Jeremiah’s attention lingered on the blue System window for half a heartbeat.
—✦—
You have entered “The Inn Between”, a System-registered Shard space.
The Shard User has been notified of your presence.
—✦—
He had known, in some distant sort of way, that other users existed. Mero had said as much more than once. The System was too large, too strange, and too obviously unfinished in places to have been built around him alone. But knowing that was one thing. Suddenly coming face-to-face with the truth was another entirely.
The Shard User has been notified of your presence.
The words settled somewhere cold and low in his chest, and Jeremiah became acutely aware that he wasn’t in his uniform or his shop.
“Something the matter, lad?” Ulrick’s voice pulled him back to the room.
Jeremiah opened his mouth, though he had no idea what he should say. Did he tell Ulrick? Or would that give away too much?
He was still weighing the pros and cons of equipping his uniform from soul space when something cold and wet pressed against his palm.
Jeremiah nearly jumped out of his skin.
He jerked back with a sharp inhale and spun to face the maybe-threat.
Standing beside him, close enough that Jeremiah had no idea how he’d missed its approach, was a massive wolfhound. It stared up at him with a long, narrow face and a shaggy coat so black it seemed to drink in the tavern’s warm light. The only breaks in that darkness were the gray patches dusting its muzzle and eyebrows, giving the animal the dignified look of some retired old soldier who had seen everything and judged most of it unworthy of comment.
Billy, hovering over Jeremiah’s shoulder, gave a high-pitched screel and rocketed toward the tavern rafters.
The wolfhound lifted its head and sniffed Jeremiah’s hand again with solemn interest.
Jeremiah could only stare down at it, his heart still thudding.
Ulrick laughed, then reached down to scratch behind the dog’s ears. “Still on guard duty, I see, Hector.”
Hector’s stern expression softened by the smallest degree. His eyes half-lidded, and his tail gave a single, dignified thump against the wooden floor.
He gave a soft woof.
Apparently satisfied with whatever inspection Jeremiah had just passed, Hector turned and padded back toward the door. Only then did Jeremiah notice the large cushion tucked beside the entrance, half-hidden in shadow beneath a low shelf. It was worn flat in the middle, the fabric patched in several places. Hector crossed to it, circled once, and lowered himself with a heavy sigh, though his eyes never left Jeremiah’s.
They continued staring at each other until an unfamiliar voice broke the silence.
“Of course he is!” it called from deeper inside the tavern. “Ol’ Hector’s been here longer than me.”
Jeremiah turned.
A man approached from behind the bar, wiping his hands on a towel as he came. He stood only a little shorter than Jeremiah, but his broad shoulders and sun-kissed skin gave him the sturdy presence of someone who spent more time working outdoors than sitting behind a desk. His hair was a wild, dusty-brown mullet that should have looked ridiculous, but somehow matched the easy grin spread across his face.
What stood out most to Jeremiah, however, was the man’s clothes.
Not because they were unusual by Nexus standards, but because they looked so ordinary compared to the rustic tavern around him, or even the impossible street they had just left behind. Baggy shorts fell past his knees, and his clean T-shirt bore a faded logo Jeremiah didn’t recognize. He looked like someone Jeremiah might have passed in Central during late summer, maybe heading to a concert or a beachside café, not tending a bar at the crossroads of reality.
Bright green eyes swept over Jeremiah with quick interest before settling on Ulrick, and the man’s grin widened.
“Ulrick!” he called, arms spreading wide. “How’re you goin’, mate?”
Ulrick’s own grin answered in kind. He laughed as the two clasped shoulders and pulled each other into a brief, familiar embrace.
“I’m doing well, Ray,” Ulrick said as they drew apart. “And you?”
Ray blew out a breath and tossed the towel over one shoulder. “Busy as all hell, if I’m being honest. Place has been going off lately. Lots of new arrivals since that fancy school opened up.” He gave a dramatic sigh and leaned one hip against the bar. “Been working my hide off since the old codger retired.”
Jeremiah glanced around the tavern again.
It wasn’t crowded, exactly, but now that he was paying attention, he noticed more movement than he had at first. A figure in a long gray coat nursed a mug in the corner. Someone with feathered hands slept at a table near the hearth. Behind the bar, a row of glasses rinsed and stacked themselves without visible help.
He was almost certain there were more patrons than there had been when they walked through the doors.
And yet Jeremiah hadn’t noticed a single person enter behind them, even though he and Ulrick had practically clogged the doorway.
Ulrick smirked and turned slightly toward Jeremiah.
“Don’t let the lazy tone fool you,” he said. “Ray’s been running the Inn Between on his own for nearly eight years now. He may take some getting used to, but if the rumors are right, the place has done better under him than it has in quite a while.”
Ray punched Ulrick lightly on the shoulder. “Bloody hell, man. You’re gonna ruin my cred with the new bloke.”
“Only setting the record straight,” Ulrick said with a smirk.
“Bah!” Ray rolled his eyes, then turned a bright grin on Jeremiah and held out his hand. “Speaking of, g’day, mate. Raymond Longbottom. Ray to my friends, and ‘that bloody galah’ to everyone else.”
Ulrick sighed. “That last name changes every time I hear it.”
Ray’s grin sharpened. “Course it does. How else am I supposed to keep people guessing?”
Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed a fraction. He looked between the two men, then down at the offered hand.
After a moment, he reached out and shook it.
“Jeremiah Bridge,” he said.
Ray’s grip was warm and firm, but for the barest instant, something flickered behind his eyes.
It was gone almost before Jeremiah could be sure he’d seen it. Surprise, maybe. A tiny break in the man’s easy smile, buried so quickly that Jeremiah might have missed it if he hadn’t already been on edge.
“Nice to meet you, Jerry,” Ray said, the smile settling back into place. “Say…” He tilted his head. “You wouldn’t happen to know a young sheila named Sarah, would you?”
The warmth drained from Jeremiah’s face.
His hand tightened in Ray’s grip before he realized what he was doing. He released it slowly, even as everything in him tightened at once, the tavern’s comfortable warmth falling away beneath a familiar, bitter chill.
From above, Billy drifted down from the rafters and settled close to Jeremiah’s shoulder.
Jeremiah met Ray’s eyes.
“Yes,” he said, voice flat and cold. “Sarah Bridge was my sister.”
This time, Ray’s surprise was visible.
His eyes widened, just a fraction more than before, and the easy grin faltered at the edges. He looked at Jeremiah for a beat too long, then glanced toward Ulrick.
The baker gave a small nod.
Ray turned his gaze back to Jeremiah and ran a hand through his hair, the grin slipping into something more awkward.
“Ahhh… crikey, mate, I didn’t mean to—”
Jeremiah shook his head, cutting him off before the apology could find its footing. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”
The lie came easily enough. He’d spoken some version of it so many times over the last year that the words had worn smooth in his mouth.
He pushed past it and studied Ray more carefully. “You knew my sister?”
Ray’s expression softened. He let out a slow breath and adjusted the towel on his shoulder.
“Not well,” he admitted. “But I met her a couple of times when she visited the Inn.” His smile returned, smaller now but warmer. “Good lass, that one. Always polite, always sharp.” He winked. “And tipped well, too.”
Despite himself, Jeremiah let out a quiet laugh.
That sounded like Sarah. Even buried under grief and all the ugly things that had come after, the image rose easily. He could almost see her sitting on one of the empty stools at the bar, a mug in her hand and a grin on her face.
A smirk tugged at his mouth.
He let it linger for only a moment, then Ray’s words caught up with him.
Jeremiah looked around the tavern again, slower this time, taking in the worn wooden floors, the low beams, and the mismatched patrons scattered through the room like characters cut from half a dozen different stories.
“Sarah had been here before?” he asked. “She never mentioned anywhere like… this.”
Ray nodded, his expression settling back into something more practiced. “While I don’t make a habit of pokin’ my nose into my customers’ business, most people tend to stick to the outer layers of the Inn Between. The few who find their way deep enough to darken my doorstep usually aren’t here about matters they want spread lightly.”
His grin widened, and his voice lifted just enough to carry. “Well, most of them, at least. The way some act, you’d think this was a bottle-o!”
“Screw you, Ray!” an older man in greasy overalls shouted from the bar, raising his mug, but not turning around. “Ain’t my fault you’re the only place that carries my brand anymore!”
Ray smirked and shook his head.
Jeremiah welcomed the interruption more than he wanted to admit.
“So,” he said, eager to turn the conversation before that ache could dig any deeper, “you run the entire Inn Between?”
Ray chuckled. “It’s a bit complicated.”
He turned and gestured around the tavern, though somehow the motion seemed to include more than the surrounding walls.
“This building has existed for countless years,” Ray said. “And that’s not just a turn of phrase, either. The Inn Between has been passed down from Innkeeper to Innkeeper for so many generations that no one’s quite sure when it was first made. Even the oldest written records from long before the Great Unification mention it in some fashion.”
Ray leaned closer, lowering his voice into the tone of someone sharing a secret he had told a hundred times before. “The more superstitious types even claim it was the first inn.”
Jeremiah glanced toward Ulrick.
The baker only smiled, offering no help at all.
Ray shrugged. “And just like towns and villages used to spring up around old roadside inns and places of rest, the mages who found themselves here eventually learned how to carve out their own pieces of the Infinite Between.”
Ulrick picked up the thread easily. “The street we arrived on is only one of many,” he said. “Our closest neighbor in the Inn Between, if you would.”
“I see…” Jeremiah said.
And strangely, he almost did.
The tavern was the original anchor, and everything else had grown around it. Not physically, maybe, but by whatever rules governed a place like this.
Ray watched him for a moment, then turned to Ulrick with a raised brow. “He’s a sharp one, I see. Most newbies tie themselves in knots trying to fit that in with all the mumbo-jumbo they get fed.” His gaze flicked back to Jeremiah. “He one of yours?”
Ulrick laughed, deep and warm. “No. You know I’m not taking apprentices anymore, Ray. Jeremiah here is one of the new shopkeepers in my neighborhood. We happen to share some overlap in affinity, so I’ve been teaching him a few things here and there.”
That got Ray’s attention.
His other brow rose to join the first, and the lazy amusement in his expression sharpened into something more focused.
“Oh?” Ray said. “A fellow shopkeeper? And a mage at that?” His grin returned, but this time it carried a different weight. “The Maker works in mysterious ways, as they say.”
Jeremiah straightened without meaning to as Ray turned his full attention on him.
For the briefest instant, something shifted in Ray’s eyes, and Jeremiah felt something settle over him.
It was subtle. So subtle he almost convinced himself he had imagined it. A tiny shift passed through the green of the man’s irises, as if the color had folded inward and turned, not changing so much as briefly revealing depth where none should have been.
Then it was gone.
Jeremiah blinked once.
Ray smiled.
“Ohhh?” Ray said, tilting his head as his bright green eyes narrowed with open interest. “Water? No…”
His gaze moved over Jeremiah again, not quite looking at him so much as through him.
“Ocean,” Ray said at last. “With a rather strong lean toward Threshold and Connection.”
He gave a low whistle. “Now, that’s something you don’t see every day.”
Jeremiah’s eyes widened before he could stop himself.
“You can see my affinity?”
The question came out sharper than he intended.
He glanced toward Ulrick on instinct. Even Ulrick hadn’t been able to identify Jeremiah’s affinity so casually. He’d needed a tool, a careful reading, and a good deal of explanation afterward.
Ray had done it in a glance.
Or close enough to make Jeremiah’s stomach tighten.
Ray chuckled, apparently unconcerned by the sudden tension. “In a manner of speaking,” he said. “My own affinity is called Watcher at the Threshold.”
He tapped a finger lightly beside one eye. “That probably won’t mean much to you without the proper learning, but the short version is simple enough. I can see things most folks don’t.”
He leaned one elbow against the bar, a towel still slung over his shoulder. “Of course, I have other tools for…”
His grin widened.
“Special guests.”
Ray winked.
Jeremiah’s stomach dropped.
The words had been friendly enough. They could have meant anything. Maybe Ray was only teasing. Maybe it was part of the casual charm he seemed to wear as easily as his ridiculous haircut and too-bright grin.
But Jeremiah’s mind snapped back to the blue window that had appeared the moment he crossed the threshold.
The Shard User has been notified of your presence.
He had let himself get pulled off-balance. By Ulrick’s cheer, by Ray’s easy friendliness, by the unexpected mention of Sarah. Not by much, but enough to lower his guard. Enough to almost forget what the notification meant.
Shard User.
He had heard Mero use the term more than once. Never in enough detail to satisfy him, of course. Mero had a talent for talking around subjects whenever Jeremiah got too close to something important.
Still, Jeremiah had pieced together the basics.
If he was the System’s Beta Tester, with full access to the current iteration of Sarah’s unfinished masterpiece, then Shard Users were something else. Alpha testers, maybe. Earlier participants given limited access to pieces of the System, fragments of functionality tied to specific purposes.
Which raised a very important question.
What did that mean in practice?
Jeremiah flinched despite himself and looked up.
Ulrick looked down at him, concern creasing his broad face.
“Are you sure you’re alright, lad?”
Jeremiah opened his mouth.
Then, deliberately, he activated [Nerve Net] and [Distributed Instinct].
The world slowed.
Sound stretched thin around him. The faint clink of glasses behind the bar drew out into a clear, ringing note. Billy’s bubble drifted beside him in a slow blue shimmer. Near the door, Hector’s tail thumped once against his cushion, each motion heavy and distinct.
Jeremiah’s mind split cleanly into parallel lines of thought.
Ray and Ulrick knew each other. Not as passing acquaintances, either. There was history there. Comfort. Trust.
Ulrick had known Sarah as well. He had cared about her, or at least respected her enough that the weight of her name still stirred something behind his eyes.
But Ulrick had known nothing about the System until Mero had explained pieces of it.
Which meant Ray, if he was a Shard User, had kept that secret from him, too.
Jeremiah had to assume that mattered.
Maybe Shard Users were bound by rules. Maybe they couldn’t talk about the System freely. Maybe Ray didn’t know much more than Jeremiah did.
Or maybe he had chosen silence for reasons Jeremiah couldn’t begin to guess.
Worse, Jeremiah had no idea how Shard Users interacted with one another.
Would Ray see him as an ally? A curiosity? Competition? A risk?
Could he even tell Jeremiah wasn’t a Shard User, but had Full System Access?
Mero had always gone cagey whenever Jeremiah pressed for details. Something about not wanting to pollute the final System with outdated versions. At the time, Jeremiah had accepted the logic. In theory, at least.
Right now, he regretted that restraint intensely.
All of these thoughts passed through his mind in less than the time it would have taken to blink.
Then Jeremiah made his choice.
He let the abilities fall away.
Sound returned all at once: the faint clink of glasses behind the bar, the crackle of the hearth, Billy’s quiet movement above his shoulder, and the low breathing of Hector by the door.
Jeremiah shook his head and met Ulrick’s eyes.
“I’m fine,” he said, keeping his voice as steady as he could. “I think I’m just still feeling the effects of outside.”
Ulrick studied him for a beat longer than Jeremiah liked.
Then the baker’s expression eased, though not completely. “I see,” he said. “With your stronger connection to Threshold, it makes sense you’d be more sensitive than most.” He gave Jeremiah’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze before letting go. “First time in a place like this can rattle anyone.”
Jeremiah nodded, grateful and uneasy in equal measure.
Ray watched the exchange with an expression Jeremiah couldn’t quite read. If he noticed the lie, he gave no sign of it.
“Well then,” the innkeeper said, clapping his hands once, “why don’t we grab a seat before the poor bloke falls over? It’s obvious you two are here for a reason, and I’m guessing it wasn’t just to admire my charming personality.”
He turned and motioned for them to follow, already heading toward a table near the quieter side of the room.
“Come on,” Ray said, his grin sliding easily back into place. “Bevvies on me.”