Right now she was looking at George and the way her eyebrows bent, George was clearly not her favorite person.

“You didn’t tell them,” she said. “You had dinner with the family at Camarine manor. You helped little William catch fireflies in a jar, you brought presents for the girls, and you sat on the balcony and drank wine with Declan and your sister. A week later you were simply gone.”

“I left a note,” George said.

“The note that said that you were going on a secret mission off-world and taking Jack and Gaston with you and that you would be back later in twenty years. This is all you left by the way of explanation. Do you have any idea how worried your sister is? Your nieces? Your nephew? You play with people’s lives like they are toys, George. We are all chess pieces to you. You move us around the board as you please. I could understand if you were oblivious to human emotions, but you fully comprehend our feelings. You simply choose to ignore them. I don’t understand it. You used to be so compassionate when we were children. Now we don’t matter to you at all.”

“It’s part of a job,” he said.

She simply looked at him.

“I was not permitted to say good-bye. The note was the best I could do.”

“But here you are.” Her eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you tell me that once you accepted this job, you could not come back? Are you breaking the rules again?”

“Of course I am.”

“So you have no problems breaking the rules when it suits you. Are you telling me that you couldn’t find any way to personally soften that blow for your family?”

“I’m a selfish bastard,” George said. “I didn’t want the pain of saying good-bye, so I avoided it.”

The woman sighed. “What is it you want?”

“I need your help.”

“You already asked me. The answer was no then. It’s still no. I am not going on your mad adventure. My home is here.”

George brushed his cane with his thumb. An image of Ruah appeared in thin air. We watched him spin his swords and slice through bullets. The woman tilted her head, tapping her bottom lip with her index finger. The recording stopped with the otrokar paused in mid-strike, graceful like a dancer.

“Cute,” she said. “He’s good.”

“Is he better than you?” George asked.

She pondered the still image. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you want to find out?”

A predatory spark flashed in her eyes and died. “No.”

“Come with me,” George said. “Please.”

“George, I worked for years to put aside what the world outside of those walls made me. Out there I am an abomination. I’m a killer. No, I belong here.”

He shook his head. “Lark…”

“The name is Sophie,” she corrected.

“What is here? This?” He turned, raising his hands to encompass the flowers.

“Here I am not a monster.” She raised her head. “Here I do not kill anyone. I am at peace here.”

“Your peace is a lie.”

She glared at him and I fought an urge to step back. “You have no right to tell me how to live my life. Let me be. Leave me alone, George. I want to be at peace!”

“You are not meant to be at peace. We, the human beings, we are meant to live life to its fullest. We are meant to experience it all, sadness, disappointment, rage, kindness, joy, love. We are meant to test ourselves. It is painful and frightening, but this is what it means to be alive. You are hiding from life here. This isn’t peace. This is a slow deliberate suicide.”

He stabbed his cane into the pathway. Images exploded: a vast roiling nebula, spaceships, planets, ancient ruins, strange buildings, terrible and beautiful beings… They spun around us, vivid, bright, loud…. Sophie looked at them and stars reflected in her eyes.

“Look at it!” George’s voice shuddered with barely contained awe. “Look at it! Don’t you want to experience it? Don’t you want to be brave? You are not a gentle flower who spends its whole life in a greenhouse. You are a wildfire, Lark. A wildfire.”

A sun burst on the images, its violent fury drowning the cosmos.

“Dare to take that step and I will show you wonders beyond your imagination. I will give you a chance to make a difference. Come with me.” George offered his hand to her. “Live. Join me or not, but live, gods damn you, because I cannot stand the thought of you slowly aging here like some dusty fossil under glass. Take my hand and bring your sword. The Universe is waiting.”

Chapter 7

We entered the inn twenty minutes before the start of the summit. Jack greeted us in the front room. A wide grin split his face.

He looked Sophie up and down, scrutinizing her gown and the two swords she carried in her hands. “What is it you’re wearing? Are you trying to be mistaken for a girl?”

Sophie arched her eyebrows and punched him in the arm.

“What was that for?”

“That was for leaving without telling anyone good-bye.”

I turned to George, who was carrying Sophie’s large canvas bag. “You can set that down.”

He carefully placed the bag on the floor and it sank into the wood. Sophie’s eyes widened.

“Come with me, please,” I told her. “I will show you to your room.”

I led her down the east hallway. The best place would be near Caldenia, in the neutral wing. I had already explained the inn and the rules of being a guest. “I am going to put you next to a permanent guest of the inn.”

“You’re irritated with George,” Sophie said. “Why?”

I blinked.

“Don’t feel bad. You hid it very well, but I’ve been trained to read body language.”

I sighed. “I have less than fifteen minutes with you. I have to be there when the summit starts. Welcoming a guest to the inn is a duty innkeepers hold sacred. It must be done properly, but George left me no time. I hate to rush.”

Caldenia stepped out of her room. “Another guest? How delightful.”

“Her Grace, Caldenia ka ret Magren,” I said.

Sophie dropped into an elegant curtsy and rose.

Caldenia’s eyes sparkled. “And what is your name, my dear?”

“Sophie.”

“Just Sophie?”