Diverging Paths

The cart rattled to a halt in the heart of the middle district—a place of wider, tidier streets, where lamplights gleamed in polished brass fittings and even the paving stones seemed laid with more care. Shen hadn't asked to come here; in fact, none of them had. He guessed it was Moira's quiet influence at work. It reminded him, uneasily, that for all his illusions of choice, he was being nudged along by forces he still barely understood.

He climbed off the cart, following Surya, Kayode, Riley, Angela, and Alexander into the pale glow of the district's streetlamps. The inn—a small but tidy place where they'd previously stayed—was nowhere in sight. Instead, they stood before a stately hotel, its sign crafted of etched glass, softly backlit by a gentle ashen lantern.