The applause kept coming, signaling to everyone who wasn’t in the lobby that now was the time.
In a steady stream, more guests spilled out. They came from the endless library. They wandered from the curious paper garden in the center of the lobby, not confined behind any speck of glass, but open to everyone. Guests descended the caged lift. They slinked with their silk-leashed leopards down the grand stairs from the balconies, and also from the galleries, dabbing at the tears on their cheeks from the magic of it all.
“Is that man the ma?tre d’h?tel?” One older woman gestured to a darkened corner, clutching a pair of lorgnettes that did nothing but magnify. “Heard the old one disappeared somewhere.”
“I believe the new ma?tre is a woman,” her companion pointed out, but he looked over anyway, at the peculiar man who leaned against a wall.
The man stood there, not turned to the stage but facing the audience, watching the soirée play out. He tapped his chin with an odd finger that, from where the couple stood, appeared to be nothing more than a carved and polished piece of wood.
Above the guests, birds flitted freely through the chandeliers, but no one dared look up. All eyes were trained on the black-lacquered door.
“Shouldn’t there be a stage?” a young girl remarked as the ma?tre d’h?tel dipped out from the audience. She’s just a slip of a thing, the young girl thought. She’s not much different than me.
But she most certainly was different.
She wore a simple blue dress the shade of a storming sea and a small bronze trinket on a gold chain around her neck. Her dark hair bounced as she walked, spilling down her back in a tumble of waves, catching the light off flickering oil lamps being lowered on cranks and pulleys around the door. She was exquisite in her simplicity, a stark beacon in a sea of colorful guests. In fact, the only frivolous thing on her was a single feather the exact color of molten gold tucked behind her ear.
The woman who held her lorgnettes leaned over to her companion. “Where’s the Magnifique? It’s minutes to midnight.”
Her companion didn’t answer because the peculiar man from the corner now stood before the ma?tre. He brushed her neck to push a curl out of the way, but his thumb rested against her pulse a beat longer than was proper, before whispering something in her ear that caused her cheeks to flush.
“What do you suppose he’s saying?” the woman asked.
“Shush,” her companion said, although he was wondering the same thing.
A row of tittering women in front swooned when the man leaned in and kissed the ma?tre, soft and slow, his fingers replacing the feather in her hair before handing her the key from around his neck.
The woman tutted to her companion. “A little indecent, don’t you think?”
“Shush,” he said. “It’s nearly midnight.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has been on a journey almost as magnificent as the hotel within its pages. When I first sat down to draft it, I didn’t realize how many wonderful people I’d meet along the road to publication. You have all convinced me that magic does, in fact, exist.
To the genius editorial duo of Casey McIntyre and Gretchen Durning—I’m still pinching myself that I have not one but two amazing editors on my team. You immediately put me at ease, and your edit ideas helped create some of my favorite moments in the story. I’m incredibly grateful to have you both by my side.
To my agent dream team, Hillary Jacobson and Alexandra Machinist—thank you both for embracing this extravagant world and pushing me to shape it into something greater than I ever thought possible. Your brilliance is only equaled by your kindness. I’m constantly amazed and so appreciative of everything you do, and I can’t imagine better agents to have in my corner. Thank you to everyone else at ICM who has touched this book, especially Lindsey Sanderson, and my film agent, Josie Freedman. Thank you to my foreign agents at Curtis Brown UK, Roxane Edouard, Savanna Wicks, and Liz Dennis.
Thank you to Kristie Radwilowicz, Theresa Evangelista, and Jim Tierney for a cover that made me gasp and sit down the first time I saw it. Thanks to Tony Sahara for the stunning interior. To the rest of the Penguin Young Readers team, Jayne Ziemba, Amy White, Marinda Valenti, Sola Akinlana, Alison Dotson, Nicole Wayland, Olivia Russo, Felicia Frazer, Deb Polansky, Shanta Newlin, Emily Romero, Alex Garber, Felicity Vallence, Shannon Spann, Jen Klonsky, Jocelyn Schmidt, and Jen Loja—thank you for making this outlandish dream of mine a reality. I cannot wait to see the fantastic places Hotel Magnifique will go.