Hotel Magnifique(54)

“Shut up,” I said, panicked. Guests backed away.

The delivery cart was where I left it. Shoving the jar of fruit and seeds in my pocket, I flew up the stairs to the A Verdant Enchantment Suite. The door cracked opened on the sixth knock and the woman peeked out. Frigga.

“Delivery.” I held out the jar. She tried to snatch it, but I pulled it back. Her door notched open. Birds flitted behind her. “I need your help,” I said.

Her forehead scrunched. She didn’t know me, nor trust me, but if she had a way inside the aviary, I needed to know.

I rustled the jar. “Can we talk in your room?”

Frigga shook her head and a bee shot out from her pile of hair. She swatted at it. The hall candles flared bright blue and she shrunk back, nervous. Eyeing the jar, she pushed the door open. “You can’t stay long.”

Inside, open birdcages lined a far wall. White paper trees grew up from thick carpet. Birds flitted from the paper branches to a cast-iron slipper tub filled to the brim and covered with lily pads. The A Verdant Enchantment Suite wasn’t so much a guest room as a forest made from Hellas’s precious cards.

I handed over the jar. She poured its contents on the carpet. Birds flocked, jostling for a nibble, but Frigga’s brown eyes never left me. “Why are you here?”

“I heard you’re responsible for Des Rêves’s songbirds. What does that entail?”

Frigga lifted her arm. A manacle encircled her wrist. She stepped to the wall of cages and touched the manacle to one. Metal bars melted together until there was no door. Her manacle was an artéfact.

“You work metal.”

“I’m also good with birds.” She whistled and a white bird flitted to her shoulder. “So the ma?tre put me in charge of transporting them.”

“Have you seen a bird with molten gold feathers?”

“I help with lots of birds.”

I groaned. “A porter said a bird flew out last night. Do you know which one?”

“I . . . I heard the black bird from the library took off and didn’t come back.” Her mouth pulled into a terrible frown. It was hard to imagine anyone could like that awful bird.

“What about the golden bird? Des Rêves’s chanteuse?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t get down in time to see. I haven’t checked—”

“Not sure?” My pulse picked up. “Is the golden bird kept in the aviary? Do you have a key?”

She backed off, skittish. “Hellas also has a key. You could go ask him.”

Also.

She had to get me inside that aviary, but if she were going to help me, I had to put her at ease. I searched around. A letter sat on a dressing table, a name scrawled on top. “Who’s Issig?”

“No one,” she said, her attention focused on my soup stains. “You work in the kitchens. What’s it like?” She lifted the letter. Her slim fingers danced over the paper. “Hellas forbids me from stepping a toe inside.”

“It’s hot. Look, I’ll give you a tour if you’ll show me the aviary.”

“Hot?” Frigga stuffed the letter in an envelope. She stacked it on a pile of more envelopes, each one addressed to the same man.

“Issig is no one, huh?”

“He works in the kitchens.”

I’d never met a cook by that name, but the kitchens were vast, and she was forbidden to enter. That gave me a bargaining chip. “If I delivered those,” I said, “would you take me inside the aviary?”

Her eyes grew. They reminded me of Zosa’s. “You would do that?”

“Of course.” Right now, I’d do almost anything.

Fighting a smile, she bundled the stack with twine and handed it over. “Deliver these, then meet me in the lobby near the aviary at eleven. Bring a piece of ice as proof.”

My head snapped up. “From the deep freeze?” She motioned to the letters, the name Issig. It took one breath to realize what she was asking. “You have got to be joking.”

“That’s where he’s kept.”

The deep freeze. I’d been warned away from it, and from what I could tell, it had been for good reason. Béatrice had never been inside, nor Bel. But both Chef and Yrsa went in, and they were fine. And eleven was an hour away. “I’ll do it,” I said, shoving the letters in my pocket.

“All right, then. Tell me what he says.” She whistled; her birds flew away from the door long enough for me to sneak through it. She then slammed it shut.

It didn’t matter. Soon I would see my sister.

I exhaled and turned to face Hellas.

“Fancy seeing you again.”

He pressed a playing card between my eyebrows. Thick paper vines grew over my nose and mouth. I clawed, trying to scrape them away, but it was like attempting to remove my own skin.

“I just visited Chef. She didn’t know anything about an accident, or a stolen jar of Sacred Salve.”

The paper vines kept growing, fusing my head to the door. I couldn’t breathe. Hellas swiped away the bark at my mouth. I sucked in air, struggling, but I was still stuck.

“I don’t have time for liars. Who was the gold paste for?”

“It was for me.”

Bel leaned against the wall, liquid as a Morvayan leopard. A piece of hair escaped his ear. When he brushed it away, his switchblade flicked out with the softest snick. “Time you and I had a talk, Hellas. We’re long overdue.” His voice was silk.