“Close it,” the innkeeper says behind him. “Please.”
Dorian hesitates but then he closes the door.
“The inn can only send you where you are meant to go,” the innkeeper tells him. “But that,” he points at the door, “is a depth where only the owls dare to fly, waiting for their king. You cannot go there unprepared.”
He crosses back to the fire and Dorian follows him.
“What do I need?” Dorian asks.
Before the innkeeper can answer the door opens, its hinges flung wide. The wind enters first, bringing a gust of snow along with it, and after the snow comes a traveler wearing a long hooded cloak the color of the night sky embroidered with constellations in silver thread. Even after the traveler pulls back her hood snowflakes continue to cling to her dark hair and remain sparkling over her skin.
The door slams itself shut behind her.
The moon goes directly to Dorian, taking a long parcel wrapped in midnight-blue silk from her cloak as she approaches.
“This is yours,” she says as she hands it to him, forgoing the unnecessary introductions. “Are you ready? There is not much time.”
Dorian knows what the parcel contains before he unwraps the silk, the weight of it familiar in his hand though he has held it only once before in a dream.
(If the sword could sigh with relief as it is taken from its scabbard it would, for it has been lost and found so many times before and it knows this time will be the last.)
“We cannot send him out there,” the innkeeper says to his wife. “It’s…” He cannot bring himself to articulate what it is and danger beyond articulation is worse than anything Dorian can imagine.
“It is where he wishes to go,” the moon insists.
“I’ll find Zachary there, won’t I?” Dorian asks.
The moon nods.
“Then that is where I’m going.”
(There is a pause here, filled only by the wind and the crackling of the fire and the hum of the story impatient to continue, purring like a cat.)
“I’ll get his bag,” the innkeeper says, leaving Dorian alone with the moon.
“This inn is a tethered space,” she tells him. “It remains the same no matter how the tides change. Once you leave here you will be untethered again and you will not be able to trust anything you encounter. There are things in the shadows, whether they were god or mortal or story once, they are something else now. They will tailor themselves to suit you so they might pull you from your path.”
“To suit me?”
“To frighten or confuse or seduce. They will use your thoughts to ensnare you. We exist at the edges here, of what you might call story or myth. It can be difficult to navigate. Hold tightly to what you believe.”
“What if I don’t know what I believe?” Dorian asks.
The moon looks at him with night-dark eyes and for a moment it seems as though she might give him something, perhaps a warning or a wish, but instead she takes Dorian’s hand in hers and lifts it to her lips and then she lets him go. The gesture is simple and profound and within it he finds the answer to his question.
The innkeeper returns with Dorian’s bag. It is heavier now, Dorian can feel the weight of the heart-filled box that has been placed inside. He should probably return the heart to Fate but he decides to concern himself with finishing one story at time.
Dorian opens the
door of the inn, revealing the same dark vista as before. It looks more like a castle than a mountain now. There might even be a light in one of the windows, but it is too far away to be certain.
“May the gods bless and keep you,” the innkeeper says. He places the lightest of kisses on Dorian’s lips.
Armed with a sword and a heart, Dorian steps into the unknown and leaves the inn behind.
The wind howls after him as he leaves in fear of what is to come, but a mortal cannot understand the wishes of the wind no matter how loud it cries and so these final warnings go unheeded.
excerpt from the Secret Diary of Katrina Hawkins