inn without my knowledge.
By the end of the tour Dagorkun had relaxed enough to stop continuously checking corners for hidden assassins. We were almost back to my front room when the inn chimed. I glanced out of the window just in time to catch the last glimpse of a familiar red flash. Oh no.
“We have company,” I told Dagorkun. “Excuse me, please.”
I walked to the front door and opened it. A massive figure filled the doorway, broad-shouldered and clad into black armor shot through with blood-red, which made him look enormous. His blond hair spilled onto his back like a long lion’s mane. His face, masculine with a heavy square jaw, was handsome enough to make you pause.