Urn is a land of secrets. One of the better kept ones is the Backroad Inn.

I found it, as to its name, along an ill used woodland road. If not for its surroundings, it would have looked completely innocuous — a traveler’s inn of a typical design, with three stories and some balconies on the higher level, its steepled roofs half hidden among the woodland boughs. Cheerful lights glowed dimly through foggy windows, and a lantern had been lit above the door to welcome weary travelers in through rain or fog.

It looked too inviting, set amid mist-shrouded woods turned gray in winter. The overcast sky, growing dark with the aging day, loomed above a forest fast being consumed by a threatening darkness. The bare trees, skeletal and creaking, almost seemed to reach out for me, compelling me to seek shelter.

A well laid honey trap, if ever I saw one. Even still, I approached the front door. Wrapped in my bloodred cloak, I wore my armor beneath and was alone. I’d commanded Emma to stay at the Fane, despite her protests. She’d had enough temptations in her life, and I didn’t want to draw the attention of certain beings on her if I could avoid it.

Walking through the front door, I was met by the strangely mixed signals of inviting warmth and a chilly quieting of conversation. I took a moment to inspect the common room.

A large common room greeted me, taking up two of the establishment’s three floors, with a U shaped bar dominating the far end from the entrance and a central fire pit. The high ceiling allowed room for a second level, comprised of a ring of walkways encircled by a low railing, where one could look down into the taproom.

Nearly every piece of furniture, railing, pillar, and section of wall had been carved in odd shapes, mixing the serpentine and the abstract. It gave the walls, fashioned of seemingly ordinary materials, a disconcertingly organic quality not evident on the outside. The inconsistent lighting added to that uncanny effect.

The many alcoves and nooks in the common room were dimly lit, casting much of the space in varying levels of shadow, giving guests at least the illusion of privacy. I’d only been here a handful of times in the past year, and didn’t know that the Backroad had anything like regulars.

The current stock of patrons seemed typical enough. Shadowy shapes clustered around tables or peered from the deeper shadows of nooks and alcoves. Faces shrouded by hoods, helms, scarves, or hats of myriad design huddled over drinks or games of dice, muttering to one another in a dozen tongues, not all of them sounding like they came from human lips.

The flames in the fire pit danced strangely as I approached the bar, flickering tongues licking out to almost catch at the hem of my cloak like curious feelers. I lifted one hand toward the flames so the being within could take my scent. If the tips of my fingers were mildly singed, then it was still better than the risk of being rude.

Few of the patrons showed their face, some unspoken tradition of the place, and for that same reason I kept my hood up. I ignored the eyes on me as I approached the bar and leaned the rope-wrapped bundle concealing my axe against it.

A lone man stood behind the bar, cleaning an already spotless cup with a rag. He was the very image of an innkeeper, in garb at least; he wore a clean white shirt beneath a stained apron, his sleeves rolled up above his elbows.

He was tall, nearly as tall as I am, even with a noticeable stoop to his posture, partly thanks to a long-neck and long limbs. Wrinkled, with a glowering face sporting a single milky white eye alongside a black one, long gray hair recoiled from his pate as though in disgust of the face beneath.

He resembled, of all things, an old vulture. His mismatched eyes regarded me as though measuring how long it would be before I became carrion.

“Keeper,” I greeted him, then slipped a single coin onto the bar, bronze and featureless. It was gone in a flash of movement as the Keeper of the Backroad swept it from the bar’s surface with a movement nearly too fast for the eye to follow.

“I see you’ve learned to pay ahead,” the Keeper muttered sullenly. “I suppose you’ll be wanting room and board?”

I considered, drumming my fingers against the scarred wood. Some of the marks on the bar had a worrying resemblance to claw wounds, though others were clearly made from blades or just the rough handling of cups and pounding fists.

“One night,” I decided. The Backroad never strayed far from the Wend, and I didn’t want to be out after dark. “Gone by sunrise.”

I slipped the Keeper a second set of coins, these all silver, and leaned on the bar. He scowled, but the faint glow in one of those coins caught his attention and he withheld his ire as it vanished quick as the first.

“I need information,” I said.

“You know the rules,” the Keeper rasped. He turned toward the rows of shelves behind the bar, most of which were full of barrels of varying sizes. Others held rows of wooden mugs, and a few even had glassware like the finest city taverns.

He placed the cup he’d been cleaning in an empty spot, and then pulled another down and held it under one of the taps before speaking again. “I say nothing about other patrons or their business. Not even to you, Headsman.”

I glanced around worriedly, but anyone who might have been listening wasn’t being overt about it. “Close to breaking your own rule there, Keeper.”

He shrugged and turned back, sliding the cup over to me. I waved it off, and he took it back with a venomous look. “They all know who you are,” he muttered. “Only secrets well kept matter to me, you know that. Besides, you aren’t the only one with that profession, why be shy about it?”

I scoffed, then accepted the water he gave me in place of the mead. “I’m not looking for anyone,” I said, after wetting my throat. I knew what he probably assumed — that I was trying to track down someone marked for death.

I’d done it before, to be fair. The Backroad and its Keeper tended to accumulate useful tidbits of knowledge you couldn’t find in any ordinary traveler’s rest. I could guess how he got some of those secrets, and barely fathomed how the old vulture learned other things. Besides, I’d grown tired of risking stumbling into bounty hunters at ordinary inns. They were epidemic.

The Keeper eyed me with his mismatched eyes with the old malevolence of a dragon. Too ancient to fly, while the years only deepened its ire toward the world. “You know it’s dangerous for you to be here at all, Hewer.” He leaned over the table and showed his teeth, all humor in the grin edged with malice. “You might not be Table anymore, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten you’re their axeman. I’ll take your coin, but that doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

Stolen novel; please report.

He held up a finger, holding my attention before continuing. “Step lightly, boy. Enemies abound.”

I suppressed the urge to shiver. Instead I held the old Keeper’s glare and let my tone become light. “I’m not here on Their business,” I said. “If anything, it’s the opposite.”

I didn’t show any surprise he knew my name, my profession, and who I served — he’d known before I’d ever stepped through the door on my first visit. The Keeper of the Backroad was the oldest, canniest spymaster in all Urn, tolerated only because he served no one but himself, and had very strict rules.

I knew I’d drawn his interest as soon as the words left my mouth. The Keeper leaned back and folded his wiry arms. I got the cue and explained.

“I found a village burned to its foundations a week back,” I told him. “With the symbol of the Inquisition floating above it.”

The Keeper’s mismatched eyes narrowed, but he gave nothing else away. “What, you didn’t pass them the torch yourself?”

That stung. “I want to know the word,” I said, hardening my voice. “Is the Inquisition really back? Is the Church sanctioning them? How long has this been going on?”

As much time as I spent haunting back countries, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn grand events had passed over my knowledge. Even still, I felt like I would have heard if martial priests were burning villages across the countryside for any length of time.

Instead of answering right away, the Keeper turned and began preparing another drink. This time he poured rich wine — my eyes locked on his hands through the process, my nostrils filling with a sweet smell. I swallowed.

“You know the rules, Hewer.” He turned and slid a glass full of deeply red liquid toward me. “Secrets for secrets. Your coin buys you my protection, my food, my drink…” he let that last word linger. “But not free information.”

The glass drifted very close to the fingers I’d left on the counter. I pulled them back, folding my hands under my cloak. The Keeper’s wide mouth curled into a knowing smile, revealing rotten teeth.

What could I tell the old snake that he didn’t already know? What was safe to tell him? I thought a while. Then, hiding my own smile, I decided it high time I got to be clever for once. I could give him something he might not already know about, and if he did, I might get more information myself.

I’d wanted to visit the Backroad for this exact reason, before this new situation with what had happened at Billensbrooke. I’d had questions I didn’t trust any ghost or immortal to answer honestly, and I knew I could find answers in this den of dark things. I’d been too preoccupied with training Emma and doing other work for the Choir, and hadn’t had time.

Now, I could kill two birds with one stone.

“During a job back before Winter,” I began, “I had a run in with a mendicant in a gray robe.” I lifted my eyebrows, letting the words sink in. To my relief, I caught a flicker of reaction in the Keeper’s face. It was subtle, but I thought I saw something — surprise, perhaps, or even a hint of fear, quickly suppressed.

Gotcha, I thought.

“Impossible,” he grunted.

“That’s what I thought,” I said, leaning forward as I took a stronger grip on the hooked line I’d just sunk. “See, normally I’d just think it was some diabolist with a poor fashion sense, but I spoke with this one.”

I let that settle. “You know what I am,” I added. I let my eyes lock onto his, making sure he could see the eddies of Gold there. “You know I wouldn’t make a mistake like this. He was a Crowfriar.”

“Hush!” The Keeper’s voice came out as a near bestial hiss. His pale eyes flickered across the taproom. I glanced around as well. If anyone paid attention to our conversation, I couldn’t tell, but there did seem to be more quiet all the sudden.

I turned back to the Keeper, who stared murder at me. “They can’t cross the Riven Sea,” he said in a low voice. “It’s not permitted. They can do as they please in the continent, but Urn’s seraph territory.”

I nodded slowly. “Yet I’ve met two of them now,” I said. “One in the northeast, advising a petty necromancer, and another in Venturmoor.”

“The Riven Order—” The Keeper began to argue.

“The second one I met told me it’s been broken,” I cut him off.

He glared at me. A mistake — you don’t meet a True Knight’s eyes without risking giving something of yourself away. We see too much, cut through illusions and falsehoods too easily. I realized something then.

“You knew,” I said.

Irritation flashed through the Keeper’s one good eye and he turned away, grabbing the drink he’d tried to tempt me with at the same time. “They’ve been here,” he admitted in a surly tone.

That sent a shiver down my spine. I had to fight not to cast another look at the anonymous figures scattered across the taproom and balconies above. I collected myself and focused on the Keeper, and what I needed from him.

“I know you have customers who know things,” I said. “Warlocks, Eld, changelings, rogue undead, mercenaries. I want information.” I placed a finger down on the scarred countertop. “Why are there agents of the Iron Hell in Urn?” A thought struck me then. “Does it have anything to do with the Inquisition reappearing?”

The Keeper’s jaw worked, as though he wanted to spit out something unspeakable but wouldn’t dare dirty his counter. His milky eyes made him look like some ghoulish creature trying to attain order over a body it had forcefully possessed. “That information is worth more than a couple coins,” he said after a lengthy silence.

I glowered at him. The azsilver I’d just given him was invaluable. Those had been minted in Onsolem itself, lost now. Possibly forever.

Unintimidated, unimpressed, the Keeper leaned closer and lowered his voice into a near intimate whisper. “I see the fear in you, Headsman. I’ve heard your story. Many of us have.”

He nodded to the room at large. “Having regrets? Worried your masters aren’t quite as holy as you once thought? Please.” The scorn dripped from his words like acid, fit to burn me. “You think you can come in here and flash your pretty coins, intimidate me and my guests into telling you dangerous truths? Once a knight, always a knight, eh?”

He flashed his withered teeth again. “You can take the gilding off a man, but you can’t strip it out of his soul. Even now you think you’re better than us. Can’t accept you’ve fallen down into the cracks.” He waved a hand at the shadowy figures scattered across the room.

I thought I was calm until the words slipped unbidden out of my mouth. “I am not one of you,” I said, surprising myself with how sharp the words tasted.

“Are you not?” The Keeper cackled, a horrible sound that made me want to grit my teeth. “What are you then? What do you think we are? Better wizen up, boyo, or you’ll still be catching up when it’s your turn to meet the headsman.”

The hand I’d laid on the bar curled into an angry fist, and I was about to give the old vulture a riposte when another voice cut across the common room.

“Alken!”

I turned, and nearly lost my feet as a slender shape more than a head shorter than me slammed against my chest. I felt slim arms wrap me in a warm embrace, and it took me a moment to realize who it was.

“Cat.” I felt a rare smile tug at the corners of my lips. I managed to extricate myself from the hug and hold the newcomer at arms length, my argument with the Keeper momentarily forgotten.

The freckled face of a young woman with chestnut brown hair and an easy smile greeted me, unperturbed by my discomfort. She wore a finely tailored outfit, something I’d expect a tavern girl in a big city to wear — a sleek blue dress lined in white frills and a dark red bodice, the cut of the outfit low around the neck and shoulders.

She’d changed her hair since I’d last seen her, from a shaggy mane of unkempt chaos to something sharper, long locks hanging down to frame her pale face, the bangs cut blunt above her eyes. It suited her.

“Look at you!” Catrin said with a laugh, flashing crooked teeth in an impish grin. “Growing your beard out, big man? Nice.”

I resisted the urge to tug at the growth on my chin. Years spent wandering had steadily eroded old habits, and I hadn’t shaved in a while. I felt suddenly very aware of my unkempt mop of copper hair, the dark shadows I knew must be prominent around my eyes.

I coughed self-consciously and took my hands off the barmaid’s shoulders. “It’s good to see you,” I said, meaning it.

She took one of my arms before I could protest, wrapping it tightly so I couldn’t escape. Turning toward the Keeper, she said, “I’m taking my break.”

The Keeper’s near-permanent scowl deepened. “You’ve already taken it.”

Cat shrugged, unconcerned. “Then dock my pay. Oh!” She placed her fingertips to her lips, smiling slyly. “You don’t pay me. The patrons do.”

The Keeper just shook his head, exasperated. “You know he won’t, Catrin.”

Cat turned her sly look on me then, and a flash of something else lit in it for an instant. My throat suddenly felt very dry. “Oh, I don’t know,” she murmured. “A lot can change in a year.”