There is a room on the second floor that the inn only shows to certain guests.
Not the loud ones, or the ones who arrive with too many bags and opinions about the soup. Not the merchants who want to haggle over the price of a bed, or the knights who prop their swords against the wall and fall asleep in their armor.
The room shows itself to the quiet ones. The ones who sit in the corner and stare at their hands. The ones who arrived running and now don’t know how to stop.
If you listen at the door — and you shouldn’t, but Henrick does sometimes, when the keeper isn’t watching — you can hear it. A low, steady rhythm. In and out. Like the room is breathing.
No one has ever complained about the room.
No one has ever asked to stay a second night.
But the ones who sleep there always leave with something different in their eyes. Something softer. Like they heard a thing they’d been ignoring for a long, long time, and finally let it in.
The keeper doesn’t talk about the room. When asked, she pours another cup of tea and changes the subject.
But she always leaves the door unlocked.