Corrupted Michael had thick yellowed claws. Sometimes I had nightmares of him chasing me through Red Deer dripping decay and reaching for me with those claws while I desperately tried to find my way back to the inn. My distorted memory made them much bigger in my mind, but objectively speaking, the wounds on Gorvar could have been made by claws just like those.

After I brought Michael’s corpse to the inn to analyze it, the corruption that inhabited his body acted almost like a living thing, a pathogen that actively tried to contaminate the inn. I had purged that infection from Gertrude Hunt, but I had done it in my inn, where I was strongest. When Sean and I fought Michael on the streets of Baha-char, we almost lost. We might have died, if Wilmos hadn’t jumped in with a high-impact version of an alien Gatling gun.

Was the damage at Wilmos’ shop a retaliation for that fight? If so, why now? That happened months ago. Or was it something else? It couldn’t be a coincidence.

I had hoped Michael was the only one. I had alerted the Innkeeper Assembly to what happened, but they hadn’t said anything about it.

Sean would be fine. He was strong and fast, and this wouldn’t be his first encounter with a corrupted creature.

Of course, he would be fine.

There was no reason to worry.

There was definitely no reason to rush to Baha-char. If another corrupted ad-hal like Michael attacked him, Sean would draw him here, to the inn, and I needed to be ready for it.

Gertrude Hunt groaned. It was an odd sound of wood stretching.

The inn was branching. Shortly after Maud and Helen left the inn, Gertrude Hunt began to grow. Right now, in the far corner of Gertrude Hunt, a simple hallway led to a barrier glowing with pale silver. Eventually that barrier would vanish, and a door would form, opening to another world or possibly a different dimension. That’s why the inn had been gobbling up firewood by the cord. When that door opened, which could be any minute, one of us needed to be there because we had no idea what lay on the other side. Another reason to sit tight.

How long did it take to inspect the store anyway? He should have been back by now.

Magic chimed in my mind. The Baha-char door opened, and Sean entered the inn. Finally.

I jumped up. The inn dropped a staircase in front of me and I climbed it into the kitchen.

By the island, Orro drew himself up to his full seven feet. His dark quills rose slightly.

“You have made a cake,” he started.

“Not now,” I told him and hurried into the hallway.