The Last Chance Hotel

by Nicki Thornton

  ‘Thanks, Nightshade. You were absolutely right. I know now for sure.’

  ‘You should listen to me. Seth, don’t you remember? You missed the biggest clue. Like every good chef – you tasted that dessert yourself before it went into the dining room.’

  Seth stopped. ‘Oh, so I did.’

  ‘If it was poisoned, Seth, you’d be dead. That proof enough for you? You’re still walking about. Gotta get better with your detective work. You can’t miss big clues like that,’ she grouched.

  ‘Well why didn’t you say something before?’ said Seth snappily.

  ‘You were so keen to have a downer on yourself, thought you needed to get over beating yourself up. Anyway, you done? Now p’raps we can focus on getting on the trail of whoever actually did it. We need to find out who’s been using magic. Let’s go! Let’s prove who found a way to get into that dining room.’

  22. Hunting for Birdsong

  Nightshade switched the conversation to breakfast. And not just her own breakfast. She was really keen that Seth didn’t get into big trouble with the Bunns for neglecting his duties. She reminded him that once they cleared his name, Seth was still going to have to keep on the Bunns’ good side – if they had one.

  They bickered cheerfully as they walked back, Nightshade resisting scampering after every low rustle in the leaves that potentially alerted her to a tasty breakfast. They were almost back at the hotel when she lifted her nose and paused.

  Seth peered cautiously around and saw what Nightshade had seen – a figure in among the bushes. Someone else was up early. Someone who was doing something very strange indeed.

  Seth risked stealing closer and was rewarded by a small chink of clear brightness in the slate-grey clouds gathered moodily on the horizon, revealing Professor Papperspook in all her gaudy glory. She was ambling through the rose garden, moving slowly and silently, but with a determined look on her face as if stalking something, her giant complicated bird’s nest of hair gently bobbing. She was gripping a colossal net on a hoop.

  ‘You think she’s doing magic?’ Seth whispered.

  Nightshade muttered something about being less interested in magic than breakfast and scampered off in pursuit of some small, unsuspecting woodland creature.

  An alarmed bird call sounded shrill on the sharp morning air and Professor Papperspook lifted her pointed nose and moved swiftly and surely towards the sound. She swiped her net then opened one of the crystal bottles Seth recognized from the case in her room. She stuffed something inside.

  As another bird started its song her head lifted again, the net moved through the air as she pursued it with a determined look on her beaky features.

  Seth, in spite of wanting to get back into the hotel and nervous of speaking to anyone, decided he’d try and find out what she was doing.

  ‘Good morning, Professor Papperspook.’

  She swung around, almost decapitating Seth with her net. But when she saw who it was she smiled.

  ‘Wonderful woodland. Nothing but trees for absolutely miles.’ She breathed the fresh air deeply through her nostrils.

  ‘Most people complain about that actually.’

  ‘Remarkable.’ As the pink glow began to lift on the horizon, so the low chatter of birdsong started to grow. ‘Would you like to help me to catch some birdsong? If I’m lucky I’ll get a whole dawn chorus. Marvellous.’

  ‘Me?’ asked Seth, astonished. ‘I . . . I’d love to. If you think I could.’

  ‘Just step up quickly, grip right here, listen and swoop. Swoop!’ The net was amazingly light, despite its size.

  A startled blackbird yelled at him.

  ‘No, not like you’re catching tiddlers, like you’re after a massive pike for your supper. Right! There you go! That’s it!’

  Seth did his best. The birds around him seemed to all be shouting at once. It was impossible to tell the cries apart. It was as if someone was conducting an orchestra and Professor Papperspook encouraged him to take swoop after swoop. She seized the net from him and pushed her large nose into it. ‘I believe you got one.’

  Seth watched as she poked the end of the net into a bottle.

  ‘Did I really get something?’

  ‘Yes, you got it, Seth.’

  ‘Wow,’ he said, remembering how he’d lifted that stopper in her room and that bird cry had flooded out. Just from a tiny bottle. Had he really just captured a sound like that? ‘Magic is – well, it’s awesome.’

  ‘I do know my magic is very limited and of a very rare and particular kind,’ the professor shrugged modestly. ‘But sadly some people are quick to dismiss my life’s work.’

  ‘I think it’s brilliant. Is it difficult to know if something is truly magic?’ Kingfisher had sneered at Dunster-Dunstable’s illusions as not being true magic. And everyone was here going through some sort of test to see if they could prove their magic.

  She chuckled, making her second chin wobble. ‘Well I can’t walk into a room and create a fireball with my bare hands. Not like some people can. I can’t even walk into a room and change a chair into a toadstool.’

  ‘Can some people really do that?’ asked Seth, wide-eyed.

  ‘Magic tends to come to people differently.’

  ‘It sounds brilliant for someone like Miss Troutbean to be able to become an apprentice.’

  Professor Papperspook’s face lost its smile. ‘It’s a terrible insult.’

  ‘B-but . . . it is? Scouring the country, trying to recruit people with a spark of magic? I . . . I thought Dr Thallomius’s ideas sounded heroic.’

  ‘Heroic?’ Professor Papperspook’s friendly manner completely disappeared. Even the birdsong net drooped. ‘Opening the doors to fraudsters and chancers. Where will it end? And the worst of it is, that’s not all he was doing.’

  ‘Count Marred said he was trying to save the magical world,’ floundered Seth.

  Professor Papperspook took a step nearer, making her tower of colourful hair nod. ‘Count Marred was duped.’ She was distracted by taking a big swipe as the drumming of a woodpecker resounded, looked in frustration at her net, then poked her beaky nose closer to Seth’s face. ‘He was a terrible man.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She carried on, swishing her net more in anger than an attempt to catch something. ‘Fair, he called it. Insulting, I call it. To put my best friend’s lovely girl through that. Questioning Gloria’s magical ability. Getting her to prove her rightful place in the Elysee. It’s beyond offensive. I have a certain reputation in the magical world and I aim to do everything I can to make sure Gloria gets her rightful place.’

  Seth began feeling he might have more than a glimmer of understanding. He was thinking he might be beginning to see many reasons why sorcerers might not have taken so kindly to Dr Thallomius’s reforms. ‘Both you and Count Marred are here to take part in the Prospect because you need to prove you are magic too?’

  ‘My magic is subtle. It is difficult for even sorcerers to properly understand. To have to stand up and prove our magic!’

  Then she let out a curse and examined the net closely. She bent low to some woody shrubs where the spiders’ webs grew in huge numbers, large, dewy and sticky. She carefully removed one of the webs and attached it to her net, which Seth could now see was made entirely from spiders’ webs.

  Then she dived off to stalk in the direction of a spreading oak tree that was beginning to shed its leaves, muttering, ‘I am not going to let anyone, least of all that terrible man, interfere with my chance with this dawn chorus. There was a pesky woodpecker got away from me a moment ago. And if only nuthatches could be persuaded to be more talkative.’

  Then she turned, saw Seth was still following, fascinated, and put something in his hand. ‘Think you might want to find a better place for this.’

  She closed his fingers over something bumpy and rough. He had hopes it might be a gift of a small capsule of birdsong. He would love that, but as she moved off with her net held high, he scrutin
ized the object and could see it was an unusual piece of wood. Actually, when he looked at it closely, it wasn’t simply a piece of wood, but a large and very intriguing nut, all knobbly, with an interesting grain.

  You never knew what might be growing out here, but Seth had seen nothing like that before. Where had it come from?

  He plunged on after her.

  ‘It fell on me as I walked outside the lounge doors,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Took me a moment to realize what it actually was. I guess someone,’ she turned to wink at him, ‘was trying to dispose of it, but it must have got lodged in the shrubbery.’

  Seth looked back at the hotel, where a gnarled wisteria clung to the outside. But how had a large nut been in the shrubbery? It hadn’t been growing there, surely? Could it have been dropped from one of the windows above?

  Mr and Mrs Bunn and Henri were on the second floor directly above the lounge. Angelique Squerr and Kingfisher were in rooms below them. Next to those were two empty rooms. He looked again at the nut.

  ‘Don’t know how you did it, but well done. Trust me.’ She winked once more. ‘I won’t say a word.’ She tapped the side of her nose, still chuckling as she moved off to where the birdsong was loudest.

  Why had the professor given it to him?

  He wished he understood that wink.

  23. A Glorious Shade of Forget-me-nots

  Seth looked up and knew it was about to be that perfect moment when the rose-tinted light of the early dawn broke over the trees. Soon the whole sky would momentarily come alive like it was aflame, touched with the most beautiful shade of cerise, like strawberries changing to oranges.

  Seth loved this time of day in the autumn when you could breathe the scent of fruit ripening in the air. Just for a few fleeting minutes, if you were lucky enough to catch it, the forest would wake under a cloud of sleepy fog that would gradually lift, exposing millions of leaves in a costume so different from their summer green, it felt like a totally new place. But that was the beauty of the forest. Every single day he would see something fresh, it would change hour by hour. Yet still somehow remain the same.

  These days the hotel had become so quiet. The only folk who strayed here were so utterly lost in the Last Hope Forest they couldn’t believe their luck to stumble upon somewhere they’d get a welcome bed and a late-night cup of cocoa.

  But Seth loved the forest, had always loved the forest. He loved the fact that once your ears got used to the silence you started to hear the endless trees whispering, then birdsong tuned in. And finally, you could hear the screech and crackle of wildlife as it scurried about its tooth-and-claw business. And you realized that most of what was going on out there was savage, if mostly silent.

  He moved forward slowly. Already, underfoot, the ground was beginning to soften with its blanket of leaves and he bent to collect some mushrooms he spotted that had sprung up there overnight. It was the perfect time for them and if the hotel had been as quiet as usual, he’d have happily spent the rest of the day foraging and dreaming up different recipes to try in secret.

  He was just pocketing a good hoard of mushrooms when he made out a shadowy figure bent low next to one of the walls. He and Professor Papperspook were not the only people up and about early.

  But why was Dr Thallomius’s personal assistant out early? And what exactly was she doing?

  He was determined not to lose the opportunity to find out.

  From her crouched position, Angelique lifted her cane. Seth thought it was pointing directly at him and ducked as she released a dramatic sizzling flash of blue.

  But it was the window that got it, a gentle cascade like a waterfall of bright blue light. Seth flinched, expecting the window to shatter, but the glow just flowed around it, turning the glass a glorious shade of forget-me-nots in the frosty morning air.

  She wasn’t wearing the rustling silk gown of last night, nor the crimson cape. She was wearing a dark suit, a red shirt and shoes that were little suited to crouching in the mud like she was doing now. She was still holding her cane and Seth watched her put away a pencil-thin torch into her red handbag. So Angelique had been out here since before it was light.

  The snap of a twig beneath his foot as he moved in for a closer look sounded as loud as a gunshot in the clear, frosty air.

  But all she did was remove a notebook from the red handbag she was carrying, frown to herself and jot something down.

  Seth breathed a sigh of relief, not quite able to believe that he’d got away with it. As Angelique scribbled more notes, he wondered if he could creep around and get close enough to see what she was writing.

  ‘Make a habit of spying on people do you?’ She lifted her sharp, dark eyes and they bored directly into his.

  ‘Erm,’ he stammered. ‘Well, what are you doing?’

  She tucked away her notebook. ‘I asked first,’ she said, managing to look down her tilted nose even as she rose from her crouched position. ‘Out and about bright and early?’ She made it sound like an accusation.

  ‘It is the most amazing garden,’ he gabbled. ‘Whatever you need, you can somehow find it, which is peculiar because of course apples have a different season to strawberries.’

  She flipped the silver top of her cane and Seth ducked as she sent a light shower of cornflower-blue sparkles into the icy morning sky. The sparkles held in the frostbitten air for a blinding second and moved to wrap themselves around the wall in front of him.

  Seth watched, entranced, as the shimmer of blue crystals hung suspended in the air, just for a second, before melting away. Angelique frowned at the end of her cane.

  The walls of the hotel answered with a shuddering sigh.

  Angelique snapped shut the top on her cane. ‘Show me.’

  They fell into step. The sun was rising rapidly, spreading a welcome warm and pink glow behind the dark outlines of trees, making it look like the forest beyond the garden was in flames. Angelique used the cane to help her walk over the uneven ground.

  ‘Are you taking some sort of readings with that cane? Are you . . . are you doing magic?’ Seth asked timidly.

  Seth hadn’t yet worked out if she actually needed it or that was just an excuse for carrying it.

  ‘If you must know, I got bitten on the ankle,’ snapped Angelique.

  Seth felt himself colour and realized he must have been staring at her leg, wondering if it was a monster that bit her, or simply someone she’d been snarky to last week.

  ‘Sorry to hear that. So, is your red cane one of those magical inventions?’

  ‘It’s a divinoscope. It’s very sensitive.’

  ‘Can I look at it?’ he asked eagerly.

  She pulled it back sharply. ‘I said it’s very sensitive.’

  He felt stung by her snappy attitude, but showed her the way back past the greenhouse, hardly able to believe they were simply walking in this garden, like he had done every day of his life – and they were talking about magic as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘So what is a divinoscope exactly?’

  ‘It can follow ripples of even very stale magic.’

  Seth wanted to know why on earth anyone should want to follow ripples of very stale magic, but instead said, ‘What is being magic like? Were you born magic?’

  ‘Magic is complicated.’ Angelique gave a shrug of her slim shoulders. ‘It’s a bit like cooking, Seth.’ She said it with a bright smile like she was talking to an idiot. ‘Some follow a recipe exactly and it still doesn’t work out. Some folk believe it’s because you need to be born with a spark of something, some natural ability. And what your magical ability might be varies. But even simple magic can take months of study and practice to perfect. Magic is mostly hard work.’

  Hard work. Seth found it difficult to believe magic was anything other than tremendously exciting. ‘So this Prospect – Oh, do you mind me asking you all these questions?’

  He was rewarded with a huge and weary sigh from Angelique.

  She del
ved into the shiny red handbag she carried everywhere. She pushed something in the flat of her palm right under Seth’s nose.

  ‘This might help you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘This is what you get if you do OK at the Prospect. If you prove you have a spark of genuine magic and get accepted into the Elysee. Just for now you can borrow mine.’

  Seth peered forward, his heart thundering madly to see what she had taken out of her bag, expecting to see something marvellous, something magical.

  It looked like a red credit card, smooth, flat, shiny and rectangular.

  ‘Erm – what exactly is it?’

  ‘This? This is the doorway to magic.’

  24. A Towering Skyscraper of Books

  Seth could only stare as she held the small shiny card in the flat of her hand. He felt distinctly unimpressed.

  But as Angelique held out the card, it started to grow. An image twisted and formed and it was like looking into a room in miniature.

  ‘This is the most valuable thing to a sorcerer. However natural your magic, Seth, however good you think you are, no sorcerer should ever stop studying. Magic in the hands of someone who does no study and does not know what they are doing – now that definitely is dangerous. This is a library card.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Seth wanted to laugh. ‘A library card? Everyone is putting themselves through the Prospect for a library card?’

  Angelique let out a small tsk of annoyance and tossed her hair. ‘Getting an Elysee library card is a tremendous honour. A ticket to the secret Elysee library of magical texts? How can you not be excited? There is nothing so brilliant and unexpected as the wonders you’ll find in a book.’

  Seth looked back down at the card. It was growing again. He could make out a beautiful old room, vast, seemingly endless, with an arched ceiling, full of shafts of daylight that highlighted ancient maps and globes. But what you noticed most was the books. Shelves and shelves of them, towering upwards, like a skyscraper of books.

  Seth pressed his nose against what Angelique was showing him. A moving picture. He could almost have stepped into the room.