Firian shook his head as if he could send his doubts flying like cobwebs. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” she said in an undertone. Her concerned look made him wonder if he had fallen into the Unreal for a moment as they walked. Shock could send a person there, make him abstracted. It was a dangerous place, to be in the Unreal without knowing it.
“Here’s the inn,” he muttered. They went inside the two-story wooden building that he hadn’t been allowed to visit as a child. Of course, he had snuck up the hill to come here and listen to travelers’ stories a few times.
The clunk of his shoes on the wooden boards echoed back those memories. Hooks for coats lined the walls just inside the door, leading through the empty entryway to the innkeeper’s counter. A staircase led up to the rooms on the
