What inns? How many?

“Why?”

He didn’t answer.

“Why would you kill your inn? It trusted you. It loved you. Why would you betray it?”

He turned to me, and I saw the bottom half of his face. “Ask them.”

Them who? “The other innkeepers?”

“Ask them about Sebastien North. Ask them what they’ve done. How I have suffered.”

Oh.

“You have.” His voice rolled through the dome, melting into a hiss. “They didn’t tell you.”

“What didn’t they tell me?”

“Of all of us, you and I are the only ones who survived to know the pain. We carry it with us, always.” He paused. “I will give you one chance. Take the werewolves and go. Leave your inn. Leave your planet. Don’t look back, and I will come for you last.”

“Why would I need to leave the planet?”

“Because I will devour it. Every inn, every innkeeper, every ad-hal. Every human.”

There was an awful finality to the way he said it. He wasn’t angry, or hurt, or conflicted. He simply stated a fact.

He wouldn’t tell me anything more unless I found common ground. He sympathized with me because we had both endured the greatest tragedy an innkeeper could suffer. If what he said was true, he existed in a state of constant suffering. There had to be some shred of human emotion left in him. I had to find it and exploit it. I needed to know why he was doing this.

“Did you have a cat?”

He didn’t answer.

“I found a cat, a big gray Maine Coon with green eyes. He has a collar with the initials SN on it.”

“Belaud.”

Oh wow. It was his cat.

“He yet lives? Is he well?”

“Yes. If I had my phone, I would show you. I took pictures of him. He walks through the inn as he pleases. It opens walls for him.”

The man’s voice was almost wistful. “That was always his way. I found him during a thunderstorm. He was so small, he fit in one of my hands. It was May 30th. I remember because the next day, Royal Governor Martin fled the Tryon Palace for New York, and my father had opened a treasured bottle of whiskey. That was my first sip of spirits.”

Tryon Palace was in New Bern, North Carolina. My father had taken us there to visit. Martin was NC’s last Royal Governor, and he’d fled in 1775. I knew this because dad remembered Martin and didn’t like him. Holy crap. This man was my father’s age.

“Why do you hate my father?”

“I don’t. The Wanderer got in the way. He always gets in the way. Now you are in my way.”

And we had come full circle.

“I know you are looking for my soul,” the man said. “You will not find it.”

“I want to understand why. What is it you want?”