Hotel Magnifique(66)

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Did you honestly think I was some selfless fool? I’ve been searching for ways to reverse Alastair’s ink for years. Then you came along.” His eyes ran down the length of me and I shivered. “I thought if I could keep you a secret, you could somehow help me understand how the ink worked.”

I nodded, dumbstruck by his omission.

Every conversation we had, everything he’d shown me, told me, every time he sought me out or gave away any information—it all raced through my mind. His mouth against my ear at the moon window, the guest rooms and halls, and in the map room when I’d trusted him enough to tell him my secrets—secrets I didn’t even tell my own sister. Then in the blue city, he’d listened to my memories with such aching wonder. I’d thought Bel was forthcoming because I’d meant something to him. And I had.

I was a suminaire, after all. His experiment.

The thought was sickening.

“So you knew I was a suminaire in Durc. How did you figure it out?”

He sighed. “Jani—”

“Answer my question.” My voice sizzled with rage.

“Not in the middle of the market,” he said, and led me farther away from the table where he’d been playing cards, into an alcove, where nobody was close enough to overhear our whispered conversation. “I suspected what you were in that boardinghouse kitchen, the moment you sensed my key. Only suminaires can feel magic.”

“Only suminaires?”

He rolled his eyes. “Then there was this.”

My breath halted when Bel lifted my chin up and slid his thumb down the neck of my dress, catching on Maman’s necklace, just like he had done in that doorless room. But this time, he fished it out, his eyes fixed on mine.

“An artéfact,” he whispered quietly.

“What?”

“The magic coming from it is very subtle. But in Durc, when I touched it on accident, I recognized what it was. Any other suminaire wouldn’t have noticed it, but I’m in the business of finding artéfacts. In the span of one minute, I suspected what you were and understood why your magic hadn’t been discovered. But I didn’t know for certain until the orange broke.”

I remembered that moment perfectly. Bel’s vague answers. Now this.

I skimmed my hand over the necklace and jerked. Something faint tingled my fingertips. Had I not just touched all those artéfacts in Alastair’s office, I wouldn’t recognize it now: a little vibration of magic, so subtle that I’d never noticed it before.

I could still picture my reflection in Maman’s vanity mirror the moment she’d pushed my hair to one side and clasped it around my neck all those years ago. The necklace had felt warm against my skin. Special, for some reason. A gift for my firstborn, Maman had called it.

That night, I couldn’t stop touching it. Zosa pouted about it, of course, so Maman let her wear one of her rings as a consolation. I couldn’t carry a tune to save my life, but that day, I’d felt like the special one.

I was special, I realized, and Maman had known.

My lips trembled. Sometimes I would catch her watching me, twisting her hands in her lap, those fine creases of worry deepening around her brown eyes. Sometimes she would stay up with me long after Zosa fell asleep, feverishly telling me stories about suminaires and how she thought magic was dangerous but it could also be a gift. A gift! My throat thickened. A true gift tends to make itself known, Maman had said. And she’d said it to me, not Zosa. I always thought she’d meant my sister’s voice, but the true gift was my magic.

That whole time Maman had been teaching me about myself.

But she never warned me or told me the truth, not even on her deathbed. The ache of it made Bel’s betrayal feel shallow in comparison. What I wouldn’t give to have an hour with her now, to ask her about my history, but she was gone.

“How long have you worn the necklace?” Bel asked softly.

“My mother—she clasped it around my neck when I was little. She told me to never take it off.” No matter what anyone tells you, ma petite pêche, she had said. Even if a sweet boy whispers promises in your ear, or a man offers you a stack of dublonnes, or your fingers itch to take it off, I want you to keep it on that pretty neck of yours. It’s an heirloom, after all. “She made me promise under penalty of death.” His eyebrows shot up. “Maman had a flair for the dramatic.”

“Well, there was probably suminaire blood in your lineage. Your mother could have suspected what you were. Perhaps you never got sick, or you healed from something quicker than a normal child.”

My lips parted.

“What is it?” Bel asked.

“When I was seven, I fell out of a tree and thought I broke my arm. I heard it snap. The pain was so intense, I passed out. Our village doctor took a look the next day. There was no break, just a little bruising. Maman was quiet throughout the examination. Later that night, she locked herself in her room.” I remembered pressing my ear to the door, listening as she wept, and wondering why.

“She must have discovered what you were.”

“But my mother wasn’t a suminaire. She used to joke about it.”

“Sometimes magic skips generations, even siblings. It’s probably the reason she didn’t keep the necklace for herself and instead gave it to her daughter, whom she obviously loved.”