I counted in my head. One, two, three…

Orro turned to me, his eyes intense. “How long?”

“You have to delay the banquet for an hour to allow for the otrokari celebration,” I said.

“One? Hour?”

“Yes.”

Orro swung his stick and knife. “I have fish. Delicate fish. I have soufflé. I have… I can do one hour. But no more!” He waved the knife for emphasis. “No more. Not one minute, not one second, not one nanosecond, not one attosecond more.”

“Thank you.”

I walked into the front room, Gaston followed me.

The Arbiter’s delegation had, for some reason, decided to appropriate my front room despite the perfectly adequate space in their quarters. George was absorbed in his reader. Jack and Lark were playing chess. Given that I was terrible at chess, I had no idea who was winning. Her Grace had artfully arranged herself in a chair by the window and indulged in a cup of hibiscus tea and her tablet. Judging by the small smile on her lips, Caldenia was reading something with a lot of smut or a lot of murder.

“Attosecond?” Gaston asked.

“I’m guessing it’s a very, very small fraction of a second,” I said.

“One quintillionth of a second,” George said, without raising his head from his reader.

Jack pondered him. “Have you started memorizing random crap again to amuse yourself?”

“No, I’m connected to the wireless,” George said. “I googled it.”

The otrokari shaman emerged from the hallway, wearing a tattered black cloak. His long black hair, tinted with a hint of purple, spilled over it. Combined with his skin, a deep bronze with an almost green undertone, the hair made his pale green eyes startling on his harsh, angular face.

“Ruga,” I inclined my head. “Are you ready to inspect the site?”

He nodded.

I stepped outside, Gaston and the shaman in tow. I had a feeling George had assigned Gaston to me, because he’d been trailing me for the past half an hour.

Dagorkun had informed me that they would need a clearing that was at least five akra long and wide, which roughly translated to a square with a side of thirty five point two yards. I would have to appropriate part of the new land for it. After we took down the alien assassin last summer, I had used part of the money I had earned from House Krahr to purchase another acre. It sat in the back of the property, past the orchard, on the north side, securely cushioned from view by dense oaks and cedars. Fueled by the boost of Arland’s, Sean’s, and Caldenia’s presence, the inn had rooted through the new land almost overnight and spent the last seven months or so making it its own. That provided me with a large enough area for the otrokari festival.

The new land had cost me fifteen thousand dollars, primarily because the acre housed a bat cave and couldn’t be zoned for building. The cave itself opened a few hundred yards to the east, outside of my property, and if the peace summit succeeded, I would buy it. The bats could prove very useful.

I stopped and surveyed the lot. Small gnarled cedars rose above the grass, flanked by some bushes. I had never liked the Texas cedars. They always looked really dry and starved of water with their rough trunks and, just to add insult to injury, every winter they spat out clouds of yellow pollen so thick it blanketed the hoods of the cars in fine powder overnight.

“This is wrong,” the shaman said. “There are too many trees. There is no water and the ground is too uneven.”

I inhaled and let my magic flow.

The soil around the cedar trunks softened. Ripples pulsed through it, like waves from a stone cast into a pond. The trees shuddered and sank into the ground whole, twisting as they were sucked into the ground. No sense in wasting the wood. The otrokari would likely need some for the festival. The inn would prepare the logs and absorb what was left afterward for its own purposes down the road.

Gaston’s eyebrows rose. The shaman frowned.

Obeying my push, the ground smoothed out. A foot wide trench formed along the perimeter of the clearing. Rocks, stones, and pebbles, most pale sandstone, rose from the depth of the ground, like mushrooms caps, to line the bottom of the trench. I raised the south end of it about eight inches to create a slope. A long garden hose snaked its way from the house. A second hose connected to the first and its end dropped into the trench. Water spilled onto the rocks and obediently flowed down the newly made stream bed. I walked along the trench, adjusting the height as needed.

The shaman stepped over the trench, reached inside his cloak, and produced a pouch made out of scaled hide. He whispered something, opened the pouch, and spilled bright red powder into the air. For a moment the red cloud lingered, suspended by some invisible force, and then the individual particles fell, sinking into the soil. A subtle change came over the area. I couldn’t see any difference with the naked eye, but now the land enclosed my artificial stream felt slightly odd. It still belonged to the inn, but now it also responded to the shaman’s magic.

“Are there any additional adjustments you would like me to make?” I asked.

He shook his head. “This will suffice. I have work to do here before the festival can begin.”

“Do you require wood for the fires?”

“Yes.”

A pile of cedar logs rose from the ground.

I inclined my head. “Gaston will keep you company so there are no incidents.”

The shaman spared me a look. “I now stand on the land of my ancestors. There are things in this life I fear. Vampires are not one of them.”

“All the same, I would like Gaston to stay with you. Please let me know if there is anything else you require.”

I walked away. I had more preparations to make. Lord Robart’s guests from House Meer would need their own small set of rooms. Putting them in with the Holy Anocracy’s delegation was asking for trouble.

###

Red curtains or blue curtains? I peered at the guest suite for Nuan Cee’s “employee.” When I pressed Nuan Cee for specifics about his guest, he played dumb. I tried dropping subtle hints, then more obvious hints, until finally, I straight out asked what sort of furniture I should provide for the new addition to his delegation. His answer was “large,” after which he informed me that he was too tired to continue the conversation and needed to retire.

Large as in human large? Vampire large? Nuan Cee large? Which large were we talking about? First, Sophie, now this. This new thing with guests arriving but not bothering to explain to me their species or any preferences was getting really annoying.