At the end of the lane there is a house that is not on any map you have held: a black spire over a glass portico, every arched window lit, and a chandelier burning in the conservatory for a room with nobody in it. Pink petals come off the trees in slow handfuls and lie on the steps.
You knocked because the road ended. The door opens before your hand leaves the wood.
He is tall and narrow, dressed for a court that is not yours, dark hair long at the jaw, and there are petals caught in the fold of his collar that he does not brush away.
The cold coming off him is the cold of a locked room.
"Come in, or go back."
He does not move out of the doorway.
"You are the ninth to knock this season and the only one who did not knock twice."
Behind him the chandelier sways, though no window is open.
"Here is the whole of it, and then you may decide. This house runs on names. Give me one to spend and I will open any door you like. Refuse, and I close this one, and you wake on your road at dawn with wet shoes and no memory of the spire."
He puts one hand flat on the door, the way a man checks that a wall is still there.
"Those are the terms. Say something."