by Sean Easley
“Besides,” I continue, “there are things that only I can do to stop him. Agapios made me CiT for a reason, and now I have to see that through.”
Oma hoists her hands to her hips. “I won’t allow it.”
Dad places a hand on her arm. “It’s not your choice, Mom.” He looks over at me. “Decisions like these shape us. When I had shaping choices, I made poor ones. I won’t prevent him from making better ones.”
I never thought I’d have my dad stand up for me like this. Maybe there’s hope for us yet.
“When we leave,” I tell her, “unbind our front door from the Hotel. We can’t leave Stripe any foothold.”
“No.” Oma’s cheeks are red with frustration. “Not as long as my family is in that blasted place. I’ll be guarding this door until you come back. So you have to come back, ya hear me? All of you.”
“We’ll hurry,” Dad tells her. “Love you, Mom.”
Oma throws her arms around us both.
This time I don’t mind my ribs being crushed quite as much.
• • •
After a short discussion Sana heads off to complete her piece of the plan. If we fail to cleanse the Hotel, I’ll need her knowledge of shaping dye and binding to keep Stripe out. Like Elizabeth said, I have to trust everyone to do their job. My idea is still a long shot, but if anyone can make it happen, it’s Sana.
“Where’s your sister now?” Dad asks as he and I burst through the crash bars into the odd half-light of the Mezz.
“She’s making sure the mission kids get to safety. Then they’re evacuating the third and fourth floors.”
“The Apothecarium,” he says. “Your friend Sev?”
I nod, but truth is, I don’t know what state Sev’s in. That’s another area where I’ll have to trust Cass to do what I can’t.
The Mezzanine feels unusually empty for this time of day. These grounds are typically packed with people tossing Frisbees, or taking in the view of the Sundial Courtyard, or basking in the sun-windows that shine like stadium lights across the potted trees that make up the Mezz’s fake woods.
The Blight has changed all of that. The once vibrant grass is dried out and brown. The water that babbled through the stream is murky. Blighted roots even climb the posts that support the sun-windows, dimming our view of the outside world. Seeing the Mezz like this—darkened and decaying—makes me start to sweat, even with the cool breeze.
Dad stops me a few feet from the arch that leads to the Greenhouse. “I need to tell you something.”
“Can you tell me later? We don’t have time—”
“No. This is important.” He grips my shoulders and pauses, choosing his words carefully. “I know I’m supposed to say it more—and I probably haven’t said it at all yet—but . . . I’m proud of you. The way you take your job seriously and want to help other people . . . you remind me so much of your Mom. You are becoming a good man—you are a good man—and, I’m proud, Son.”
I don’t know what to say. A million different emotions flood through me: joy, that my dad—my dad—sees something in me to be proud of, frustration that he would wait until everything’s falling apart to tell me so, and guilt for all the ways I’ve failed everyone. The way I failed him by not giving him enough of a chance to be the kind of dad he wants to be.
“You’re stronger than you think you are,” he says. “But you’re smart, too. Smart enough to know when to let go.”
There’s an unexpected heaviness to those words, as if he’s just shoved a bag full of squirming cats into my arms.
“Sometimes you can’t control it, Son. Sometimes you fight as hard as you’re able, and life still doesn’t turn out how you want it to.”
Like him. Dad did everything he thought was right for us when we were little, and he still ended up failing. Yeah, he made mistakes, but he’s here. He’s trying.
“We do what we can, Dad,” I say, and I hope these words are enough—that he knows I forgive him.
When I turn Mom’s key in the Greenhouse doors this time, I wish for the key to reveal everything. No more hiding, no more controlling—it’s time to face the unconcealed, terrible truth.
The path to the Vesima tree is blackened and withered, with scorched grass and rotten fruit scattered across the hill. The tree looks worse than when it was attached to the Museum. The Blight vine wraps all around it now, all the way up in the branches, its rotten goop coating the trunk with sticky brown sap. The rot has been spreading for months, even as Agapios and everyone else thought the Vesima was healing. It was using me, and Mom’s key.
I hurry to one of the herb tables and pull the Ledger from the have-sack. I don’t know if Sana has made it down to the glowworm caves yet, but there might still be time to save this place. There’s got to be a solution in here. Something that can cure the Blight so that we don’t have to flee the Hotel, something that will save Mom and protect everyone else.
But as I search the Ledger, I find nothing but scribbles.
“It’s not working,” I say as I frantically turn page after page, searching for a clue—searching for her. I’d hoped that being closer to the Vesima would strengthen the bond between the Ledger and the Hotel, but the Blight is interfering. If this book has an answer, it’s not sharing it with me.
The next page confirms my fears. I watch as the ink scratches words onto the page in uneven, crooked letters: Would you like to make a deal now?
I rip out the page and hurl it to the ground.
“It’s not over yet!” I shout at the tree covered in midnight-blue blooms. “We’re going to save her! We’ll stop you, and we’ll stop Stripe. You can’t have her!”
The Greenhouse doors open behind us.
I wipe my eyes and spin around.
“Nico,” I say, “I’m glad you’re—” But then I notice his suit. It’s not Sev’s suit but instead the gray pin-striped one he wore when he was with Stripe. The outer edges of his figure keep moving, those familiar lines redrawn over and over again.
“Your fight is over, boy,” the figure says, its words rustling the dying limbs of the Vesima above us. “We possess the Hotel now.”
That’s not Nico at all. This thing is the Blight.
Dad grabs a long-handled gardening hoe from one of the herb tables and steps in front of me.
The Blight cocks its head to look at him. “You can’t fight me, Reinhart.” Its voice rumbles like gravel. “I have this whole place, all these people under my influence. It’s so roomy in here. And what grand secrets it hides.”
“The Hotel’s not yours yet,” I reply.
The shadow and the tree laugh in unison. “All that’s left is to transfer the deed.”
Agapios’s letter weighs heavily in my pocket.
A sneer appears on the Blight’s sketched face. “My master will be so pleased when he finds out all I’ve done for him,” it says. “We’ll break the locks on these chains yet. Everything will be ours again.”
When he finds out. “Stripe doesn’t know,” I whisper.
Dad flashes me a confused look.
“We may not be able to cleanse the Blight, but we can at least keep Stripe out,” I tell him.
I swipe the have-sack off the ground and check my pocket watch, silently sending out a hope that Sana has finished her task. Either way, we’re out of time.
The binding takes hold as I insert the pin that Sana gave me into the strap, sending a wave of gold across the mouth of the have-sack. The glow of a million blue lights appears on the other side. The glowworm cave—an underground sea of shaping dye—right there for the using.
It was the Old Man’s gardening that gave me the idea. The roots of the Vesima drank the water right up when he poured it onto them. Sev said the shaping dye is made of water. The Vesima’s roots wind throughout the whole Hotel, so if those roots can soak up the shaping dye, they’ll carry its magic to every door, every room and corridor. And Djhut said a magic that penetrates to the heart of a thing can reshape every part. If that’s
true, I might be able to reshape all the doors, all at once.
That’s only half of the solution, though. Admiral Dare still has the other half. At least, I hope she does, and that Elizabeth can find her.
Sana peeks into view in the have-sack opening. “All ready, boss.”
The Blight growls, baring its inky teeth. The branches of the Vesima groan with it.
Dad raises his hoe. “Cameron?”
“Do it, Sana!” I shout.
The view in the have-sack portal wobbles as Sana gives the makeshift door she slapped together in the caves a strong push. The frame leans, falling . . .
Into the lake of dye.
I aim the sack at the foot of the tree as a rush of glowing water explodes from the opening, pouring from Sana’s now-submerged frame and out through the mouth of the have-sack.
When I asked Sana to build a door, bind it to the have-sack, and drop it into the lake in the glowworm caves, I wasn’t sure my plan would even work. But now, as the sticky blue substance from the underground pool floods the Vesima’s roots, I’ve never been happier to be right. I drop the have-sack and let the stream pour forth on its own. We might just pull this off after all.
But when I look back up at the Blight, it’s smirking. Oh no.
The eastern and western Greenhouse doors burst open, revealing half a dozen maids wearing midnight-blue boutonnieres, and one very imposing Maid Commander at their lead.
No.
The bond of Life prevents the Blight from harming us directly, but those restrictions won’t prevent the maids from attacking us. It’s in the maids’ contracts to do whatever’s necessary to protect the Hotel. And now that the Blight has spread throughout the Hotel—now that it and the Hotel are becoming one—the maids’ own commitment to serve the Hotel has been twisted into a call to serve whatever’s infecting it. The magic of their contracts can’t distinguish between the two, which means that right now the maids’ job includes protecting the Blight . . . from us.
The MC unsheathes her sword; her maids raise their dusters. There’s no way that Dad and I can fight them on our own, no matter how sharp Dad’s garden hoe is. And the dye’s flowing, but it’s piling up and sliding off the roots. Shouldn’t the tree be absorbing it by now?
“Any other ideas, son of mine?” Dad says as the maids advance.
And then, with a resounding boom, the southern door explodes.
30
The Decisions That Shape Us
Get back. Get back! GET BACK!” Nico shouts as he comes running into the Greenhouse. The real Nico.
A second later a ten-foot-tall lion bursts through the doors behind him, biting at his heels. Nico dodges around one of the herb tables, putting it between him and the enormous Chinese lion that until recently was a statue standing guard over the Asiatic Lobby. Veins of Blight curl up its legs, just like with the topiaries.
I glance back to where the manifestation of the Blight stood only moments ago, but it’s gone.
Nico ducks out of the lion’s reach, the suit constricting around him to dodge the lion’s paws. “I do not like this Hotel anymore!”
“Did you ever like it?” I call back.
“Not really.” He spots the blighted maids, the blue goo everywhere, Dad wielding a garden hoe like a battle-ax. “Cass, get in here!”
A thunderous thump rattles the Greenhouse as a massive gorilla plows through the doorway, cracking the glass around it. Gogo beats her chest with a loud roar. Cass clings to Gogo’s back, beaming like a kid at Christmas.
“Here, kitty-kitty!” Cass calls to the lion. “You leave our Hopper King alone.”
Gogo leaps for the lion, wraps her considerable hands around its neck, and tosses it back through the Greenhouse doors.
“Are y’all done yet?” Cass calls. “It’s getting hairy out there.”
“The maids!” I yell. “Stop them, but don’t hurt them!”
Cass rolls her eyes and holds tight as Gogo barrels toward the advancing maids.
I rush back to the foot of the Vesima, sloshing through the growing mound of dye as it slides across the grass. My pants absorb the stuff instantly, so why won’t these roots? If the dye doesn’t sink in, it’ll never make its way through the Hotel, and I won’t be able to follow through with the next step in my plan—reshaping the doors.
Nico crouches next to me. “We have to leave, Cam. The Hotel’s fighting back. You should see the Mezz. The icons are attacking, and the Maid Service is all grrr, and—”
“We can’t go,” I say. “Not yet.”
Nico looks the tree up and down, touches the sticky brown sap that coats the bark, and gives me a pitying look.
“You’ll never succeed,” another voice says.
I turn to find the Blight’s image crouched on the opposite side of me, still etched with Nico’s face.
The real Nico jumps back. “Whoa! What is that?”
“I know how you feel, Cameron,” the Blight says, leaning closer to me. “You try so hard, but the truth is, you’re not strong enough to do what’s been asked of you.”
The truth? What does the Blight know about truth?
“You were never going to live up to your mother’s legacy,” it continues. “You’re only a boy, lost in all those expectations. Give up, before you make anything worse.”
No. It’s not that I wasn’t good enough. The truth was that Agapios never meant for me to do this job alone—it just took me until the past few hours to figure that out. He and the Hotel were trying to teach me that when they assigned me the gala project, and the end-of-summer staff awards. Agapios kept telling me there were plenty of people who knew things I didn’t, who could do things I couldn’t.
I felt lost because I was trying to do it alone. The Hotel wanted me to learn to rely on my friends, so that we could succeed together.
“You don’t have to keep fighting,” the Blight whispers. “You could run away again. Run back home where it’s safe, and you can keep everything under control.”
Safe.
I turn to see Cass and Gogo, holding back the maids all on their own. Without her adventurousness, Cass wouldn’t be able to protect us right now. And what about Nico’s scheming? His cats started us on this path. Same with the others. Without Sana’s brilliance and Rahki’s tenacity, without Sev’s creativity and Orban’s fun spirit and Elizabeth’s willingness to challenge people, I couldn’t have made it this far.
“It’s not about control,” I say, standing to face the Blight. “Control is what Stripe wants, and I’m not him. The truth is that we work best when we depend on one another.”
There’s something else, though. Something I’ve been missing. A secret that the Old Man couldn’t tell me outright but that he hinted at all the same.
I slosh through the rising mound of dye to where I cast the Ledger aside. I pick it up and examine the inscription on its front.
Knowledge and truth are among the sharpest blades in the world. When used together they are a double-edged sword, able to cut deeper than any other.
Agapios said I wouldn’t be able to use the Ledger to its fullest until I figured out what it was trying to teach me. This is it. I can’t control everything. I’m not supposed to do everything on my own. The Hotel succeeds because everyone in it does their part. Even Nico said it in the Nightvine. We could be powerful. Together. That’s the knowledge that the Hotel wanted me to have, and if the Ledger provides knowledge, then the truth . . .
It’s Mom’s key.
I pull the topscrew from my pocket, and it’s already radiating heat like a campfire. I used the key to hide things that were going wrong, sure, but it also showed me the reality of things I had missed. It revealed the path to the Nightvine, uncovered hidden doors, and in the drupe it helped to remind Nico of everything that he had forgotten. Even back when I first got the key from Agapios, it showed me the door to this very Greenhouse that had been concealed for so long.
If the admiral’s topscrew is the Key of Lost Things, then Mom
’s . . . It’s not an illusion key at all. It’s more like . . . a Key of Truth. And just like the Key of Lost Things has the power both to lose and to find, Mom’s key has the power to reveal truth or to conceal it altogether.
A keyhole begins to shine in the leather directly under the Ledger’s inscription.
“What’s it doing?” Nico asks, face illuminated in the light.
The Ledger of Ways holds all of the Hotel’s knowledge. Mom’s topscrew is the Key of Truth. Knowledge and truth are among the sharpest blades in the world. When combined . . .
“Hold this,” I say, and shove the Ledger into Nico’s hands. “Here goes.”
I insert the key into the keyhole, and turn.
Beams of golden light frame the Ledger’s binding, so bright that I’m forced to look away. When the light fades, it leaves behind a glistening golden sword in Nico’s hands.
“Okay,” Nico says. “Now, that’s cool.”
I take the sword and examine it in the light. It’s so shiny and perfect. The hilt looks as if it’s made entirely of the same pearlescent material as Mom’s key, but the blade is polished gold—with an uneven edge of drawn lines that reminds me of the sketches in the Ledger.
Etched along the length of the blade in swirling letters is one word:
Together
But . . . what do I do with a sword?
I scan the grounds. Gogo’s managed to dodge most of the maids’ strikes, but one of her massive hands is now stuck to her chest, and Cass is holding on for dear life as the gorilla scrambles away. Meanwhile, Dad’s occupied by two more maids and is doing a pretty good job of holding them off. He’s yelling something, though I can’t tell what.
Wait a minute—where’s the MC?
“Look out!”
I duck, barely avoiding the sharp end of the Maid Commander’s sword. The blade slices deep into the wood of the Vesima tree just above my head.
“Mom!” I scream.
The Maid Commander pulls her blade loose, and a large chunk of the tree falls free. She grips her sword tightly, aiming it directly at me. It shines in the sunlight, the French word HONNEUR emblazoned across the flat of the blade. Are these two weapons alike?