“How quaint,” I said with a twinge of disappointment. The hotel was unremarkable.
A single round window, twice as large as the others, sat up top and shelved several succulents. Lucky plants. Except I didn’t understand how they got from place to place. Or the building itself, for that matter.
The hotel was rumored to visit every corner of the world. I knew my geography—Verdanne was the largest country on the continent, bordered by the jagged mountains of Skaadi to the north and windswept Preet to the east. Beyond were more enormous countries, then oceans filled with endless places to see. The world was vast and unimaginable, and yet this single building traversed it all.
We both straightened at a woman’s cry. “It’s the ma?tre!”
A young man stood at the entrance.
“Saw him giving away invitations,” the woman went on. “Pressed duchesse roses to the first winner’s palm as she entered.”
“I knew it. He’s magnificent,” Zosa gushed.
I had to squint. With the sun shining directly on him, the ma?tre gleamed like a newly minted silver dublonne. He wore a black livery that contrasted with his light skin.
Bézier was right. The greatest suminaire in all the world wasn’t much older than me. Nineteen. Twenty, at most. Outrageously young. Or he looked it, anyway.
This man somehow enchanted the whole building, made it safe for the suminaires he employed to practice magic, safe for guests to witness it.
“Welcome.” The ma?tre plucked a tulip from the air and handed it to an older woman with brown skin and wide smile as she hobbled into the hotel clutching an invitation. “Pleasure, pleasure,” he said to a light-skinned young woman holding another invitation, then, “Outstanding hat, mademoiselle,” to her little daughter as they filtered through the door, followed by the pair of giddy men.
The ma?tre cleared his throat. “Thank you all for stopping by. Please come again next time Hotel Magnifique arrives.”
He bent in a flourished bow. When he came up, a handful of lilies dripped between his long fingers. He tossed them up. The flowers folded into tiny birds that dissolved into shimmering purple smoke with each wing beat. When I looked down, the ma?tre was gone.
Incredible. Except for in his place was a rope barring the front door with a sign that read, only guests and staff beyond this point.
“Do you think interviews are inside?” Zosa asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” I eyed the sign. Surely I could take a peek. “Wait for me here.”
Elbowing past the crowd, I climbed the steps and slipped under the rope. Three words no wider than a thumb were carved into the front door’s black lacquer: le monde entier.
The whole world.
The words tugged at something inside me, beckoning.
I pulled the door open, but it was impossible to see a thing. I took a step forward. But instead of walking inside, I crashed nose-first into a wall.
Stumbling back, I trailed my fingertips over what appeared to be a sheet of glass filling the doorframe. At least I assumed it was glass, until a hand reached through and grabbed my wrist. With a shriek, I discovered the hand was attached to a young doorman.
I blinked, trying to make sense of the open doorway that was also a wall and this boy who simply walked through it.
No, not a boy. Much too tall, with lean muscles evident under his livery. The ma?tre was blindingly pale, but this young man was the opposite. His warm copper skin accentuated the vivid brown eyes that stared down at me.
“Can I help you?” he asked in Verdanniere with an accent I’d never heard before.
I glanced up at the building and pictured all the atlases lining Bézier’s sitting room, the blobs of land I would trace with my fingertips. It didn’t seem plausible that such an old structure could travel far.
“Where were you yesterday?” I asked.
“A minute’s journey from here,” he said curtly. When I tried to inspect the wall, he shut the door. “Only guests and staff are allowed inside.”
Right. That damned sign. “Where are the interviews?”
“You want to interview with the hotel?”
He seemed surprised, which made me bristle. I skewered him with a glare. “Obviously.”
We both jumped when the hotel’s door burst open. A group wandered out. A lapis necklace glittered against a petite guest’s deep brown skin. She was followed by another guest with skin so close to white that it would char in a minute under Durc’s summer sun.
They laughed and a wafting sultry scent made my toes curl. “What’s that smell?”