Hotel Magnifique(92)

Time for me to go.

I raced through countless hallways and ballrooms lining the lobby level. Candles burned purple flames and the carpet was dusted with feathers. My hands ached from carrying the cage, but a slow fire burned inside me, kindled by Bel, by my friends, my sister. It shone brighter than any candle flame, leaving no room for fear, only a simmering hatred stoked with every step.

I skidded to a halt in a familiar hallway and jiggled the knob on Alastair’s office door. Locked. Fishing in my pocket, I pulled out Béatrice’s gears.

Earlier, she’d dismantled two dressing room doors, locks and all. Then she instructed me as I took her gears and dismantled the other four doors. I didn’t have the same feel for the gears as she did, so they weren’t as speedy for me as they were for her, but the office doorknob was soon on the floor.

Once inside, I raced around the desk and stopped. My throat closed up. The third drawer down hung open. Empty. The infinite ledger wasn’t here.





The other five desk drawers also proved fruitless. So did the shelves, the curio, and the small armoire in the back with handles made of bronzed claws that clasped my fingers when I flung the doors open to more nothing. Alastair must have taken the ledger.

I dropped the cage at my feet. Issig cawed.

“Sorry,” I said. It was difficult to imagine such a small bird had all that power. Worthless power now.

I thought it would be enough. I’d watched Issig turn an itinerary written in Alastair’s purple ink to icy dust. I thought if I could bring him here, change Issig into a man next to the drawer, he could destroy everything.

But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered until I found the ledger. If I found the ledger.

Before I could consider what to do next, a little golden bird flew in and perched on the edge of a chair. My eyes welled at the sight of her. I felt her porcelain finger in my pocket, silently cursing myself for not burying it deep in the ground in Champilliers where no one could ever break it.

I touched Zosa’s feathers, desperately wanting to see her face. I gripped the talon and reached for her, but she hopped away.

“Let me change you back,” I pleaded.

She pecked at my hand, knocking the talon to the ground.

“Stop it,” I cried out when her beak drew blood. When I lifted the talon a second time, she did it again. “Don’t you want me to change you?”

She took hold of a lock of my hair and jerked my head sideways toward the door.

“That hurts.” I leaped up, but she was already shooting down the hall. When I didn’t follow straightaway, she flew back and tugged my sleeve.

“All right, all right.”

Lifting Issig’s cage, I hurried after Zosa. My head pounded. But soon the tight corridor gave way to a world of white paper. We’d come out inside the aviary.

The place was a disaster. Birds still flapped inside. Plants were down, crumpled and trodden. There were great cracks in the aviary glass high above like someone had tried to smash it with furniture. A large chunk had fallen away. Another could fall at any moment.

Frigga cowered near the wall shooing birds out the door with a paper frond. We both froze at a cracking noise.

I looked up. More cracks snaked downward. Glass groaned and popped, and sounds poured in from the lobby: guests screaming, chirping, workers shouting. Shattering.

The dragonfly glass was coming down.

“Get back!” I lifted Issig’s cage and ran with it to the center of the aviary. Frigga followed. We huddled together the same moment a large piece of glass fell, crunching against a paper tree near where we’d just stood.

“Is it really Issig?” Frigga stared at the cage, tears sliding down her face.

“It is. We have to get him out.” I looked around. “Where’s Hellas?”

She pointed to the lobby. “The ma?tre was out there with Yrsa. Hellas . . . He went to speak with him.”

“What happened?”

More tears tumbled down her cheeks.

“Tell me.”

“He never came back.”

“Do they know you’re here?”

She shook her head. “Hellas didn’t even know I was here until he walked in. But I couldn’t just leave the birds.”

Zosa swooped down and landed on my shoulder. When Frigga reached for her, my sister hopped toward my ear.

“That bird knows you,” Frigga said.

I ruffled Zosa’s golden feathers. “She does.”

I didn’t know what to do. If we stayed in the aviary and the glass came down, we’d die, but if we went out in the lobby, we’d wish we had. If Alastair were out there, he’d probably seize Issig as soon as he saw us. If I could get to the ledger before Alastair took Issig away, before he came near me with his inkwell, we could all have our lives back.

But I didn’t know how. The how seemed impossible.

Keep your sister safe, I could hear Maman say. Then I heard other voices—everyone’s voices—shouting and scolding and begging me to help.

Zosa regarded me solemnly. “What would you have me do?” I looked around, my eyes snagging on something. “What’s that?” I pointed.

Frigga turned and took in the shelf heaped with junk. “Aviary supplies.”

Beside it was the metal laundry cart Béatrice had stocked.

“I think I know how to get Issig out, but I need both of you to do as I say,” I said to Zosa and Frigga, then I took off toward the wall of supplies, my sister flying close behind.