The Door That Answered First

Sella eased the dagger handle left by the width of a nail. The door opened another finger’s breadth.

The dark line beneath it widened. Her shadow stretched into the gap, though she had not moved. It slid across the stone beyond, narrow at first, then spreading as if the room on the other side had a different light.

She kept one hand on the dagger and lowered the other to the floor. The stone was dry. She scraped a little dust toward the gap with her thumb. It gathered against the door’s bottom edge, then spilled through in a thin stream.

The dust fell away from her.

Not down. Away.

Sella watched it drift across the dark, turn once, and settle on a surface she could not see. The door’s shadow pointed the same way. Her own shadow did not. It went on through the gap, still attached to her feet, and bent at an angle that made her knees ache to look at.

“Useful,” she said. “A door that’s also an opinion.”

From beyond, Iven’s voice said, “Keep the blade flat.”

Sella looked at the dagger. It was already flat against the scratch. She lifted it a little, and the door began to close. When she laid it down again, the opening widened.

The instruction was right. That made it no safer.

She slid the dagger forward until its point passed beneath the door. The blade’s shadow vanished into the gap. She felt no resistance. With a careful push, she moved it farther. Something on the other side touched the hilt and pushed back.

Sella pulled it free at once. A pale line marked the stone where the blade had scraped. The mark continued under the door.

She could leave the dagger there, wedged in place. She could also let the door close and find another way. The shadow of the blade stretched through the gap, but it seemed to belong to the space beyond more than to the steel in her hand.

“Leave the dagger,” said Tassa’s voice.

Sella’s grip tightened. The words came from behind the door, not from the passage she had crossed. She knew Tassa’s usual pitch, the dry edge she put on a warning when she was trying to make it sound like a joke. This had the edge. It did not have the joke.

“Why?” Sella asked.

No answer came.

She lifted the dagger. The door shivered against its frame, and the opening narrowed. She lowered it again, flat, and the gap returned. The voice had asked her to abandon the one thing she had brought from the landing. She didn’t need a second reason to be cautious.