“Sure. Look, we appreciate the hospitality, but Malory’s pretty worn out, so—”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“We won’t keep you long.” Pitte gestured them into what Malory thought of as the portrait room. “We’re in your debt, more than can be paid. What you’ve done, whatever tomorrow brings, will never be forgotten.” He tipped Malory’s face up with one long finger and laid his lips on hers.

Zoe nudged Dana. “I think we’re getting gypped in this one-for-all deal.”

Pitte glanced over, and his sudden grin was alive with charm. “My woman is a jealous creature.”

“No such thing,” Rowena objected, then lifted a brightly woven collar from a table. “These symbols speak of valor, and a true heart. The colors are also symbolic. Red for courage, blue for friendship, black for protection.”

She crouched to remove Moe’s frayed and faded collar and replace it.

He sat through the business of it, Flynn thought, with the stalwart dignity of a soldier being awarded a medal.

“There. How handsome you are.” Rowena kissed Moe’s nose, then got to her feet. “Will you still bring him to see me, now and then?” she asked Flynn.

“Sure.”

“Kane underestimated you. All of you—heart and spirit and spine.”

“He’s unlikely to do so again,” Pitte pointed out, but Rowena shook her head.

“This is a time for joy. You are the first,” she told Malory.

“I know. I wanted to get this to you right away.” She started to hold out the key, then stopped. “Wait. Do you mean I’m the first? The first to ever find a key?”

Saying nothing, Rowena turned to Pitte. He walked to a carved chest beneath the window, lifted the lid. The blue light that spilled out made Malory’s stomach clutch. But this was different from the mist, she realized. This was deeper, brighter.

Then he lifted from the chest a glass box alive with that light, and her throat filled with tears. “The Box of Souls.”

“You are the first,” Pitte repeated as he set the box on a marble pedestal. “The first mortal to turn the first key.”

He turned, stood beside the box. He was the soldier now, Malory thought, the warrior at guard. Rowena stepped to the other side so they flanked the glass and the swirling blue lights inside it.

“It’s for you to do,” Rowena said quietly. “It was always for you to do.”

Malory clutched the key tighter in her fist. Her chest was so full it hurt and still seemed incapable of containing the galloping racing of her heart. She tried to draw a calming breath, but it came out short and sharp. As she stepped closer, those lights seemed to fill her vision, then the room. Then the world.

Her fingers wanted to tremble, but she bore down. She would not do this thing with a shaking hand.

She slid the key into the first of the three locks worked into the glass. She saw the light spread up the metal and onto her fingers, bright as hope. And she turned the key in the lock.