Hotel Magnifique(21)
I wrenched my arm away with a scowl and nodded.
“Good.” He gestured to a narrow stairwell. “The eastern stairs. They’ll take you back down.”
As he walked off, I lowered myself on the settee then cursed when the cushion began to purr.
Bel’s laughter echoed down the hall.
As I descended the stairs, I couldn’t get the pained look on Bel’s face at the moon window out of my mind. Durc was the last place I wanted to see, but the idea that Zosa couldn’t see it bothered me.
Our contracts were printed on thick parchment with paragraphs I didn’t read. We’d signed them without a second thought. Clearly, there was more to them than I’d realized, and given what I’d learned so far, there were probably more clauses I wouldn’t like. I should have asked Bel more, grilled him.
All thoughts of my contract evaporated when the eastern stairs didn’t bring me to my room, but instead deposited me in the middle of the grand lobby. The soirée.
A wave of panic hit. Bel must not have realized Béatrice forbade me from setting foot here. The only way down I knew of was the service stairwell by the salon—clear across the lobby.
Quickly, I ducked past men surrounding card tables and women gambling jewels the size of eggs.
“So sorry,” I said as I knocked into a woman with lustrous brown skin wearing a gown of silver fish scales. Beside her, a young light-skinned man with a shooting star headpiece yawned, oblivious of the fuchsia rouge smeared down his chin.
I jumped back as a stream of women ran past with feathered angel wings strapped to their shoulder blades. They were followed by a colossal sailboat made from champagne flutes steered by chic sailors on stilts. The entire thing rocked. Champagne sloshed and the revelers pressed in around me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t tell where I was or see the stairwell. My palms turned clammy.
“Here.” A guest with fair skin and brunette hair handed me an empty champagne flute then blinked, revealing glossy lips painted on each of her eyelids. Another woman with warm brown skin kissed her naked shoulder.
I gasped with relief when the guests parted, until I realized it was only to make room for a bright red piano played by a woman with deep amber skin wearing a silver tux. She stood, playing the air while the keys continued to compress in time with her fingers. I wiped sweat from my temples and shoved past more suminaires.
A bronze-skinned man juggled fire on a saucer. A pale, freckled girl with the reddest hair I’d ever seen poured endless liquid from a thimble into guests’ cups. A tawny-skinned, tattooed woman ran an emerald feather under her nose, inhaling color through her nostrils until the feather was leeched to a bone white. Then she blew. A stream of green rolled off her tongue like smoke from a cigarillo. Guests clapped when the smoke hit a pair of men, changing every item on them deep green, including their eyebrows. When I looked back, the feather gleamed citrine. Zosa’s jaw would be on the floor.
At the thought of her, I glanced around. I couldn’t see any singers, but I spotted the service stairwell, thank god.
I pushed toward it and nearly jumped out of my skin when a champagne flute smashed near my toe. The floor buckled, swallowing the glass with a mouth of white marble. A guest noticed it and giggled, while another guest lurched away.
In fact, the guests’ reactions to the magic were as varied as their speech. It made sense; each nation would have different views on magic based on their own thorny histories with suminaires. The one thing it seemed we all had in common was fascination.
“Maids aren’t usually allowed at the soirées,” someone said. I turned. A short olive-skinned server glared at me.
“I—I was on my way downstairs.” I pointed toward the service stairwell.
A pair of hulking men stood on either side of it. Identical twins. They mirrored each other’s movements as if they shared one mind. Bald heads pivoted in synch to scan the crowd. In place of one eye, they each had a line of flesh sewn shut with black thread that stood out against their pasty white skin.
They blinked in unison. I jerked.
“Who are they?” I asked the server.
“Sido and Sazerat. They’re suminaires who report to the ma?tre. I’d find another stairwell if I were you,” he said, and dashed off before I could ask where that stairwell might be. Damn it.
A guest’s jacket lay forgotten on a chair. That would do nicely. I tossed it over my shoulders to mask my uniform. The crowd began shifting. Quickly, I ducked into an alcove to wait out the soirée. Once all the guests headed to their rooms, I should be able to sneak downstairs unnoticed.
As I pressed myself out of sight, I spotted a small wall plaque hidden in a shadow. Most of the letters were rubbed off, but three words were still visible: artéfact guide you.
The words were Verdanniere, except I’d never heard the word artéfact before. It could be a very old directional sign.
The lobby fell silent. I looked up to see Alastair stepping out—rather dramatically—from behind a star-spattered curtain near the door.
“Greetings, travelers,” he shouted. “Welcome to Hotel Magnifique, where the whole world awaits!”
Everyone cheered.
“As you cross continents and seas, we will do our best to pique your curiosities, to fill your mind with wonder, and to deliver infinite happiness that will live on in your heart long after your stay is forgotten. Now, let the show commence. We depart for Elsewhere at the stroke of midnight!”