“What?” There were Bézier girls who worried the sun would ruin their complexions, but the hotel didn’t always travel to sunny places. In fact, everyone in the teahouse line in Durc spoke nonstop about where they wanted to visit if they were hired. That was part of why we all wanted to work at the hotel: to see far-off places. The biggest perk of the job, aside from the magic. But that maid didn’t like to go outside—didn’t want to experience Elsewhere.
It seemed inconceivable enough on its own, but coupled with all the strange things I’d noticed, it set my stomach in knots.
The floral wallpaper lining the halls seemed to darken with my mood. Petals dropped from withering flowers. Too many things were just a little bit off, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something deeply wrong. I wanted answers about this place. I doubted I’d be able to sleep tonight without them.
I turned back to speak with Béatrice and halted, cursing under my breath as I remembered my promise to Bel.
The guest lifted her glass and grinned. Half her teeth were replaced with gold. “Want some champagne, darling? I pressed this little button, and poof! Now I’m drowning in the stuff.”
“I can’t. I—I need to find someone,” I muttered.
“Good grief, you maids are no fun,” she called out as I darted off.
I only had a handful of minutes before I was due in the laundry room, so I looped through the lobby looking for Bel. When I didn’t spot him, I darted up a stairwell that deposited me in a familiar area on the second floor.
Béatrice had said halls come and go. Evidently the umbrellas had gone, replaced with a shadowy hall hung with white plaster intaglios of the same woman’s profile, each showcasing different emotions like boredom, pleasure, and grief.
As I gazed at each profile, the woman’s emotions muddled my own thoughts. My feet slowed to a stop and I swept a finger across the scrunched brow of one intaglio. I heard weeping and a swift sadness clotted my throat. My attention shifted to an intaglio on the bottom row. The woman held a single finger to her lips as if shushing someone. I leaned toward it. The hall darkened and candles guttered.
“Careful who you trust,” a soft voice whispered from somewhere in the distance. A chill crept over me. Slowly, I lifted a hand to the intaglio.
“Those are only for guests to touch.”
I spun.
The ma?tre stood against a dark corner.
I stumbled, knocking an intaglio off the wall. I waited for plaster to shatter. For Alastair to demand my name, fire me.
Nothing happened. The intaglio hung as if it never fell.
He stepped toward me clutching a slim inkwell filled with shimmering purple ink. Unlike the large wells Zosa and I had used to sign our contracts, this one looked ancient and was capped with a silver stopper in the mold of a wolf’s head, its jaws biting down as if the wolf feasted upon the well itself.
I glanced at his fingers. One stuck out crooked, the skin around it mottled and rippled.
“Leave,” he snarled.
I did the only thing I could think to do. I ran.
The image of Alastair’s hand squeezing the wolf-capped inkwell burned in my mind. His expression. It was the first time I’d seen him without a smile on his face.
There was no denying he was angry, but as far as I knew there was no rule preventing me from being in a hall. I shuddered. If I’d upset him, it didn’t matter what the rules were. No one would look twice if he sent me back to Durc tonight.
I forced myself to walk, but all I could hear in my mind were those whispered words: Careful who you trust. I didn’t know who I could trust here yet. I wanted to trust Bel—he was probably the closest I had inside to a confidant—but then he never told me he was the Magnifique. There had to be other secrets he was keeping—things he didn’t want me to know.
The candlelit halls seemed to narrow, and I was all alone. A throb built at my temple and I had an urge to run, to find somewhere safe to catch my breath. I turned the corner toward the laundry room and stumbled into a cluster of maids carrying mops. Relief swamped me at the company. I braced myself against the wall, my chest heaving.
One fair-skinned maid’s eyes grew at my empty hands. “No mop? Béatrice will chew your head off. All the maids were ordered to help clean up.”
“Clean up what?” I asked.
“The sky started dumping sleet. Some guests refused to go outside so the ma?tre ordered the performers to head up impromptu games.”
My pulse ratcheted. “Which performers?”
“I’m not sure. All sorts.”