Mae brightened again, relief slipping onto her face like a dress.

She pushed open the door and led them along the balcony to the corner. "You get the best one," she said. "Three windows if you forget yourself and open the curtains."

"You just told us not to," Lachlan said.

"I did," Mae said. "Some of you will anyway."

"Which some?" Sera asked.

Mae’s gaze slid to Alexei, then to Elias, then back to Sera. "The ones who think they’re immune to suggestion."

Alexei’s jaw ticked. "We’re not tourists."

"No," Mae said. "You’re both better and worse."

She handed Sera a key. "Use this from the inside. If you leave it in the door and step away, it will be gone when you look again."

"Does the room lock from the outside?" Elias asked.

Mae’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. "Not while you’re in it."

Sera turned the key. The lock turned cleanly, smoothly.

Inside, the room showed what the lobby had promised: bed, washstand, a dresser with a mirror that gave back only the shape of a person and none of the detail. It was a bronze mirror, an not one made in the last few centuries.

The window glass looked clear. When Sera touched it with a fingertip, the print didn’t stick.

"Remember," Mae said from the threshold. "You only come out when you hear the church bell. Not voices. Not footsteps. Not pleas. The bell."

"Even if we hear your voice?" Elias asked.

"Especially if you hear mine," Mae said.

Sera studied her face. The brightness had settled again into that almost-happy patience. "Why us?" she asked. "You said you don’t get outsiders. Why wave us up first? Why help at all?"

Mae put her knuckles to the doorframe like she was knocking on wood for luck. "Because you listened when I said not to lie," she said. "And because if you break the rules, the Sheriff will ride with both hands."

"Meaning?"

"You’ll understand it if you see it," Mae said. "Make sure you don’t see it."

Zubair stepped into the hall and looked from Mae to Sera. "We’ll take shifts," he said. "But we do it inside."

Sera nodded. "Inside."

Mae stepped back. She glanced toward the church again. The bell didn’t move. The air moved around the bell like water around a rock.

Lachlan rolled his shoulders. "Food?"

"You will be offered food, of course," started Mae before she turned to Sera and lowered her voice. "But if you are smart, only eat your own. Don’t eat ours. Don’t drink ours. Not unless you want to stay long enough for the sheriff to forget he doesn’t own you."

"That can happen?" Elias asked.

"It always happens," Mae said gently. "To some."

She shifted, suddenly less hostess and more warning. "I’m going to say it one more time. When you hear anything that sounds like a person at your door before the bell, you don’t open. Not for a child. Not for me. Not for the sheriff. Not for your men."

"Not for my men?" Sera repeated, dry.

"Especially not for them," Mae said.

Sera watched her for two breaths. "You’re afraid we’ll pass your test."

Mae’s smile wobbled. "I’m afraid you’ll pass it and then go looking for a harder one."

Sera didn’t deny it.

Mae stepped backward into the light, hands folding in front of her like a photograph of a frontier bride. The facade fit too well. It wasn’t a trick; it was skin.

"Second bell soon," she said. "Under a roof before it hits."

"We will," Sera said.

Mae nodded once and left them with the room and the key and rules that tasted like iron.

They split up without talking about it.

Elias checked the hinges and the sash. Lachlan tested the bedframe, then propped the chair under the knob regardless of the lock.

Alexei walked the perimeter with the kind of patience that made men tell him secrets to make him leave them alone.

Zubair stood with his back to the door and listened to the building. Luci circled the bed once, jumped up, turned again, then settled with his head pointed at the church.

Sera moved to the nearest window and stopped just short of the curtain. Light pooled at her boots.

"Don’t," Alexei advise, his voice sharp with worry.

"I’m not," she replied with a slight shake of her head.

She looked at the place where the fabric met the frame and the tiny gap that was nothing and still looked like a mouth. She stepped back.

"Her skin," Lachlan said quietly. "You see it?"

"Too perfect," Elias said. "Like poured glass."

"Like it’s new every day," Alexei added.

"Like it’s not skin," Sera said. "Like she’s not human."

Waving her hand, Sera took out a bunch of food from her space that didn’t have to be warmed up. Instant noodles, a pot that could be used to boil water in. Packets of instant coffee, brownies, and even a chocolate cake found their way onto the surfaces of the hotel room.

"Do we pick watches?" Elias asked as Zubair held the pot in his hands and started to head the ice Alexei had put in it.

"We don’t sleep," Zubair said. "Not the first night." He corrected himself, because night wasn’t a thing here. "Not until after the second bell."

"Mae called it ’soon,’" Sera reminded them, opening a pack of noodles in a cup.

"How do we measure ’soon’ without a clock?" Lachlan asked.

"We don’t," Sera said. "We trust the bell."

"That’s new for you," Alexei said.

"I like new," she answered with a bright smile.

Without warning, the building exhaled.

It wasn’t the wind. Instead, the very building around them seemed to shake and shudder as if trying to settle into a new shape.

Somewhere below, a door latch clicked by itself and then clicked again like hands testing a grip.

Footsteps crossed the lobby, even and light. They stopped outside their door. No knock. No voice. Just someone standing there long enough for it to become a suggestion.

"Not for a child," Elias murmured. "Not for her. Not for us."