“I’m so sorry.”
He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “It was long ago. I doubt any of my family is left, and even if they are, I’m not sure I would want to see them.” I gasped when his fingers grazed the inside of my elbow. “I want to stay on. To help.”
“As the ma?tre?”
His mouth slanted up. “You don’t strike me as someone who would ever take orders from me, and I doubt I’d be able to work under you.”
“Probably true. I imagine if I ever gave you an order I’d likely end up with a knife in my rib.”
“Naturally.” I yelped when his switchblade hilt tapped my waist.
Neither of us could oversee the other. If anything, we were equals. He seemed to be thinking the same thing because he said, “I want to work with you.” His fingers threaded mine. “Alongside you.” He pulled me close—so close I could feel each brass button of his uniform press against my chest. The beat of his heart was fast, just like my own. “You could even be the ma?tre if you want the title. After what you did for everyone, people are expecting you to take it.” He leaned down, his mouth brushing against my ear. “Just don’t let it go to your head.”
Bel froze at the sound of the lift’s cage opening. But whoever it was didn’t stay long. They took a quick look out the moon window, not wishing to disturb the couple beneath it.
After they left, I grazed a finger along the ornate carvings of his switchblade hilt. I wanted to ask so many questions, and there would be time for those later, but there was one particular answer I couldn’t wait for. “What’s your name?”
“Bel,” he said without pause.
“Don’t you dare tell me you can’t remember.”
“I do. It’s tied to a place that’s no longer my home. Maybe I wanted to know it a little too desperately, once. I thought it was who I was, but it’s just a name. Bel has been my name for most of my life. It’s who I am now.” His thumb stroked along my bottom lip. “I like when you say it.”
I arched a brow. “I thought you like it better when I keep my mouth shut?”
“Only when I’m kissing you,” he said. “If I have my way, you’ll remain silent for the foreseeable future.”
I buried my face against his neck and smiled.
“Where did you go?”
“Hiding. Go away.”
“Silly girl.” He dragged me up and wrapped his arms tighter around me.
I shivered against him. “Don’t you want to at least visit your home?”
“Perhaps one day. For now, I guess I’ll have to settle for this place. Do you want to visit your home?”
The question lingered. I gazed out at Champilliers and thought of my last home, the sun on Durc’s port and the stink of fish in the air. “Maybe for a day.”
EPILOGUE
A tasseled curtain was pulled across Salon d’Amusements with a sign that read CLOSED INDEFINITELY.
No one minded. The guests were too eager to be here, to see the magic of the legendary hotel and visit the places it would take them.
Around the lobby, the guests mingled. Some wore glittering gowns, some wore their frilliest homespun dresses. A handful even had dye on the ends of their fingertips, slinging foul words that would never be heard inside the fancy shops along boulevard Marigny. One thing was common among them all: they each had an equal chance at an invitation and were chosen fairly, paying whatever price made sense for their situation, even if it was nothing more than a single coin.
Everywhere eyes glinted as guests waited, with bated breath, to experience magic firsthand. Because tonight was the lobby soirée, when the greatest suminaire in all the world—the Magnifique—would take the stage.
A guest in the front clutched a program to her breast and pointed to a slight girl with light skin and gleaming blonde curls. She wore the most elaborate dress of all, a diaphanous confection of silver and cinched ribbons, probably purchased from some fancy atelier in Champilliers.
Breaths caught. People blinked, not because they couldn’t remember, but because they never wished to forget the sight of the slight girl’s lace-gloved hands tossing hundreds of steel insects into the air. Beside her, an old woman who looked so similar to the girl that she could only be her grandmother began playing a bright red piano.
Metal wings flapped, swarming the lobby, landing on furniture, on shoulders, on noses. They fluttered in glinting clouds around huge paper trees sprouting up from playing cards across the floor. They flitted among the chandeliers. Then, when the girl raised a gloved hand, a column of roaring silver split the air and fell like sand to her open palm.