Hotel Magnifique(75)

There was anger there, to be sure, but alongside it was something that flared inside me.

Reaching up, I touched his cheek, and his eyes squeezed shut. He looked so resigned. He’d been trapped here for years. Decades. He must have denied himself what he wanted countless times.

But so had I.

A surge of something bubbled up—the need to prove to him how much he could have, deserved to have.

“You should leave,” he repeated.

“You’re probably right,” I said, and pressed my lips to his.

A noise caught in Bel’s throat, a little gasp of surprise that soon melted into something else that made my toes curl.

I broke away to gaze up at him, amazed. “I was right. You do want this.”

“Would you just shut up?” he said, breathless.

“I had thought—” I started, until his mouth found mine again. His tongue parted my lips, and all words—all reason—floated out of reach. Without thinking, my fingers skimmed across his back, nails dragging along his ribs.

“Careful,” he whispered.

So I did it again.

He growled my name, and hooked his thumbs under me. Lifting me. Pressing me flush against a wall. No, not a wall. A book fell to the ground with an angry thump. I tore my mouth from his and glanced down. Verdanniere stood out in crisp black ink, but it might as well have been a different language entirely because I couldn’t make sense of it. I was too distracted by Bel’s hand as it slid under my skirt to smooth around my thigh, and his lips as they pressed kisses to the neckline of my dress, my collarbone. And stopped.

My back arched when he brushed a hand across my throat where Maman’s necklace had popped out from my dress collar. He buried his face in my neck and exhaled. Slowly, I slid down the bookcase, while his fingers grazed up my sides, causing my stomach to do that silly thing stomachs do.

I gasped when he fixed the sleeve of my dress. His eyes roamed over my face. Then lower. “It’s late. If I don’t go downstairs now, I’ll never make it,” he said seriously.

Warmth spread throughout every inch of me, and my tongue—my tongue tangled in my teeth, refusing to work. I nodded and he left to go change. Then I stood there, clumsy, my thoughts muddled and molten, attempting to make sense of everything, then only one thing: Bel was moving the hotel soon.

The map.

I ran over and ripped it from the pocket of the pants he’d tossed in the hall. When he returned, I pushed it into his hands and curled his fingers over, holding his palms tight to the paper, like I’d seen him do to the pages of the atlas. His lashes fluttered closed. I felt it, too: that tug of wrought iron and kiss of cool canals.

“Take us there.”

He shoved the map away, like it was a burning flame and not a simple scrap of paper.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Bel—”

He stopped my lips with his thumb, and then trailed it along the ridge of my jawline. “You know I love our arguments dearly, but I don’t have time to argue on this. Hide the map. Wait for me until I’m back. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.” He touched the key at his neck. “We’ll figure it out later. I promise.”

He wasn’t taking us.

After he was gone, I threw the map across the room then paced the floor for many minutes. He didn’t return. I tried sitting for a little while, but I was too antsy.

There was no clock in Bel’s room, and it had been very close to midnight when I came up here. He should be back by now. Unable to stay put, I rushed out of the room and down the hall.

A hand grabbed my shoulder, jerking me around.

“Found her,” Sido called out.

He wrenched my arms behind my back, his stinking breath on my face. I thrashed, clawing at him, but it didn’t do a thing. “Let me go,” I said, but he ignored me.

Alastair walked over with Yrsa.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Where’s Bel?”

He didn’t answer me. He drew a finger around my right eye and nodded at the alchemist. “Take her downstairs.”

My heart thumped. “What? Why?”

“With pleasure.” Yrsa grabbed me by my elbow. Sido did the same on the other arm, pulling me. They shoved me into the lift.

“You can’t do this!” I shouted.

Alastair ignored me. He walked to the moon window. For a moment he stood there, staring out. Then he let out a frustrated cry and smashed his fist against the thick glass.





The image of Alastair stayed with me as they brought me to that terrible room behind the bar. Sido held me while Yrsa lifted her teacup with the reverence a mother might bestow a newborn babe. She then placed it on the long table—that same table Red had lain sprawled across. Bile rose in my throat. Next to the table, a single oil lamp burned beside a macabre display of curiosities I hadn’t noticed the first time.

Bottles, tinctures, canisters, and glass jars filled with tiny bones dotted the shelves. Then other things: blades and feathers, vials of human hair. Teeth. A small bird skull sat on a book slick with drippings of candle wax. A glowing mercury glass vial labeled maiden’s tears sat next to other jars labeled with various emotions like sorrow and regret. Down at the end sat a huge shelf filled with eyes.

My knees buckled. Half the shelf was stuffed with glass eyes in various colors and sizes. The other half was filled with porcelain versions, unglazed white orbs that looked out at nothing. Each one unique. Each one a person. A finishing hammer coated with porcelain dust sat next to an eye cracked in two, no doubt belonging to a corpse.