The soup was nearly right.
Not perfect. The marjoram was still fighting the rest of the pot for dominance, which was a personality flaw I'd been trying to correct for three weeks. Herbs weren't supposed to have opinions. I'd told the marjoram this. It hadn't listened. I'd tried reasoning with it on three separate occasions, which is two more occasions than most things in my experience deserve, and had ultimately concluded that the marjoram was simply committed to its position and the best available strategy was to keep stirring and wait it out. This had worked on tougher negotiations than soup.
"Aldous," said Renner, not looking up from his cards, "you've been stirring that for ten minutes."
"I'm negotiating," I said. "You don't rush a negotiation. That's how you end up with an agreement that technically holds but leaves everyone dissatisfied. I've seen it happen with trade compacts and I've seen it happen with stew, and I'll tell you the stew is more fixable after the fact."
Kern, across from him, folded his hand. He was a big man, broad shoulders, the kind of scar along his jaw that adventurers got when they stopped being careful and started being confident. He'd walked into the inn two months ago trailing a reputation that had involved a minor demon and a collapsed bridge outside Edren. He ordered the beef stew every visit and never once asked what was in it. I liked that about him.
"Negotiating with soup," Kern said.
"Everything worth doing involves negotiation," I said. "The soup. The guests. The fog. Some of them are more forthcoming about their terms than others. The fog at least has the decency to show you what it wants."
I nodded toward the window.
The Abyss fog had been doing something strange all morning. It rolled in from the east in slow, thick pulls, with a faint luminescence that had no obvious source. Not unusual, really. The Abyss had moods. Most of them ended up being mine to manage.
Renner glanced out, then back at his cards. "City watch posted a fog advisory. Third one this month."
"Sensible of them," I said. "Though I'll note the advisories don't tell anyone what to do about the fog, which is the honest answer but not a very satisfying one. Still. Better to acknowledge a thing than pretend it's not there. That's a principle I've found works equally well for fog and for whatever the fog occasionally brings with it."
The marjoram was finally losing ground. Good.
The inn had twelve tables, nine of them occupied. A solid evening. Two guild assessment teams were running tallies in the corner booth, a cartographer from the Capital Survey was eating alone by the east window, and a journalist who'd been nursing one drink for four hours was waiting for the frontier city to do something newsworthy. I'd told him earlier that the frontier city always did something newsworthy. He'd just need to adjust what he counted as news.
He hadn't appreciated that either. That was all right. Some guests came to the edge of the Abyss looking for revelation and went home with a column about the soup. I didn't mind. The soup was worth writing about.
The fire was running well. The boards were level. I'd fixed the third stair step two days ago and it hadn't started creaking again, which I was choosing to take as a personal victory. The chandelier had been re-wicked that morning and was throwing good, even light across the room. Good light is underrated. I've known beings who could unmake constellations who'd never once thought to fix their own chandelier, and I've always found that instructive in ways I couldn't quite articulate.
It was a perfectly normal evening at the edge of the Abyss.
Then the door opened.
The fog came in with him.
Not the way fog normally comes in, which is passively, through gaps and around ankles. This moved with direction. It curled around the door frame, ran along the ceiling in thin, searching tendrils, and pooled at the room's corners as if it had reserved them in advance.
I noticed. The marjoram had given up and I had attention to spare. Whatever this was, it had found its way here on purpose, which meant it either knew the address or it had followed something that did. Either way, that was what the north room was for.
The being in the doorway was tall. Human-shaped, technically, the way a coat hung on a hook was human-shaped. It wore the form like someone wearing something that mostly fit. The head was a little too still. The hands were fine until they weren't, fingers occasionally one joint past where fingers were supposed to stop. It stood there and it looked at the room.
The room looked back.
Maret, one of the guild assessment girls, had gone completely rigid in her chair. She was twenty-three, talented, and had faced a corrupted hollow beast outside Edren last spring without flinching. She was flinching now. Her hand had found Sola's arm across the table and she was holding it the way people held things when they weren't sure they could still hold themselves.
Sola's drink had developed a thin crust of ice across the surface. It spread outward from the center in a pattern that was almost, not quite, a face.
The journalist had stopped writing. He was staring at his notepad. He'd written one word and stopped. I couldn't see what the word was from where I was standing, but his pen wasn't moving.
The being stepped inside.
The fog followed.
"Good evening," I said, from behind the counter. "Just the one of you, or should I expect more? I ask because I like to know what I'm working with in terms of linen. It's the kind of detail that matters more than people expect."
It turned to look at me.
A pause. Maybe two seconds.
Then it said, "Just myself, Keeper."
"Room for one, then. I've got the east-facing available, or the lower north if you'd prefer something darker. The north's got no window, which some guests find preferable. The east gets Abyss light in the morning, which is either pleasant or inconvenient depending on your relationship with mornings." I set the ladle down. "Most of my guests have complicated relationships with mornings. That's not a judgment. Mornings are complicated. I'm not always sure where I stand on them myself, and I've had considerably longer than most to form an opinion."
The being's head tilted. It was doing something with its eyes that I wasn't going to mention because I was trying to finish the thought.
"I'll take the north room," it said.
"Excellent," I said. "Now, before I get you the key, there's the matter of the fog." I nodded at the tendrils still making themselves comfortable along the rafters. "Not to be difficult about it. I have a posted policy and I'd feel remiss ignoring it entirely. Standard atmospheric residue clause, section four of the guest agreement by the door. Nobody reads it, that's genuinely fine, I don't take it personally. But under that clause any material a guest brings in that requires post-departure environmental correction is billed at a flat rate per affected surface. The rafters are a surface. The ceiling counts. I'd estimate three surfaces at current spread, though I'll do a proper accounting in the morning and adjust if I'm off."
It said, "That is agreeable."
Behind me, where I kept the guest ledger,
[SYSTEM LOG」
Entity Classification: Abyssal Wanderer, Rank Unindexed
Neutrality Protocol: Active
Inn Sanctum Status: Stable
Legend Recognition: Detected
Passive Aura Suppression: Engaged
I didn't read it for long. The soup needed a final taste.
Maret made a sound. Very small. The kind of sound a person makes when they've been holding their breath and have run out of options about that.
"Anyone want a top-up while I get the key?" I called to the room.
Nobody answered.
The being moved toward the bar, slow and formal, and as it did, the fog at the ceiling pulled back slightly, condensing, like a dog called to heel.
Kern's cards were face-down on the table. He hadn't put them there.
"It's good soup tonight," I said, to the room in general. "The marjoram finally came around. Took three weeks but I think we've reached an understanding. You're all welcome to try it. Including our new guest, if the appetite is there. I've found a good bowl of soup solves more problems than it's given credit for, though I'll admit I'm probably biased on that front."
The being reached the counter. It looked at me for a moment that was a little longer than normal moments usually ran.
"Host," it said, and its voice had dropped into a register that was less sound and more pressure. "The others will know you lit the lantern."
I found the north room key on its hook.
"I light it every night," I said. "It's a good lantern. I've had it a long time. Anyway, second door on the left past the staircase, the latch sticks so you'll want to lift while you turn, I keep meaning to fix it and then something else comes up. Breakfast is at seven. I do eggs three ways, and there's usually bread if you get down early enough."
Outside, the first city alarm bell started ringing.
The fog at the ceiling didn't move.
The being's posture changed. Something in the set of its shoulders shifted, something that read like relief, if relief was a thing an unindexed abyssal entity was built to feel.
The inn didn't move at all.