Hotel Magnifique(91)

Bel’s words came to me: You’re stronger than I thought.

He was right; I was strong. My strength was the kind of power that Des Rêves lacked, a power that had nothing to do with magic.

“Everything terrible you do is to hold on to the magic you’ve stolen, to make yourself feel spectacular. But underneath it all, you’re a horrible, weak person. Probably weaker now than when you used that copper spoon.”

Her face mottled. “Why would you ever think something like that? I’m not weak. I’m—”

As she spoke, Issig placed his hands around Madame des Rêves’s neck.

She spluttered and reached up, trying her best to remove Issig’s hands from her flesh by digging her nails into his skin. It didn’t work. Her fingers turned a grayish blue then began to shatter, along with her lips, the tip of her nose. The air smelled sour. Des Rêves’s mouth opened wide in an attempt at a scream, but only a cloud of ice dust puffed out. I choked, my hands going to my own throat while the veins in her neck bulged. Splintering.

Issig wasn’t a corpse, but Madame des Rêves was. Frozen through, her face cracked in two when she hit the floor. That terrible mirror shattered along with the rest of her. I dared a quick glance down at Des Rêves’s corpse, the pieces of her scattered about like a smashed dinner plate.

I braced myself against the wall, trying not to lose the contents of my stomach, but the cold crept through my clothes, under my skin, and I began to shake. My gorge rose and I had to look away before I gagged.

This woman had probably been alive for a hundred years or more, all because of the travesties she’d committed. Now she was gone, and I’d had a hand in it. I felt light-headed. My legs began quaking from shock. They threatened to give out, but there was nowhere to sit, no time to waste.

I had to do something, but I didn’t know what. Des Rêves was a crucial part of the plan. Forcing her to turn Issig into a bird small enough to fit in the cage was the next step. Having her turn him back once I brought him to Alastair’s office had been the other. Turning my sister back. The rest of the birds—

As much as I’d hated Des Rêves, I needed her. Everything hinged on her ability to use the talon.

Béatrice would be with Hellas now, doing their part, and expecting me to do mine. If I couldn’t manage it, I doubted I’d see anyone again, or walk out of this place alive. I shook my head as my plans unraveled around me.

Issig looked from Des Rêves’s cracked corpse to me. The room grew colder as he strained against his chains.

Think, I told myself. There had to be something else for me to try. I forced myself to look down at the corpse a second time. The silver talon lay on the floor two feet from Des Rêves’s cracked cheek.

I swayed on my feet at a sudden swell of nausea. Breathing through my nose, I slid one leg out, my foot maneuvering around the pieces of Des Rêves. Slowly, I caught the talon’s chain with my toe and dragged it toward me. I snatched it and squeezed.

“Work, damn it,” I ground out. Then I felt something. Nothing like when I’d coaxed the purple awning from the painting of Céleste, but it was there. I let the magic drift up my wrist. Holding my breath, I touched the edge of the talon to the tip of one of Issig’s straining fingers.

A look of surprise came over his face. He folded into his clothes, shrinking. A second later, a small arctic tern stood still amid a pile of chains that no longer kept him prisoner.

I couldn’t believe it. It worked.

But there was no time to stand around pleased with myself. I shoved the talon in my pocket. Now, to get him out. Carefully, I lifted Issig and shut him inside the cage. When I carried him into the kitchen, an eerie silence greeted me.

The kitchen was empty.

I skirted around a shelf stacked with oysters abandoned in bowls of water. Tiny dishes of black caviar were smashed across the tile, muddled with cracked ivory wafers and bent silver spoons. Not a single worker in sight, until I walked through the kitchen doors to a lobby plunged into chaos.

“They did it,” I whispered to myself, then jumped back when three parakeets flew toward me. A stream of steel insects followed the birds, slicing the air like knives, then disappearing behind the aviary glass where more birds were shooting out in a steady stream, raging upward.

Hellas had opened the aviary.

A flock cornered a group of women, pecking at their earrings. At least twelve white peacocks surrounded another bemused guest who could barely hold them off with a charmeuse pouf. Birds were everywhere, dipping between doormen, pecking at brass buttons, and they were followed by a whirring mass of butterflies, all crafted from steel and a single gear.

I stared in awe at the suites along the second-floor balcony. As soon as each door opened, birds tore into the room. Disoriented guests ran out, panting, lifting their skirts, pulling on their shirts. One man even took off nude, desperately trying to don a frock coat while the filigreed buttons flapped along with his other naked bits.

Then I spotted Zosa, luminous as a sharpened gemstone. She favored one wing, but it didn’t slow her. Her bright gold body darted across the center of the lobby, squawking at a group of dull wrens, kingfishers, and cardinals. The birds listened. Zosa led them—commanded them like soldiers in her steadfast army—soaring across hallways and dipping into suite after suite.

Shrieks and screams filled the air, but the loveliest sight of all was the black-lacquered door held open by the steady stream of exiting guests.