She came through the door just before the fire burned to nothing.
No pack. No cloak. No shadow pooling at her feet the way shadows do when the lamps are low and the night presses in. Just a woman, standing in the doorway, letting the cold in.
“Close the door,” said old Henrick from his usual chair, and she did, but slowly, as if she wasn’t sure she’d be allowed to stay on this side of it.
The keeper set a cup down on the bar. Tea — the dark kind, bitter, with a sweetness that crept in after the third sip, the kind you didn’t know you needed until it was warming your hands.
“I traded it,” the woman said, before anyone asked.
“Traded what?” said Henrick, though he could see well enough.
“My shadow. For directions.”
A pause. The fire found a knot of pitch in the log and flared up, throwing everyone’s shadow long against the wall. Everyone’s except hers.
“Were the directions good?” the keeper asked.
The woman looked at her tea. Then at the fire. Then at the door she’d just come through, the one that opened onto five roads and never the same sky twice.
“They led me here,” she said.
The keeper topped off her cup.
“Then they were good enough.”