Hotel Magnifique(48)

I couldn’t believe it. We were no better than ghosts floating through the world. No, that wasn’t true; people remembered ghosts. Outside of the hotel, our lives had no permanence, no meaning, no power.

“Here you are.” Margot walked up holding two plates of quiche. “Where did your friend go?”

“He left,” I said, and faced the painting before she could ask more questions. “Is that you?”

Her wrinkled mouth pulled into a wide grin. “It is. Painted back when I wasn’t as good-looking as I am now.” She winked. “I was all moxie then. Told my family off after they tried to strap me to a wealthy neighbor.”

“So you went to Champilliers?” I pointed to the text at the bottom.

“I did. To play piano.”

“But you’re painted in a uniform.”

She shrugged. “I booked jobs around town, but it didn’t pay the rent. Luckily, I knew a thing or two about baking. I took a daytime job as an assistant to a patissier in the café of a very famous ladies’ store.” She tapped the gilded storefront in the background of the painting. “I created the most outlandish towers of macarons that were only eaten by rich women in dressing rooms. It was tedious.”

I thought of Béatrice’s face when she showed me Salon de Beauté so many weeks ago, told me how it was modeled after the dressing rooms of the most famous ladies’ store in Champilliers. Then today, how she was saving to shop somewhere else. I gripped the edge of a chair. “What ladies’ store did you work for?”

“The famed Atelier Merveille, of course.” She chuckled to herself.

“Ah,” I said, and took a shaky breath.

If Béatrice was originally painted alongside Margot, she could have worked at the atelier, too, and felt some pull to it.

“I still don’t understand why I took that absurd job. Or why I stayed on for so many years.” Margot frowned. “Eventually I packed a bag and got as far away from the continent as I could.”

In the painting, Margot’s uniform grazed the ground. It was easy to imagine Béatrice dressed in an identical uniform. They would have looked so similar standing there together. But not in real life anymore.

Béatrice had a sister who was probably as dear to her at one time as Zosa was to me. A sister she didn’t know existed. It struck me then how easily I could have wound up in the same position as Margot.

The door opened. Bel raced toward me. “We have to go. Now.”

“Are the twins here?”

“Not them.” He grabbed my arm, dragging me out of the shop.

“Who is it?” I asked at the same moment three brutish men with sharp features and olive skin surrounded us. Bel was tall, but these men made up for it in sheer bulk, with biceps like ham hocks. One of them had a thick knife in a holster at his waist.

“Jani, get back,” Bel said.

He didn’t need to. The largest of the three brutes shoved me so hard, I was knocked off my feet. The air left my lungs as I slammed against a vendor cart. I scrambled under it while two of the men held Bel down a few feet away, shouting.

The brute with the knife ransacked Bel’s pockets. He pulled his hand out. A diamond and sapphire brooch glittered on his palm.

It was the artéfact Bel had hunted down. Although it was probably only a valuable bauble to them.

People yelled at the men to leave. Two of them took off running. The brute holding the brooch pocketed it, then bent over Bel a second time. He grabbed the chain that held the hotel’s key and jerked it up, attempting to break it off Bel’s neck.

Bel’s face contorted in rage. He flicked out his switchblade.

That was all it took.

The brute unsheathed his thick knife and buried it deep under Bel’s rib. It came out glistening. Blood dripped from the tip onto the blue stone.

One of the vendors behind me cried out. A scream built in my throat until two pairs of hands grabbed the brute and wrenched him off Bel.

Sido and Sazerat were here.

Before they could see me, I pushed myself farther under the vendor cart. My palms slipped on grease from meat drippings. One arm lost purchase. I skidded sideways, slicing my wrist, but I swallowed the pain. I didn’t dare make a sound.

The brute struggled as the twins held him by the shoulders, their thick fingers digging into flesh. My own shoulders bunched at the memory of their amplified strength.

The twins’ eyes flicked to Bel’s glistening wound. The knife had sunk deep. I didn’t know how long suminaires took to heal, but that wound was worse than any I’d ever seen.

He’ll heal, I told myself. He was a powerful suminaire. Practically immortal, or so he said. There was no reason for me to worry, but he looked pained and I couldn’t stop myself.

“That man took an artéfact from my pocket,” Bel said through gritted teeth.

“Can you get back on your own?” Sido asked.

Bel’s eyes shot to where I hid under the vendor cart. His lips were blue-tinged and his hands trembled; he was obviously badly hurt. But instead of saying so, he pushed himself to standing. He staggered, but he remained upright.

It was a show so he wouldn’t have to leave me here by myself.

“See. Perfectly fine,” he managed to say. If I was any closer, I would have clobbered him.

The twins nodded in unison.