Sweep of the Heart (Innkeeper Chronicles #5)(124)

And right now, the robotic arms were blocking my view.

I walked forward. The magic followed me, chasing after me, pooling in my footprints. I stepped off the boards onto the high-tech floor. The magic swelled behind me, unable to follow. More and more of it flooded in like a tide, desperate to keep touching. Every contact with it hurt like watching a loved one take their last breath.

“I’ll be right back,” I whispered.

The magic tide shivered, emanating so much distress I stumbled.

I walked across the floor to the far end of the dome, rounding the pillar.

To my left, in the open, Wilmos stood frozen in a column of light, caught in a stasis field.

He must’ve come to after they brought him in, because the werewolf inside the column was in the wetwork shape. Big, with a shaggy dark mane streaked with gray, Wilmos looked ready to leap, his arms raised, his mouth gaping, the sharp fangs daring an attack.

My pulse sped up.

I stood very still, listening and looking. Wilmos was bait.

The dome lay empty.

“Daughter of the Wanderer…” a male voice said behind me.

I turned slowly. A creature stood on the polymer floor. No, not a creature, a man. An innkeeper in a dark robe, tattered and torn, with his hood up, holding a white broom. The robe flowed, shifting color from tar black to mottled gray, and black again. Its frayed hem flared above the floor, moving, sliding, melting into nothing and regenerating.

The tendrils of the innkeeper’s power slithered to me. It touched me. Ice washed over me in an electrifying wave. My skin crawled.

The robe wasn’t fabric. It was the corruption, the source of the darkness inside Michael, my brother’s best friend, and the ad-hal I had crushed out of existence at Baha-char. He was clothed in corruption. It was pouring out of his body. He and the robe were one.

And he knew my father.

“Your father is a problem.” He had a terrible voice. It faded as he spoke, brushing against my skin like cold slime. “Your mother is a problem. Your brother is a problem. Now you are a problem.”

“Is.” He said “is.” My parents were still alive.

Everything in me wanted to lash out at him. No innkeeper could see that putrid husk of the inn and not want to disintegrate the one responsible. He was an abomination. But I had to talk to him. If I didn’t, we would never know why any of this had happened.

The man turned his head and looked at the olive ocean outside. I could just make out the narrow sliver of his jaw. It was an odd color, a kind of slightly purple tint, like a Caucasian body frozen in mid-livor mortis.

“There are two of us. You and me.”

Okay, we established he could count.

“Did it hurt when the seed died?”

How did he know about the baby inn? Should I answer?

I took a shot. “Yes.”

He nodded. “Does it still hurt?”

“Yes.” It hurt me every time I thought about it. Most innkeepers never survived the death of the inn they were bonded to. Even though our bond had lasted mere minutes, witnessing that inn’s death nearly ended me. I had been very lucky to survive it.

He nodded. “It hurt me too when I killed my inn. Every inn I kill hurts. The pain is never-ending.”

What inns? How many?

“Why?”

He didn’t answer.

“Why would you kill your inn? It trusted you. It loved you. Why would you betray it?”

He turned to me, and I saw the bottom half of his face. “Ask them.”

Them who? “The other innkeepers?”

“Ask them about Sebastien North. Ask them what they’ve done. How I have suffered.”

Oh.

“You have.” His voice rolled through the dome, melting into a hiss. “They didn’t tell you.”

“What didn’t they tell me?”

“Of all of us, you and I are the only ones who survived to know the pain. We carry it with us, always.” He paused. “I will give you one chance. Take the werewolves and go. Leave your inn. Leave your planet. Don’t look back, and I will come for you last.”

“Why would I need to leave the planet?”

“Because I will devour it. Every inn, every innkeeper, every ad-hal. Every human.”

There was an awful finality to the way he said it. He wasn’t angry, or hurt, or conflicted. He simply stated a fact.

He wouldn’t tell me anything more unless I found common ground. He sympathized with me because we had both endured the greatest tragedy an innkeeper could suffer. If what he said was true, he existed in a state of constant suffering. There had to be some shred of human emotion left in him. I had to find it and exploit it. I needed to know why he was doing this.

“Did you have a cat?”

He didn’t answer.

“I found a cat, a big gray Maine Coon with green eyes. He has a collar with the initials SN on it.”

“Belaud.”

Oh wow. It was his cat.

“He yet lives? Is he well?”

“Yes. If I had my phone, I would show you. I took pictures of him. He walks through the inn as he pleases. It opens walls for him.”

The man’s voice was almost wistful. “That was always his way. I found him during a thunderstorm. He was so small, he fit in one of my hands. It was May 30th. I remember because the next day, Royal Governor Martin fled the Tryon Palace for New York, and my father had opened a treasured bottle of whiskey. That was my first sip of spirits.”