Hotel Magnifique(7)

“How would you send me money from the other side of the world?”

“There has to be a way.”

“I’ve never heard of one.”

“If Maman were still alive, she’d let me take the job.” Zosa’s bottom lip quivered. “Jani, I thought you wanted me to sing.”

“I want you to sing,” I said, and felt a pang in my heart, but I didn’t know what else to do. “But not like this, without me. I’m sorry.”

Zosa ripped off the lilac hat and chucked it into the hall. I took a step to grab it and stopped. A pearl peeked out of Zosa’s sack.

Maman’s pearl earrings.

When we were little, Zosa would clip them on and belt out a song, pretending to be a stage performer, while I crowed along like a tuneless donkey. I hadn’t seen them since Zosa went on her first audition in Durc. Her only audition, until today.

The memory hit me. I’d thought the earrings would make her look older so I clipped them to her earlobes and put her in my old pink dress. She’d looked like a nervous little flower, but we’d needed money and Zosa wanted to audition more than anything.

Now I wished I could erase that day from both our minds.

I rolled a pearl between my fingers. Opalescent paint chipped away, exposing a cheap wooden bead beneath. After the audition didn’t go as planned, I tried selling the earrings to a jeweler only to be laughed away. I never told Zosa how worthless they were.

“Listen to me. As soon as I save enough, I’m booking passage to Aligney.” I took Zosa’s hand. She tried ripping it away, but I held firm. “What if you’re not back by the time I leave? Or something happens and I’m forced to go somewhere else? What if the hotel doesn’t return for another decade?” I pictured returning from work to an empty room, and my throat thickened. “I don’t want to be left alone,” I admitted with a wince.

A tear slid down her cheek. After a few silent seconds, her small hand squeezed mine. She sat down. “My hair’s a snarling mess from that hat. Would you help me brush it out?”

I let out a long exhale.

That evening, Zosa fell asleep early, while I lay awake, unable to close my eyes. When the Durc clock chimed eleven, my stomach rumbled; it had been hours since I’d eaten. I crept down the stairwell and stopped to pick up the lilac hat, now trampled with mud—the only casualty of the day, thank god.

Tiptoeing into Bézier’s kitchen, I set the hat down and pillaged through leftover pantry scraps. Neck-deep in the bread shelf, I reached for a stale crust when the kitchen door creaked. I froze. It was late for girls to still be up. My fingers curled around a can of wooden spoons. Holding it like a weapon, I turned.

A man stood in the doorway.

“There you are. You’re quite late, you know.”

He inspected the banged-up lilac hat, then me. It was the young doorman from earlier. His cap was gone, no longer covering his shoulder-length black hair. When he tucked a dangling strand behind his ear, my breath caught. One of his fingers wasn’t a finger at all but a finely carved and polished piece of wood.

It flexed.

Dangerous. The word flitted across my mind. I raised the can of spoons. He arched a brow. My arm drew back an inch. “What do you want?”

“Unless you were hiding this hat under your skirt earlier, I don’t believe I’m here for you.” He fingered a lilac ruffle. “I’m searching for the owner of this . . . thing. A young lady who signed a contract.”

He meant Zosa. “She’s not here.”

Unconvinced, he stepped into the room. Too close. I launched the can at his head. It missed, hitting the wall, raining wooden spoons upon his shoulders.

“Excellent throw.” He pulled a spoon from his collar. “As much as I appreciate a good game, there’s no time. I’ve come to bring the hat’s owner back to the hotel.”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Bel. Now where is she?”

I didn’t trust him as far as I could spit. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”

“So she is here after all.”

I bit out a curse.

He turned to leave. I had to stop him. I reached under the butcher block and pulled out a thick, tarnished kitchen knife. Racing over, I flung myself between him and the door. Bracing one hand against the frame, I aimed the knife at his middle, and a thrill rushed through me. “Still think I’m another silly girl?”

“Of course.”

“Oh . . . well . . . If you go any further, you’ll regret it.”

“I’m sure I will.” He flicked his wooden finger. At the tiniest snick, a blade shot out. A switchblade.

He lunged at me. The kitchen knife clattered to the floor as he pinned me against the door, his face inches from mine. I felt his exhale against my bare skin. If someone walked in and saw us like this, they would get the wrong idea.

I flushed at the thought and struggled against him, but he held firm. With his switchblade at my throat, Bel bent and sniffed the air next to my neck. His nose wrinkled. “Isn’t there soap in Durc?”

I reared back and spat on his face. He wiped his chin on his shoulder. The city clock chimed the half hour. Eleven thirty.

“Don’t you have somewhere better to be?”

He swore, his blade clicking closed. “I’m not going to hurt you.”