The first time I had put that much effort into using my magic outside of the inn, I ended up gasping for breath in my car outside of Costco. If Sean hadn’t found me, I would’ve died. The second time we fought Michael, and I almost died then, too, but not because of the magic drain. Actually, now that I thought of it, I had committed a lot more magic to that fight than I did to the one in Costco, and I’d managed to hang on to consciousness.

This time, I killed the corrupted ad-hal and then came home. I was tired, but I was still talking and walking.

Did my power grow without me realizing it?

“If I was the one who kidnapped Wilmos, I would be worried right now,” Sean said. “This did not go the way they expected.”

No, it didn’t. “I wish I knew what the hair meant. Is it ‘hurry up and come get him’ or is it ‘do as we say or he’s dead?’”

“No way to tell.”

The only way to find out was to finish the spouse selection and get to Karron.

The inn chimed. 30 minutes before the Sovereign’s first date. I sighed and went to wake Karat up.

* * *

The broadcasting schedule of the Dominion had a definite pattern. Formal occasions of little interest, like the reintroduction of the candidates, were the most edited and presented to the audience with a significant delay. The trials were almost live, with only a few minutes of lag to make the emergency adjustments. The dates with individual candidates were practically in real time.

Nothing could go wrong.

When Orata realized just how much power the innkeepers had over our environment, she’d hopped up and down in excitement. Thanks to Kosandion’s PR chief, every candidate was asked their preferred theme for their date. Ellenda had chosen trees. No other guidance. Just one word: trees.

I took them to the orchard.

Back when I was growing up in my parents’ inn, I was responsible for the gardens. They were my favorite part of innkeeping, and the massive magnolia tree that ruled over the other trees and flowerbeds had been my crowning achievement.

I’d been an innkeeper for about four years now, and Gertrude Hunt’s orchard was a place of beauty. From the street, it looked like any typical backyard garden you might find in a house with a bit of acreage. Ornamental shrubs, a few apple trees, some oaks. If you worked your way through the bushes, you would run into my camouflage wall, a tall barrier designed to perfectly mimic the shrubs around it. Very thin and undetectable from the street, it changed with its environment and ran all along the property, keeping the actual orchard out of view.