Hotel Magnifique(17)

“What rules?” someone asked.

“You’ll learn them from your supervisors in the coming days. They’re merely precautions I take to keep magic safe. If you follow them, you will earn the privilege for trips outside where you’ll experience for free what our guests pay dearly to see. However, if you can’t wait, I’ll void your contract and you can depart whenever you wish.”

My heart thumped. That meant we could return to Aligney when the hotel got close. But we could work for a bit first, see some of the places from those itineraries. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

“Now prepare yourselves for the most wondrous job you’ll ever have.” The ma?tre’s reflection swept a hand through the air. Glittery flecks shot from the mirror, landing across our noses. When they fizzled away, his reflection had disappeared.

Workers began gathering into groups by uniform. We couldn’t find another performer, so Zosa stayed with me. Soon I spotted Béatrice standing in the center of a dozen new maids, young women with skin colors and body shapes as varied as the guests.

Béatrice pulled out a book titled Monsieur Valette’s Rules for Hotel Housekeeping, 4th Edition. “?Mornings are reserved for tidying guest suites,” she read aloud.

That meant changing linens and scrubbing floors until they gleamed. Then I would spiff the candlesticks, dust the furniture, comb the carpets, and beat the rugs.

“After a quick lunch, you’ll pick up where you left off. Of course, there are always odd tasks here and there. Cleaning ballrooms, sprucing lavatories . . .” Béatrice smiled sweetly. “Scrubbing toilets.”

Zosa snickered and I poked her in the rib.

Béatrice described pre-and postdinner duties. She then gave a quick rundown of the guests, a dizzying plethora of nationalities. I learned the only similarity between them was their pocketbooks; the prized invitations were good for two weeks at a time, and those two weeks cost them dearly.

“Why does the ma?tre need to charge the guests so much?” a taller, bronze-skinned girl asked.

“You’ll learn that the guests’ money has its uses.”

I understood needing money to buy things, but the ma?tre was the most powerful suminaire in all the world. “Why does he need maids, for that matter?” I added. “Can’t he command the hotel to clean itself?”

“Not quite. There are enchantments that clean some spills along with other minor tasks. There used to be enchantments that made beds until a guest overslept and the bed made itself, trapping that poor wealthy guest under pressed sheets.” She seemed to be holding in a laugh. “The guests are always changing, the rooms always adjusted for what we need. Enchantments aren’t effective in an endless state of change. The ma?tre would have to implement new ones constantly.”

“Then why doesn’t he?”

She shrugged. “He’s told me enchantments take time. A team of maids is more equipped to handle everything seamlessly without involving him. He prefers it that way.”

As Béatrice spoke, sun rays began dancing across our faces. The painted clouds shifted to pinks and purples, as if the sun was setting inside this very room.

Béatrice looked toward the ceiling. “Here you will see magic unlike anything you’ve experienced. It’s all to impress the guests, but that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate it as well.”

She stroked the steel butterfly on her shoulder. Its metal wings flapped on their own. She must be a suminaire.

Doors opened. The groups of new workers started filing out.

The maids began to move until Béatrice shouted, “One more thing! Every seventh evening we have a little soirée to bring on midnight. Tonight is the first of the summer and I can’t risk new maids wandering through the lobby. You will take dinner in your rooms. Your work begins tomorrow at dawn in the second-floor laundry room.” She then excused us so she could speak with a stout, pale woman in a chef’s uniform.

Before I could take a step, the stunning, blue-wigged woman appeared at my sister’s side. The same crème de rose paste Maman would use sparingly caked this woman’s cheeks.

“You must be Zosa. Aren’t you pretty? Follow me, sweet.” The woman wrapped her fingers around my sister’s wrist.

It was so sudden that, on instinct, I held Zosa back.

The woman smacked my hand away with a tasseled fan. “No fretting. This exquisite little morsel will be working for me nightly. She’s my newest chanteuse.” She looked me over while fingering something nestled in her cleavage, a silver bird’s talon on a chain. “And who are you?”

“Her sister.”

“Ah.” Her lashes fluttered. She nodded at someone behind me. Béatrice appeared at my side. “If your new maid wishes to keep the position she has, she won’t get in my way,” she said to Béatrice.

Zosa’s shoulders bunched. She turned to me, unsure, until her new boss took her arm and pulled her out of the room.

I stood there after the door shut, frozen. It felt exactly like the time Zosa had slipped under the eastern gate in Aligney’s stone wall and disappeared. I’d run around, frantic, until an hour later when she turned up clutching fistfuls of wildflowers.

That same feeling screamed to run after her now. Calm down. Zosa is perfectly safe inside, I reminded myself. You’ll see her later. Besides, the hotel wasn’t open country.