He stepped onto the polished floor of the arrival chamber and paused. He was seven feet tall and made even taller by an asymmetric gray headdress that jutted half a foot above his left ear. A gray and white robe hugged his lean frame, cinched at the waist with a wide black belt. His hair was black and cut short.

Chancellor Resven, the Sovereign’s right-hand man for “all affairs involving domicile and family.”

The portal swirled with pale green, and the second person came through. Also seven feet tall, she was broader at the shoulder, with a powerful build and a particularly even skin tone the color Behr Paint Company called campfire gray. I had just tinted the columns in the Sovereign pavilion that exact shade last night. Her platinum-white hair was short and thick, and her cobalt-blue high-tech armor fit her like a glove. No weapons, tall boots, and a layered navy and white cloak, clearly ceremonial rather than functional, that spilled from her left shoulder in tasteful pleats.

That was an excellent fold for curtains. I would have to remember to tag the footage the inn recorded later.

The two visitors started toward me. Resven walked with the trademark sislaf fluidity, but the soldier strode forward. There was something else in her genes besides the sislaf, and I placed my bet on the Holy Anocracy. The sislaf had been treating their own genotype as a template to be redesigned and modified for generations.

Sean rose out of the floor next to me. He wore a dark blue robe and his “business” face. Nothing about his expression looked specifically threatening. You just knew by some sixth sense that aggravating him was a terrible and potentially painful idea.

Resven blinked. The soldier didn’t seem fazed. She must’ve stayed at an inn before.

“Greetings,” I told them.

“Greetings, innkeepers. I’m Capital Prefect Miralitt,” the soldier introduced herself. “This is Chancellor Resven.”

The Sovereign had sent both his chancellor and the head of his personal guard.

“We’ve met,” Resven said dryly.

Technically, we interacted via a communication screen, so we hadn’t actually met, but I didn’t correct him.

“Welcome to Gertrude Hunt,” Sean said.

Resven looked around the arrival chamber. A large domed room inlaid with weathered brown stone, it housed a portal ring grown by Gertrude Hunt from its striated wood and nothing else. Eight arched doorways led to separate hallways branching off into the depths of the inn.