The Key of Lost Things

by Sean Easley

  The two of them head through the door into the Hotel. I sling the have-sack over my shoulder to follow, but when I do, something hard hits my hip. I comb my fingers through the sack and realize there’s something else hidden in the lining—a long, sharp spike of wood.

  A sliver. Bee must have snuck it into the have-sack along with Nico’s note.

  I stuff the sliver back into the lining and make sure Rahki and Cass didn’t see. What am I supposed to do with this? I don’t want to take it into the Hotel, but there’s no time to figure out my options before Rahki starts asking questions.

  So I close the flap on the sack and head inside carrying one of the Hotel’s most forbidden objects with me.

  6

  A Glow in the Depths

  Nu ti dayosh!” Sev exclaims when he sees me at his door on the twenty-first floor. I expected him to be in bed by now, but he’s still dressed in his doorman’s uniform. “You look as if the world has exploded.”

  That’s not quite the description I’d use, but it’s close. “Can I stay here tonight?” I ask. “Oma said it’s okay.”

  “Of course. But what is the trouble?”

  I don’t know what to tell him. That Nico has forgotten us? That Rahki is convinced that he’s our enemy? That I have no idea how to keep this whole gala thing under control, Cass won’t do what I ask her to do, and I can’t sleep in my bed because it smells like a cat-o-potty? Right now I don’t want to think about any of it.

  Sev must see that on my face, because he changes his tone. “Come with me. I have an errand to run and could use the company.” He smiles. “It is for you, anyway. For your birthday.”

  We hop onto the elevator and press the button for the lowest level of the Shaft.

  “I’ve never been down that far,” I tell him.

  “I would imagine not,” he says as the elevator starts its descent. “There is not much down in the caves, and the Old Man discourages most from visiting without good reason.”

  The elevator cage shifts to another track with a loud, ratcheting clank. I watch the enclosed guest lifts travel up, down, side to side, and I try not to think about what awful things lurk in those depths below.

  Sev leans against the cage and flicks on a flashlight. “An adventure in spelunking, yes?”

  I ready my own light. “Why doesn’t Agapios want people coming down here? And where is the Shaft located, anyway? Seems it would be really hard to hide a place like this.”

  “I do not know the secret of the Shaft’s location,” Sev says. “As for why staff are encouraged to steer clear,”—he holds his light under his chin menacingly—“this is where the Outliers hide.”

  “The what?”

  Sev doesn’t answer. If I hadn’t spent the past several months living in a place that had the power to prevent people from discussing its secrets, I would ask him again, but his silence speaks volumes. Whatever these “Outliers” are, they are a mystery that the Hotel intends to keep even from me.

  A musty breeze cools my face as the elevator shudders to a stop. When I step out onto the platform, I glance up at the circle of blue sky high above us. The clatter and whir of the elevators fill the air as we creak our way down a set of stairs. The sound is almost musical.

  “Do you come down here often?” I ask.

  Sev pulls his collar a little tighter. “Only once. The shaping is still new to me.”

  “The shaping.” I didn’t get a chance to ask Cass how Sana had used it to make her chair have all those new functions, or how it had turned the hedges into stone.

  “It is the magic of artificers.” Sev pauses. “The shaping taps into a person’s will to transform one thing into another, or to modify the way a thing operates. You know, you really should consider joining the artificer trainings. I have learned quite a bit.”

  As if I don’t have enough to do.

  He leads me to a cleft hidden in the shadows along the Shaft wall. I sweep my light over the cave entrance, but can’t see how deep it goes. I think I can hear a noise emanating from within—a long, deep groaning sound that makes my teeth hurt. Sev ducks on through, beckoning me to follow.

  The tunnel curls away from the Shaft, dropping even lower into the earth. The rocks are slick and slimy, and the whole place smells like wet cheese curds. Bulbous stalactites drip water into our flashlight beams. A droplet pats my head as we duck under a low outcropping.

  “What are you getting me for my birthday? A card would have been fine,” I say, masking my excitement.

  He clucks his tongue. “I cannot tell you. You will find out soon enough.”

  “But you need this . . . whatever is down here to make the gift?”

  “Shaping dye. It is useful for many things. I require only a drop to change the binding on a pin, but artificers use much more to bring the icons to life.”

  I’ve seen the statues and machines that Sana and the rest of the Motor Pool staff work on. The artificers specialize in making objects do things they couldn’t otherwise, but I’m not sure what that really means. “I’ve never really understood what it is the artificers do down there in the Motor Pool.”

  “The shaping re-forms one thing into another,” Sev explains. “It allows us to alter the nature of an object so that it can be influenced by the person bound to it.”

  “Nature,” I repeat.

  The bond of Nature is one of the three fundamental bindings that restrict the way magics can interact with humans, along with the bond of Life and the bond of Law. The bond of Nature prevents magics from changing the world—and people—to be something that goes against their “nature,” the invisible qualities that determine how they operate. That bond is what keeps rogue magics from turning people into handbags or forcing them to crawl around on all fours. The bond of Life is simpler—it keeps magics from harming humans. Without the bond of Life, Mr. Stripe would probably be able to use magics to kill everyone who crossed him. And then there’s the bond of Law, that ties it all together. The bond of Law is the original treaty between magics and humans. It’s what requires magics to obey the other bonds. If a magic were to ever violate any of those rules, there would be serious consequences.

  But wait. “The dye can break fundamental bonds?” I ask.

  “Bend them,” he corrects. “We do not dabble in breaking bonds. Much too dangerous.” He drags a finger along the cave wall. “The shaping dye comes from water that has been changed through a special process.”

  “It’s just water?”

  Sev stops at a split in the tunnel and swings his light back and forth. “Have you considered that water is, itself, something special?”

  “Water is water.” It’s the stuff I avoid in favor of drinks with flavor. The only time it’s special is when you can swim in it.

  “Water is necessary for life,” Sev says, picking a tunnel and continuing on. “It dissolves all things over time. Its magic can change the very shape of the world. Water erodes land, moves shorelines, cracks mountains. It is change itself, in all its forms—liquid, ice, steam—and if you find water that is old enough, distilled by the ages, you can use its magic to shape even greater things. Such dye is very rare indeed.”

  The passage narrows, and we have to shimmy through to continue on.

  Before we reach the exit, Sev stops. “Turn off your light.”

  “What?”

  “Your light.” He switches off his flashlight.

  I obey, and the world around me goes dark.

  “Now”—he steps through and moves aside—“look.”

  The cavern ceiling glitters with a faint blue glow, a sea of radiant sapphires.

  “They’re moving,” I say. The lights wiggle, sparkling as they crawl along the stalactites.

  “Bioluminescent,” Sev says. “Glowworms. They have bonded with the dye, and it turned them into something quite unique. These tiny creatures can process even more dye, which is why we have enough to run the Motor Pool. Very few Houses are so lucky.”

  We pass into a wide,
open chamber with a blue pool so large that I can’t see the end of it. The water glistens like a galaxy of glowworms. The whooshing, moaning sound from before is louder here—in, out, a wheeze, a whistle—as if some enormous beast is breathing in the darkness on the distant shore of the massive pool, where the shadows seem to dance. The sound is both wonderful and utterly terrifying.

  Sev kneels at the water’s edge and scoops a jarful of the glowing liquid. “Shaping gives us the power to make a thing want to be something else. Like your sister’s chair. The shaping makes her chair want to be alive to serve her, and works with her to act as if it is.”

  Changing someone’s nature. Sometimes I want to change myself. To be confident like Nico, or determined like Rahki, or friendly like Cass. If I could control my nature, could I become what Agapios wants me to be?

  Sev gazes out over the pool. “Does it not amaze you that there is so much we do not yet know? Unknown wonders always lie just beyond what we can see.”

  “Yeah,” I say as another groan echoes through the chamber. “Why don’t we let some of it stay unknown so that we can get back? This place gives me the creeps.”

  7

  A Hiccup in the Plan

  Hiccu . . . BURP!

  “Cam!” Rahki shouts. “That is unbelievably gross!”

  “I’m sorry. I . . .” No, no, no. Not again, not aga—hiccu-BURP! “I can’t help it.”

  Everyone laughs. Sana, Elizabeth, Sev, Rahki, Cass—all of the junior hoteliers with “in-Training” in their job titles are gathered for another of Oma’s mandatory educational field trips, and they’re all looking at me like my head is a pimple about to pop.

  I hold my breath, trying to stop the strange hiccup-burp combination that’s been plaguing me lately. Hiccuburps, Cass calls them. Oma says they’re caused by stress. All I know is that every single hiccup I have is followed by a door-shattering, world-rending belch that I’m pretty sure can be heard all the way back in Texas.

  “It is like a frog lives inside you,” Sev says, grabbing his side and wiping an eye. “Would you like me to get him out?”

  Cameron Kuhn, Most Likely to Belch up a Toad. “I can handle my own”—hiccu-BURP!—“frogs, thank you.” I wish Oma would show up already and take everyone’s attention off me.

  Teaching has always been Oma’s thing. When we joined the Hotel, she insisted that she keep on teaching. Thus a contract was formed so that the Hotel could show her what it wants us to learn. Agapios said it’s been years since the junior staff had someone to formally teach them. I mean, getting to travel the world provides its own kind of education, but Agapios wants us to learn other things too.

  Hiccu-BURP!

  The back of my neck warms with irritation as another chorus of laughs echoes through the North American Lobby. Even the giant bear statue next to the front office window looks like it’s gripping its belly in a hearty guffaw.

  Cass is the only one not joining in the hilarity. She’s been extra quiet ever since I came after her on the China mission. Now she’s just sitting next to me, shuffling her deck of cards like this is the last place in the world she wants to be.

  “Try holding your breath,” Rahki says.

  “Or rub your chest,” suggests Elizabeth.

  “I can get some ice water,” says Carlee, twisting her thick black braids. She’s our Sous-Chef-in-Training. She thinks blanching your head in ice water is the solution to everything.

  “I said no”—hiccu-BURP!—“thank you!” I shout, way more loudly than I intended. Sana gives a little Ooh, someone’s angry head bobble.

  I can’t stand them seeing me out of sorts like this. Thankfully, Oma arrives in her usual whirlwind fashion, handwoven Sherpa sack over her shoulder like she’s some sort of mountain guide, and waves her hands to draw everyone’s attention.

  “Gather, gather!” she calls in her best Mother Goose impression.

  “What’s our trip today?” Sana asks. She and Rahki exchange an excited grin. The two of them are like Cass—they love learning, maybe even more than working at the Hotel. Rahki once told me that where she grew up, girls weren’t allowed to go to school, so attending Oma’s classes almost feels like breaking the rules, which makes “learning” pretty much the only rule she’s willing to break.

  “It’s a mystery, of sorts,” Oma teases.

  Hiccu-BURP!

  She shoots me an offended look—the one where her mouth crinkles like a mantis’s. Come on! She knows I can’t control it.

  Oma leads us through a hidden door behind the lobby bear and into a back hall filled with rusty tray carts and dusty popcorn machines. Compared to the glittery facade of the Hotel, these back halls always feel dismal and spooky. They’re remnants of places that were bound to the House ages ago, before it was officially dubbed The Hotel Between.

  We stop at an old wooden door draped in cobwebs on one side of a cramped chamber. The stonework has an English look, with an arched ceiling similar to the one in the hall where the queen of clubs disappeared. We never did find those last two cats.

  “All right,” Oma says. “Let’s see if you can figure out our destination.” And she opens the door.

  We step into a hot, woodsy area that smells like rain and salt. Insects trill all around us, and the humid air sticks to me. Instantly I’m sweaty and gross. I glance back to see the rickety doorframe we just passed through, barely hanging on a shack whose roof collapsed long ago. A few trees rise from within the walls, like cowlicks.

  “Temperate climate,” Sana says, checking her pocket watch to determine the time zone. “Somewhere in the Americas.”

  “But which”—hiccu-BURP!—“America?”

  “North.” Sev waves his hand through the air. “It feels like summer.”

  “So . . . hot . . . ,” Orban whines.

  Oma hums in approval. “What else?”

  Carlee runs a finger through the dirt and pops it into her mouth. “United States. East Coast.”

  “You can’t possibly know that from eating dirt,” I say.

  “Everything’s made of ingredients,” she replies. “Chef Silva’s been teaching me the taste of all sorts of places.” Okay, I’ll just mark Carlee down for the It Tastes Like Chicken award.

  Our guessing game continues, everyone but Cass offering helpful tidbits of information. It’s weird for her to not participate. Sev comments on the deciduous trees and the loamy soil. Cass fidgets with her cards. Orban notes a strange, long and winding mound that looks man-made. Cass shuffles the deck. The saltwater smell and the sound of waves lead Elizabeth to guess that we’re in a coastal region.

  Finally Cass blurts, “It’s Roanoke Island.”

  “Very good,” Oma replies, sounding genuinely surprised. Cass gets the gold star, again. “Today we’re discussing the lost colony of Roanoke.”

  “How did you get that?” I ask, in almost a whisper.

  “Elementary. You know my methods, Watson,” Cass replies in a fake British tone. Ever since she read a bunch of Sherlock Holmes stories last year, she’s been mastering her accent. “Pay attention. . . . You might learn something.”

  Oma retrieves a stack of clipboards from her sack and passes them out. Before she’s done distributing, Orban uses a pin from his pin-sleeves to draw a cartoonish face with big eyes, a round nose, and sharp mustaches in the bottom corner of his board. An echo of that same face draws itself in sparkling gold ink on all of our boards. He follows with a speech bubble exclaiming something in Hungarian, eliciting a chuckle from those who can read it.

  Oma scowls and erases our slates with her pin. “Can anyone think of why we’d be talking about the lost colony of Roanoke?”

  Silence. I glance over at Cass, expecting her to pipe up again, but she’s back to shuffling her deck.

  Oma dabs the tip of her pin to her tongue, then touches the pin to the board. Our slates burst to life with swirling gold lines, sparkling as they sketch out a collage of cabins and people in bonnets and linen dresses and rugged pants. A
ghostly backdrop of ships sailing the ocean appears behind them.

  In the center of the collage, the magic hatches a portrait. At first it looks like a baby girl, but then the drawing ages, growing into a woman dressed in a naval officer’s uniform.

  “Admiral Dare,” Rahki says, her voice soft—almost reverent.

  I perk up, taking in every detail of the face on my slate. The woman is old now, with naturally curly hair and a slight smile that makes her look as if she’s hiding something.

  “Virginia Dare,” Oma confirms, “whose four hundredth binding day is the reason for our upcoming event.”

  The image changes. The woman’s face stays the same, but her clothes and hat shift into furs and a coonskin cap.

  “What happened to Miss Dare is one of the greatest Embassy mysteries. In 1587 she and her family went missing, along with the rest of the Roanoke colony. She was only a child then, but her father worked for the Embassy. No one knew where they went. And then young Miss Dare resurfaced three decades later, all by herself. Thirty years missing, and still only as old as many of you. To this day, she refuses to tell anyone the truth of what happened.”

  1587 . . . Admiral Dare is like the Old Man and the Maid Commander—someone who has lived for centuries, thanks to their connection with one of the many magics hidden in our world.

  The portrait swirls and vanishes, and is replaced by some story about expeditions to the New World and secret missions to establish a door in the Americas. But none of this will help me plan the gala. If anything, it’s making me more nervous. Admiral Dare and the Embassy have been around for so long, and I . . . well, I haven’t even been alive a fraction of that time. How am I supposed to throw a party for people like that?

  “Maybe the colonists used Mr. Dare’s door to go back to England,” Rahki says.

  Oma shakes her head. “Dare’s Door had been cut off. It took two years before the Embassy could reach the colony to investigate, and by then the settlement was entirely gone.”