Jack Tripp had walked past the same locked house in his mind for nine years. He built it himself, brick by crooked brick, then forgot he laid a single one. Tonight he stood at its door again. He wanted inside. He wanted to master his own mind and match it to his heart, but a builder who fears his own rooms owns nothing. The house looked ready to fall. Cracks split the gray and brown bricks. Loose stones sat piled at the base. Yet Jack knew the walls held. He had circled them a thousand times, always turning away before the handle. Each turn told him a lie. It said the room was empty. It said there was nothing to find. He pressed his palm to the door. It did not open. No lock waited on the outside. The lock lived in him. "You keep the key in your fist," a voice said. Jack turned. A short man stood on the cracked path. He wore a wizard's hat too tall for his head, and his skin held a yellow warmth like lamplight. A blue eagle perched on his shoulder, still as carved stone. Jack had never met him, yet the man felt like an old neighbor. This was Mogu Blumage, a guide who walked minds the way most men walked roads. "I don't have a key," Jack said. Mogu pointed at Jack's closed hand. Jack looked down. His fingers were curled tight. He did not remember making a fist. Slowly he opened it. A single gold coin sat in his palm, worn smooth, older than he was. "You made the door," Mogu said. "You made the lock. You kept paying yourself to stay out." Jack understood. Every year he circled the house, he had spent something to keep it shut. The coin was the price he paid himself to look away. He walked to the door. This time he did not reach for a handle. He set the coin against the wood and let it go. The coin dropped and rolled. It came to rest beside a weathered golden anchor half-buried in the path, crusted with old barnacles and sand. The anchor was his. He had dropped it here years ago to keep himself from drifting anywhere near this door. Jack gripped the anchor and pulled. It came free of the ground. The door swung open. Inside was not empty. He saw a small room he knew at once, worn and lived-in, the walls hung with things he had hidden from himself. It was the shape of an old grief he had refused to name. He stepped over the threshold. The floor held his weight. Behind him, Mogu spoke once more. "You are in now. The trouble is, you cannot leave the way you came." Jack turned. The door was gone. Only wall stood where it had been. He was inside at last, and now he had to find another way out.