Hotel Magnifique(69)

“I can’t.”

“Liar.”

“You chose the cosmolabe from Alastair’s collection. Using it should come as easily as breathing. You figure it out. I need another drink.” He walked back to his game.

“Men can be salty when they don’t get exactly what they wish for.” I jumped. The market guard stood three feet from me, leaning against a stone pillar. “Do you want me to kill him for you?” She smiled, coy, then clicked her little scythes.

I shrugged. “Go right ahead.”





My escort was still queasy from the climb. He groaned and slumped against the hallway wall, while I ran into the map room and slammed the door. Flinging parchment on the table, I ripped open the charcoal with my teeth.

Maybe I didn’t need Bel to find the ring for me. If I drew a map to it and somehow convinced him to take us there, I could search for the ring myself before Alastair could get his hands on it.

Holding the cosmolabe in one palm, I ran my fingers over the catalogue of artéfacts. I traced my pointer finger along the entry for the signet ring. Nothing happened. I glanced at the painting of the woman. “This might go quicker if you told me how to use this thing.”

I concentrated. The magic from the cosmolabe tickled up my wrist. I closed my eyes to see if a map would come to me, but nothing did. After each try, the magic hummed higher up my arm. Yet no map.

The society handbook was still jammed in a corner of the dusty shelf. I snatched it up and flipped through every section mentioning artéfacts, but there was nothing that told me how I might use one. Frustrated, I hurled the book across the room.

When Zosa was little, Maman would give her lessons in the most basic songs, moving up in difficulty until my sister could sing alongside her in different keys. The catalogue entry for the ring was only a small scribble. It might be too difficult for a beginner. I could try starting with something simpler.

Scanning the shelf again, I snatched a tiny vial of pink sand and poured some onto my palm. I lifted the cosmolabe. This time, when the magic drifted up my arm, I felt something.

Sunshine heated my tongue and a soft tickle of surf skittered up my legs. It was like the umbrellas from my first day here but different. More, somehow. I was in the room, but my mind was in Elsewhere. I poured the sand back and the feel of it was still there, in my nostrils, between my toes.

Next to the sand was an old piece of bark. At my touch, my senses filled with a winter night. Closing my eyes, I could picture a village blanketed by thick snow. Pale, hollow-cheeked children slurped watery broth. My stomach growled from hunger and I couldn’t tell if it was my own hunger or conjured from the bark.

I lifted dusty object after dusty object. Places blurred together in a grotesque symphony of smells, textures, and tastes. My tongue felt thick and my stomach roiled. I raced to the toilet and vomited, then collapsed on the tile floor, a sweating mess.

It was late. My eyes were lead weights and my body threatened to ball up and sleep right there, but I refused to let it. When I could stand, I rinsed my mouth and hobbled back to the table. I pinched more pink sand between my fingers then let that hand rest against the cosmolabe. With my other hand, I lifted a piece of charcoal to the paper. I shut my eyes. This time, when a place formed against the insides of my eyelids, I drew a map.



* * *





Over the next two days, I tried to picture a map to the ring. But no matter how many times I ran my finger over the ring’s catalogue entry, nothing happened. So I drew other maps.

Some came easy and others only came after many minutes squeezing an object to my chest, mashing it to my throat, or pressing it tight against my jaw; the closer I got, the simpler it was. The maps took every ounce of my mind to get right. Better that way. I was too busy perfecting the rivers, the streets, the sweeping curves of land to think of much else.

I barely slept. Meals were delivered by kitchen maids I didn’t recognize. I only picked at the food; I didn’t wish to waste precious time rinsing charcoal from my fingers to properly feed myself. I didn’t bother my rotating guard of workers, and thankfully, as long as I remained inside the room, they didn’t bother me.

Alastair visited the morning of the second day, a slick smile back on his face. He was pleased I had drawn so many maps, then irritated to discover not one led to the ring. He stacked the pages neatly and took them as he left.

The next morning, I bolted awake. I must have fallen asleep hunched over charcoal and paper. My neck creaked and my eyes burned. I half expected the catalogue page to be a dream cooked up by my unconscious. But the crumpled paper lay before me, those four words still tormenting me. Bestows and erases magic.

Someone knocked at the door.

“Go away,” I snarled. One midnight was all I had. No time for distractions. No time to even breathe.

Whoever it was didn’t hear me because the door opened and a delivery cart pushed by a fair-skinned kitchen maid I didn’t recognize rattled into the room.

“Where would you like your meal?”

I flung my hand toward a small table by the window.

Trays clanked. I pinched the bridge of my nose and silently cursed myself for not locking the door.

“Pretty village out there,” the maid said. I watched her peek out the window. “I heard some cooks going on about the destination. Suppose to be a quaint little spot in the south of Verdanne.”