Chapter 725: Nine Nights

The guesthouse offered nothing but coffins, a dozen propped on end around the fireless hearth like sullen guests. Hajin drove his fist through the nearest lid, splitting the wood down the middle with a loud crack.

Nari flinched on her makeshift seat, hugging a coffin lid across her knees like a shield.

“I’m going to the palace,” Hajin announced, rolling his shoulder, “I’m going to hit that smiling old man until—”

“You cannot raise a weapon in his hall,” Eirwen cut in, folding her hands primly, “the Cradle Peace forbids it.”

“Then I’ll hit him with something that isn’t a weapon, like a chair.”

“Eat first,” Juna said, dropping a sack of dumplings into his lap, “angry men make stupid plans.”

“I’m not hungry,” he said, then stuffed a dumpling into his mouth anyway, “…these are good, though.”

‘Everyone is shouting about the king, but nobody has noticed we have no way out.’

Eirwen lifted one finger, “A bride-price might work, I am prepared to offer forests and a joint funeral.”

“Violence is simpler, darling,” Vella suggested, swirling her wine, “and far more satisfying.”

Across the room Didi sat motionless wrapped in his scarf, staring at the wall, saying nothing at all.

Cessy sat with Lucan’s coffin pulled against hers, while Loccy and Ferra guarded the door without a word.

Alya sat cross-legged by the fireless hearth with her lance across her knees, watching the shuttered window without blinking.

Aria tapped the plaster by the shutters, murmuring that every wall in this house had ears.

Outside the shuttered window the lantern streets still sang, faint music drifting over rooftops that felt miles away. Inside, the household breathed like a held cord, each one of them listening to the walls listen back.

“You have been quiet for an hour, Didi,” he said, tilting his head.

Didi answered without turning, “I am counting guards, you are interrupting.”

Her silence prickled Nari’s skin worse than the shouting, being the quiet of someone already planning something. Rumi sprawled across a coffin beside her, tossing a stolen skull-candy up, catching it in her teeth.

“You should not be eating that,” Nari whispered.

“It’s a funeral snack, we’re practically guests of honor,” Rumi said, chewing happily.

“We are prisoners,” Nari hissed.

“Prisoners with sugar.”

The hearth flared green without any fuel, birthing a veiled woman and a stout man out of the flames. Keys hung from both of them on cords, dozens, clicking softly together like the teeth of something very patient.

“Door-Wardens Kuzo and Mimae,” the veiled woman announced, curtsying, “we are here to ensure your comfort.”

“Mostly the ensuring part,” the stout man said cheerfully, spinning a key on one finger.

Hajin rose, gold flickering beneath his ribs, “Out of my guesthouse, both of you.”

“Oh, not you, sir, you are far too valuable to handle,” Mimae said, turning her veil toward the twins, “but these two keep walking through our doors uninvited.”

Kuzo flicked a key at the floor before Nari could breathe, folding the entire guesthouse inward like crumpled paper. Walls slid shut, chairs dissolved, the household vanished behind seamless plaster, leaving only the twins inside a round chamber.

“We lock thieves inside their own questions,” Mimae’s voice echoed through the plaster, “do enjoy the… quiet.”

“I hate this,” Rumi muttered, drawing her knife.

“Stop stabbing the walls,” Nari hissed, catching her wrist.

The chamber was perfectly round, lit by a faint glow from the floor, every single wall identical. Nari pressed her palm to the nearest one, counted her heartbeats, then closed her eyes to listen.

‘Every room without a door still remembers where the door was meant to go.’

“There,” she whispered, pointing at a patch that sounded shallower, “that one is thinner, like skin over a drum.”

“Then I punch it,” Rumi said, cracking her knuckles.

“It is a Warden’s lock, it needs a name to open.”

Rumi stopped mid-swing, eyes wide, the grin slipping from her face as she looked at her sister. She tucked her chin, shuffled one step backward, then spoke softly, almost shyly, as if asking permission.

“Which name should we use, Nari?”

“Ours,” Nari said, her voice coming out steady, brave, surprisingly bold, “we open it with our own.”

She drew Open, Rumi drew Shut, the twin rift-knives chiming together like two halves of one bell. They crossed the blades against the thin patch, speaking in unison with no trace of doubt remaining.

“Rumi and Nari of the Crossroads, we are leaving,” they said together, “so open.”

The wall peeled apart like wet paper, white light pouring through the gap in a flood. Twin Doorway answered the knives at last, drawing one clean arch of silver across the dark.

“Now what?” Rumi whispered, hovering at the threshold, hands twisting in her sleeves.

“We walk through the Wardens’ own pocket,” Nari said, “then we stab them from behind.”

They stepped into a pocket lined with a thousand keys, where Kuzo and Mimae whispered over a mirror. Step-Between folded the distance, putting Rumi at Kuzo’s spine, her blade already pressed firmly beneath his shoulder ribs.

Nari reached Mimae in the same breath, setting Open against her throat without a single tremble.

Nari spoke calmly, her voice not trembling at all, “Hello… we would like our friends back, please.”

“Impossible,” Kuzo choked, “nobody walks through a Warden’s own pocket.”

Rumi pressed her blade a little deeper, “We walk very fast.”

“You opened my lock with your own names,” Mimae whispered, her key ring shaking in her fingers, “how terribly impolite.”

Mimae dropped her key ring, every door in that pocket swinging wide, sighing out the household’s astonished voices. The guesthouse reassembled around them, coffins returning, Hajin standing stunned in the middle, still holding a half-eaten dumpling.

Juna’s ears twitched as the Wardens bolted through the hearth, “They were fast.”

Rumi tossed Nari a bag of stolen skull-candy with a smirk, “You carry my sweets.”

“Our sweets,” Nari corrected, catching it.

“Remind me never to lock you two in anything,” Hajin said, beaming at them both.

Eirwen stared at them both, openly impressed, her hands pressed over her mouth like a girl at a wedding. Even Juna looked faintly impressed, though she covered it by scratching one ear with a great deal of force.

“Magnificent,” Eirwen breathed, “Nari, you were so commanding that I nearly curtsied.”

Nari’s courage vanished all at once, a hot flush crawling up her neck toward her ears. Rumi, flushed just as hard, hid behind her sleeve, mumbling something about strategy that nobody believed.

“I was not shy, I was being strategic,” Rumi muttered into the fabric.

Something dropped through the shuttered window, landing in a crouch, rapier already drawn.

Zarvine rose from the floorboards, her coat soaked with rain, her expression flat as a scraped plate. Every weapon in the room pointed at her, though she regarded them like unusually tedious wedding guests.

“Don’t stab me,” Zarvine said dryly, “I came to sell you something.”

“We don’t buy from thieves,” Hajin said, folding his arms.

“I want my own name back… so I’ll trade you the palace guard rotations for it.”

“Why would we believe you?” Eirwen asked suspiciously.

“He keeps a woman in the unlit room,” Zarvine said quietly, lowering the rapier, “I have seen her breathe.”

Juna sniffed twice, ears flicking, “She’s telling the truth, she smells like wet cat and fear.”

Every face turned toward Didi, whose hand slowly closed around something brass hidden in her sleeve. Frost crept across the windowsill behind her, silent, spreading, the exact color of a decision made.

“I will show you the unlit room,” Zarvine said, “but he will notice you are gone.”