What sat at the top of the cable car, pressed against the side of the mountain, was a hotel. A massive lodge-style hotel with two grand wings and a royal center with a clock tower, perhaps so skiers and snowboarders could always look up and see the time.

  It was perhaps the most beautiful building Hisako had ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on. The woodwork was intricate, and the siding was spotless. She would’ve loved to have seen it come together; she hoped it was real, somewhere in America.

  When the cable car stopped, she hurried out to gawk at the building. She had to pull herself away from it to ensure the others got off safely, then she looked about the station.

  No CCTV equipment, no cameras, and no operators.

  “Mm,” she hummed, excitement fading into paranoia.

  “Perhaps the show really is a supernatural drama,” Kamui said lightly. “A haunted hotel with a haunted cable car.”

  “Ghosts don’t have forms to explode,” Koko said, eying Kamui critically. “Or cut.”

  Kamui snorted.

  Sylvain strode forward, seemingly as entranced with the hotel as Hisako was. They followed a step behind him, and were all equally surprised when a towering woman in a crisp uniform opened the door for him, welcoming him happily. She had to duck to lean through the door; she was so tall.

  Sylvain returned the greeting and gestured at them. The women smiled warmly at them and held the door open for them, too. As Hisako passed below her, she tried her best to gauge the woman’s height. She had to be at least a mind-boggling two hundred-something centimeters.

  She was shocked away from staring at the doorwoman by the grand hotel lobby. It was homey and cozy—all wood and warm, neutral tones—, and there were elaborate oil paintings of angels and devils hung between hunting trophies.

  North American animals stared down at her—deer with massive antlers, what she could only assume was a moose, and even a whole badger posing on a log.

  On the glistening leather furniture, there were more people—people who saw Sylvain and smiled when he entered. Some waved, and a few stood up to greet him. They were all characters—a regal elderly lady with a poor chihuahua drowning in a pink dress, a militant young man with a shaved head, and more.

  “What does this all mean?” Hisako asked Dr. Moon quietly. “The other people acted like he wasn’t there.”

  Dr. Moon’s eyes had narrowed. “I’m not sure.”

  Hisako looked to Kamui and Koko. Koko was sharply eyeing the guests, and Kamui was staring holes into the back of Sylvain’s head.

  She sidled over to Kamui. “What’s happening? What are you thinking?”

  “You know what these people are.”

  “Doorwalkers.”

  “The chaff ignored him, but…”

  “The main cast speaks with him. They’re the bigger walkers.”

  “But not hostile.”

  Hisako frowned. “The big one is still out there.”

  “We should be close. A door like this is more linear—the walkers get bigger as you get closer to the core of the door.”

  Hisako nodded slowly. Str?mberg’s door had been a better guide to clearing doors than she’d expected. “So they’re here somewhere, on the mountain—the big one.”

  Kamui’s eyes sliced through the crowd, dissecting each odd character. His eyes landed on the elderly man in a wheelchair, wearing only pajamas and hotel slippers. He hadn’t been keen on welcoming Sylvain.

  “They should be,” Kamui said.

  “Sylvain,” Hisako said. “Sylvain!”

  Sylvain pulled away from the small crowd that had amassed for him.

  “The door,” she said, drawing a door in the air with her fingers. “Where?”

  He pointed down, below the floor—the basement.

  “You said the door stays in both worlds,” Hisako whispered to Dr. Moon. “That means he can feel the door, right? That’s how he knows?”

  “That, or he may know the core of his own door,” Dr. Moon said.

  “Then why didn’t he come here himself?” Hisako asked. “The walkers are greeting him, not attacking him.”

  “It’s his fantasy world. Maybe he wants to stay,” Koko suggested.

  “The town ignored him,” Hisako argued. “Who would want to stay here? Is the food even real? Is anything here real?”

  They had no answer for her.

  “Some people don’t want ‘real,’” Kamui said finally. “For some people, being happy is enough. You’ll see that a lot as a Doorkeeper.”

  “I don’t like it,” Hisako said. “Something is wrong.”

  “I don’t know right from wrong in this funny world,” Koko sighed. “I’ll know ‘wrong’ when the fight starts.”

  Sylvain gestured for them to follow him, and he began walking down one of the halls, then to a staff door. He opened the door, which should’ve been locked, then led them through with ease.

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  The staff side of the hotel was just as fine as the guest-facing side, just a little less done-up. Instead of paintings, there were photos, and instead of hunting trophies, there were commemorative plaques.

  The stairwell was different. The wood and warmth ended like the mouth of a cave. The walls became a scuffed-up white, and the floor became cheap linoleum. The stairs were metal with the linoleum pasted on.

  Sylvain stepped down on the first step, and it echoed downward with a loud boom. The fluorescent light overhead trembled, and they all blinked in a sad sequence, down as far as the eye could see in a folding spiral.

  Hisako stared. She couldn’t see the bottom.

  “We’re not going down there,” she said.

  She backed them up to the stairwell entrance. They stayed in the carpeted halls. Sylvain stared from the first metal step.

  He asked something. He sounded confused, voice light, tone rising.

  “No,” she said. She shook her head.

  “What’s wrong?” Kamui asked quietly.

  “There’s something wrong.”

  “The world is fine. Just odd,” Kamui said.

  “It’s not the world—it’s him.”

  Kamui looked back at the man, still smiling amicably on that step.

  “He-he wants to go down there,” Hisako countered. “I’ve never seen anyone do that.”

  Kamui blinked slowly, then looked to Moon.

  “I’ve never seen it,” she said.

  “I saw it. Someone who wanted to die, though,” Koko said. “Everyone says Americans are crazy, maybe this is normal?”

  Even tigers fear death when it looks back at them. “No. Nothing about him is normal.”

  The smile was slowly fading from Sylvain’s lips. Hisako stared at him. Watched those eyes fade back to that dull blue again—watched his face become that empty shell from before.

  Down the hall, a door slammed loudly, making the staircase groan in sympathy. Hisako jumped and saw a vicious smile crack his face the second she flinched.

  Her instincts told her to snap and howl, to question him and yell at him to stay back, but it was useless. They didn’t understand each other. She could only grit her teeth and clench her fists.

  “Draw your weapon,” she told Dr. Moon.

  “Pardon?”

  “Point your blade at him. He’s our enemy now. He ought to know that.”

  Moon complied. That clinic door of hers appeared gently, like a bloom of light, and her sword appeared in her hands. It was an ornamental, broad, and flat weapon. It was elegant and distinctly Korean, though Hisako couldn’t remember the shape’s name.

  She raised the blade at the man, and his eerie smile remained. If anything, it grew wider. He laughed, even, and when he raised his hands placatingly, an axe appeared in one of them—a utilitarian survival hatchet, all dark metal with a black plastic hilt.

  He shrugged, swinging the weapon in a simple arc with an easy flick of his wrist. The motion looked fluid and practiced, as easy as breathing for the American.

  “Oo-ho-ho-hoo!” Koko cackled, fingertips crackling.

  “Koko!” Kamui warned.

  “Koko,” Hisako said calmly. “You can’t use your ability in the lodge.”

  “I need orders,” Koko gritted out.

  “You’re going to secure our exit.”

  “Exit?” Koko cried.

  “We’re not fighting Sylvain.”

  “Hisako,” Dr. Moon said slowly. “Sylvain is a hostile, armed enemy.”

  “I-I don’t know what he is, but something is wrong with him.”

  “Do not let emotion cloud judgment,” Kamui warned sharply.

  “My judgment is clear,” Hisako replied. “My understanding is incomplete, so I will not draw my blade, and neither will you, unless one of us is in grave danger.”

  Sylvain hadn’t moved. Hisako backed them up. One step. Two. Koko broke off and ran toward the door they’d come from.

  Sylvain stepped. Then again, maintaining a distance of only a few meters away from them, all the way to the staff door.

  “It’s locked,” Koko said.

  “Blow it,” Kamui said. “Carefully.”

  “Get behind me,” Hisako said.

  She summoned Toraichi, swinging it around her to guard her back. They lined up, and Koko giggled.

  She couldn’t see what he did to activate his ability, but she saw the bright spark and saw the building shake as a small explosion roared behind her. She saw the reflection in Sylvain’s cold eyes—watched the pupils contract at the flash and re-dilate with a few slow blinks.

  “Koko!” Kamui hissed as plaster fell from the ceiling.

  Hisako let Toraichi go and turned around to see a hole in the wall, breaking into the concrete below, and opening into the floor above. A large section of wall and floor fell next to Koko, who chuckled, star-eyed at the destruction.

  “It was small.” He gestured with pinched fingers.

  “The explosion was too big, dear,” Kamui insisted. “But good job, I suppose.”

  “Let’s go!” Hisako cried.

  They turned and ran through the new opening. Doors all along the main hall rattled, slamming open and shut. One of them caught Hisako as she ran, sending her spinning into a wall before she recovered and kept running.

  She looked over her shoulder and saw Sylvain slowly stalking them through the hall. Her brain summoned the searing image of the Trapdoorers from Pacchi. Her fists clenched so hard her knuckles blanched, but she kept running.

  The lobby characters startled when they burst back into the room, but they were still docile, though they panicked a bit. When Sylvain entered, they screamed—the sound as well as the action itself made her nearly trip in surprise. The elderly man in the chair’s face hardened, and he alone refused to cower.

  The main door would not budge. This time, Koko didn’t wait for them to brace themselves. This time, Hisako saw his ability in action, as blinding as it was.

  He snapped, as he’d done in the cable car, but it was more sustained—not just a simple flick of the fingers. The spark grew, and then he violently sent it forward when his fingers parted. When it made a contract with the door, it exploded, wood splinters flying everywhere.

  It was smaller than the last explosion, but still a bit overkill. The door was reduced to debris, as was the doorframe and a good chunk of the wall. It was an exit, though, so they used it and ran out onto the mountainside.

  Sylvain stopped there, a few dress-shoe-lengths deep in soft white snow. His face had fallen flat, and the people inside had stopped panicking and were just watching, cowed.

  He cupped his hands together and brought them to himself. “Help. Help Sylvain.”

  Japanese. Broken, parroted phrases he’d been fed, but crisp and perfect. It sent chills through her.

  “Help? Yes?” he asked, pointing at himself. He made the door gesture. “Help. Door.”

  Hisako shook her head. “No. No help.”

  His expression wilted. “Sylvain. Door. Help.” He mimed the escape run Hisako had done earlier.

  “I don’t understand,” Hisako whispered. “He wants to escape, but he’s hostile toward us?”

  Dr. Moon chewed on her lip. “We wouldn’t follow him down the stairs.”

  “It’s a trap.”

  “I’m sure,” Kamui sighed. “That’s the kicker.”

  “We don’t have the full picture here,” Hisako said. “I—I don’t want to make a big decision without the full picture.”

  “Then we’ll investigate and find it,” Kamui promised. “Where shall we start?”

  “Down the mountain,” Hisako said.

  They walked backwards, wary, toward the cable car, then they boarded it. It didn’t start automatically as it had before.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Kamui said.

  Hisako’s knee-jerk reaction was to refuse, but she held her tongue—he knew what he was doing, and she trusted that.

  He started the car and waited until it was certainly continuing down the mountain before leaping off the platform. In a blink, he hit the side of the car, rocking it, but he had a handhold on the door.

  Hisako hurried to slam the window open, and he slipped in sideways, squeezing through the gap.

  They sat, quiet, for a moment before Hisako spoke.

  “This is his fantasy, you said. People’s greatest wishes are always reflections of themselves. If we find out what he wants, we find out what he doesn’t have,” Hisako said. “Whether it’s a real show or his own creation, there’s a reason it’s his world.”

  They nodded and busied themselves as the car descended.

  Koko summoned his weapon and fanned himself absently, staring at the lodge. Dr. Moon rested her eyes, head against the cool glass. Kamui bounced a knee and watched the town approach.

  Hisako couldn’t settle. She looked between the hotel and the town.

  From afar, it was all too easy to point out how alien the town looked. She squeezed her eyes shut and looked back at the hotel.

  Though he was becoming just another speck as they neared the middle of the ride, she could see Sylvain standing there, at the edge of the platform, watching them retreat.