Setting his teeth against the pain throbbing in his back, Ludo returned to the door, only to find it sealed shut once more. This time, he offered no curse. In fact, he started laughing. He couldn’t help it—the entire situation was absurd. He’d come to Slough for rest, and instead he’d been trapped inside the world’s best, worst tavern named after a swine that had even less sight than he did. A tavern with magically refilling plates and glasses and a mysterious door with messages about the Daughters of Ereniel. It was laughable, and so he laughed. And then, with nothing else to do, he headed upstairs. At the least, he could get a good night’s sleep for his troubles.

He stopped at the top of the staircase, lips parting slightly. Like any self-respecting inn, a hallway stretched out before him, doors set on either side. Based on the structure he’d entered from outside, he expected the inn to have at least six or eight rooms, maybe even as many as a dozen if they were on the smaller side. And yet the corridor ahead of him was so long he couldn’t see its end.

Which was pretty much as impossible as everything else The Blind Pig had offered him thus far. He shook his head, glancing at the door to his right, which had a gold-plated number nailed in its center. A six. “Makes sense,” he muttered. “Why start at one when you can start at six?”

Welbernius had said there would be a key in the door, but he didn’t see one. Maybe he’d forgotten? In any case, Ludo tried the knob, which didn’t move, not even the slightest rattle to prove the door could be opened once unlocked. Great. This night is getting better and better.

He started down the hall. The doors were staggered left and then right, such that no two doors faced each other. Thus, the next door was on the left. “You’ve got to be japing,” he said as he stared at the gold-plated number on the next door. Six again. And, like the door before, no key, the door locked fast and tight.

He almost turned around then and there with plans to ransack the kitchen and other private quarters until he found an exit. But curiosity got the better of him and he soldiered forward, trying each door, swapping from right to left and then back again. Unsurprisingly, every door was plated with a gleaming number six, and each door was locked, until—

He found the promised key.

Ludo smirked at it. Welbernius hadn’t lied exactly, unless you counted the things he’d omitted. But there was a room six with a key that had been left in the door. A key that Ludo now turned, feeling a satisfying click and then the knob twisted as easily and quietly as if it was brand new.