The draft coming through the ninth door carried the cold smell of an empty winter dining hall—stale tallow, wet flagstones, and iron knives laid out on untreated pine boards.
Noll Vey kept his single stone palm planted on the witness rail as the entity behind the red hazard line drank. The released oath-force of Colonel Vask’s broken ash staff was still passing into the dark opening, a steady ribbon of pale silver that hummed against the limestone floor. The Last Guest held its two gray, gaunt hands curved around the current, guiding the light into its throat like a traveler kneeling by a mountain brook.
With every swallow, the entity changed. The hunched shoulders that had scraped the doorframe settled lower; the heavy bundle of cutlery sewn into its rough traveler’s coat ceased its frantic clatter. The long iron cleaver rested on the threshold stone, but the dark edge no longer dripped rust.
Behind the cloaked figure, through the heavy timber frame of the ninth doorway, the vast, shadowy room that had opened three hours early was shifting.
Noll leaned his weight forward against the cold rail, his granite torso grinding against the limestone coping. “Prit. Look past the lintel.”
