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.”