The man gave me a mock sigh. “Alas, one shouldn’t keep such a rare beauty waiting.”
“Very considerate of you, my lord.” Galiene’s tone had just a touch of dryness to it.
He glanced at me. “We’ll meet again.”
“I doubt it.” Why did I just say that? Talk about tempting fate.
“This way, my lady,” Klemena said.
They parted us like tugboats pulling two ships in the night. Klemena led me to the right, while Galiene walked him to the left. I followed my guide up a different staircase to the third floor.
Asking about the identity of the man in the cloak was pointless. They would never tell me. Whoever he was, he could pay premium rates. The rare beauties of the Garden didn’t come cheap.
Klemena led me to a door and pushed it open. A small bedroom greeted me, lit by two lanterns. Their light fell on a large bed with a blue blanket and plush blue pillows. There was a brown and white rug on the floor, another door that probably led to the bathroom, and a window on the right, but all I saw was the bed. I was suddenly so tired.
“Sleep well, my lady.”
Klemena bowed, exited the room, and shut the door. I heard a bolt slide into place. She had locked me in.
The door had a sturdy bar on my side. I lowered it, dropped my cloak, untied the strings cinching my dress, pulled it over my head, kicked off my shoes, fell onto the bed, and passed out.
PLANTER7
Aknock echoed through the room. “My lady?”
I opened my eyes. Morning light filtered through the window on my left. We were on the third floor, and the window had no bars. I could see a chunk of a beautiful morning sky and ghosts of three moons slowly fading into it.
I was still in Rellas. I had half expected that a night of decent sleep would send me home. After all, that was how I got here, going to sleep in my own bed. But no luck.
“My lady?”
They wouldn’t let me sleep in. Right. Galiene had fulfilled her hospitality obligations, and now it was time to prod me on.
“Yes?”
“Your breakfast is served. I will take you to it when you are ready.”
Wood slid, followed by the quiet creaking of the old floorboards. Klemena must’ve unbarred the door and walked away. The footsteps retreated but not far. She was waiting for me to get up.You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.
I sat up. The soreness was still there, but it was muted now. Amazing what food, drink, and a full night of sleep could do. I got up and dragged myself to the bathroom. It was the same setup as downstairs: a toilet with a wooden seat and a small sink.
No toothbrush. Bummer. No faucet either, but there was a ewer of water and soap. I made do.
Klemena took me down to the second-floor balcony. I sat at a solid wooden table right by the balcony rail. Below, the Garden’s attendants cleaned the first floor, wiping the tables, heaving chairs up onto them, and then sweeping the tile.
Across from me, on the other side of the second-floor balcony, Galiene and an older woman who had to be Hade sat at a table, sipping tea from green cups as they did every morning. Two sides of the same coin, separated by four decades. Both in elegant, formal gowns, Galiene in Prussian blue and Hade in dark royal purple. Both wearing the same hairstyle, that elaborate braided spiral, except that Galiene’s hair was dark blond while Hade’s mass of curls was completely silver. Both poised and maintaining the same expression, calm, pleasant, but stern. The only difference was age. Galiene’s pale face was unlined, while Hade’s dark brown skin showed the wear and tear of surviving to her seventies.
The two of them ignored me.
Klemena brought a tray with a teapot, a little dish of honey, a solitary cup, and two plates, one with two square pastries and the other with two eggs, sunny-side up. She placed the plates in front of me, and deposited a perfectly normal fork, a knife, and a cloth napkin on the table. If I squinted at it just right, I could pretend I was back home at the Egg and Fork, a little breakfast place where I sometimes treated myself. So surreal.
The tea was strong and black and tasted a little like chocolate with a hint of fruit and some new-to-me spice, a sweeter, more potent cousin of cinnamon. I put a little honey in it, reached for the pastry, broke a small piece off, and looked at the filling. Some sort of smoked fish. I popped the piece into my mouth. Delicious.
I drank my tea, ate my pastry, and tried to sort things through.
Although the books never mentioned transdimensional portals, there were two places I could check about the possibility of such travel: the Temples of the Aspects and the Mage Tower. Both dealt in magic.
The Temples had to be approached with caution. If I barged into the Red Basilica and started spouting things about other worlds, they might declare me mentally unhinged, they could brand me as a heretic, or they would believe me, which could be the worst of the three outcomes. The clerics of Rellas were savvy political animals; the advantages of having sole access to someone from another world wouldn’t be lost on them. They wouldn’t help me get home. They would confine me and exploit my existence to increase their influence.
