Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Three. Some rings can combine and I don’t know what that means yet. But my original slave ring combined with another ring to make the brassy moth ring I’m wearing now. And Pell’s gold ring combined with that sparkly ring used for Tarq’s office and became the lion ring he’s wearing now.
Four. Doors can be given away. At the very least, I can do that. But Pell and I seem to be connected by these doors so he can probably give doors away too.
Five. Doors go to specific places.
But then I think about this for a moment. It’s not really true, is it?
Right now, I’m wearing the ring with the pink stone. But that ring originally took me to the palace bakery. But during that trip I went to the Bottoms and—here’s the really confusing part—when I left the Bottoms I came up out of the Granite Springs door.
I’m sure that happened.
So… what the fuck?
How did I leave here through the bakery door and return here from the Granite Springs door, which really should be called the Bottoms door?
It makes no sense. Which means it can’t be a rule. Because what is the point of a rule that makes no sense?
Is there… perhaps a link between Saint Mark’s, the Vinca palace bakery, and the Bottoms?
Maybe. Or maybe doors are like roads. They can twist, and turn, and take you many places. They can even take you to a new door without you realizing you’ve changed course, the way a country road might veer off at a fork. And that new directional door is not one of my doors because I have forty-nine of them here in Pell’s forest, and I only gave one away.
“A map would be handy, ya know!” I say this to the forest sky, talking to no one in particular.
I glance at another door, the one that leads to Tarq’s office. There is no ring for this door right now because Pell is wearing it. That means he controls it.
Then there was that first door I made that opened up to the candle shop in Granite Springs. I can see that door—I can see all the doors, actually. They are lined up in the woods, some of them mostly hidden by the boughs and leaves, but for sure they are all here. I just counted them. But that candle shop door is open, because I was going to use it, but it’s not the candle shop. It’s just a blank shimmer and the ring is floating there in front of it like all the other unused doors.
So this is another rule. Pell and I didn’t step through that door. I took the ring off—which is good to know. I can change my mind and not use a door. As long as I don’t walk through, I can take the ring off and keep the door passive.
New rule. At the very least, to connect a ring to a door, you must put the ring on. And to connect a door to a destination, you must recite a spelling, specific to that location, and step through wearing that ring.
I let out a long sigh. My brain is starting to hurt. And I’m not even done tallying up my current ring and door situation.
There is the door to Granite Springs that takes us to the hillside. This one makes no sense at all. It first appeared after we had sex right here in the tomb. But then it went away after that moth ring attacked me. But then we opened it back up again to go to Granite Springs. But then this is also the door I came out of from the Bottoms.
Except… Pell used this door to leave the smithy and come here. This is the first door that opened.
“Come on!” I whine up to the sky. “How does this make sense?”
No one answers me, of course, so I just continue with my inventory.
The moth ring and the slave caretaker ring are now the same and I’m wearing both. They seem to be connected to several doors, now that I think about it—the Vinca door at Tarq’s tomb and the door that leads to Pell’s tomb, which is also the door that got me here from the Bottoms and took us to Granite Springs.
I’m having a severe case of ‘what the fuck’ right now, but then I get another idea.
These two rings—Pell’s gold lion ring and my brassy moth ring—are connected.
Not only that, they are connected to important places like the Vinca lobby, Pell’s tomb, and Granite Spring.
“Oh!” I almost scream this. “Holy shit! The sanctuary gate!”
I think that’s a door as well.
OK. I think I’ve accounted for all my doors. I am wearing three rings: The brassy moth ring, which is also the acorn slave-caretaker ring, which connects to Pell’s tomb, Saint Mark’s gate, Tarq’s tomb that leads to Vinca, and Granite Springs. The pink-stone ring, which seems to control the Bottoms, and Queen Callistina, specifically, and also leads to the Vinca palace bakery. And now my new dragon ring, which takes me to Tomas and the dungeon.