Page 79 of Of Monsters Of Kings

Hotel Vitale, in possession of four-fifths of its property, was not as I’d left it. Hotels were uniform by nature, and so lack of uniformity became easy to spot.

All was normal from the entrance barricade and past reception. Normality continued to my rooms on the first level. If I decided to walk past the second level, which I had a minute ago, then things took a turn to the new.

I’d ripped out window bars on the third level and smashed up mirrors to use for fortifications on the walls. When I’d last seen this level, concrete chunks and dust had littered the landing. I’d intended to clean what I could, but time had slipped away. And now…

“Goodness,” I breathed.

Gone were the functional concrete steps, and in their place curved shallow and wider steps blushed blue and pink with dusk’s greeting. Hellebores covered the balustrade in a curtain and encroached on the stairs in places.

I trailed my fingertips through their black petals as I obeyed the lure of the sweeping stairwell. Peering over the balustrade, I spotted a twin staircase that rose from the other end of the second level. The twin sets of stairs were as great arms hugging the hotel below, and at their center, where a head might sit on a person, was a circular building I’d be inclined to call a conservatory. I’d seen glasshouses at garden centers during field trips, and this building had that look, but the magnificence stole my breath and there was no apparent function to the space other than to be impossibly beautiful. No seedlings grew in trays, and no gardening tools hung on the walls.

I rested my hand on the dull copper of the conservatory walls and scratched at a patch oxidized by time into glorious patches of blues and greens. The glass panels interrupting the dull copper walls and ceiling at regular intervals around the conservatory were appropriately dusty, and a carpet of thyme formed the lush flooring in the building. I inhaled the lemon scent it released with each step I took into the incredible space.

I turned a full circle at the center. “How?”

How had this appeared? Who had done this for me?

This space, though empty, felt entirely welcoming. This place felt like me. I saw myself in the copper, some unblemished and some showing signs of time. Thyme itself was underfoot, the glass was clouded just like my future. The place was beautiful and also old, though it had just appeared.

I stood in the middle of my conservatory, breathing in lemon thyme and dust, and only then noticed a heavy drape of burgundy velvet hung across a panel in front of me. The pattern of the walls made me assume that a glass panel sat behind the drape, yet my instincts warned assumption was unwise. If this place reflected me, then it also reflected my fear of what I’d become. I’d heed my instincts in this and not touch the drape yet.

“Redecorating?”

Toil was here, and I didn’t need to face him to know it with the delightful wet squelches he made.

“It seems so,” I answered, glancing at my arms to check for the presence of stitches. They’d appeared, and the conservatory’s appearance had distracted me from the itch of their arrival.

“We’re here to capture you, Lady Patch.”

Hmm. “Not today, Toil. That would not do.”

“All right,” he agreed, then muttered low, “But why would I not capture you? I was ordered to capture you.”

He had questions for himself, and I had questions for myself. Hotel Vitale had changed, and this reminded me of how another building once did the same. King See’s palace first appeared to me as an apartment. I could fathom how my subsequent slumbers and increasing ancientness had revealed more and more of his home and kingdom. Why couldn’t my hotel change in the same manner?

As I became more ancient, the truth of Hotel Vitale was revealed. I saw this part clearly. But was this something all monsters received?

“Toil, Hex, Sigil,” I said, interrupting them. “Do you have a home of your own?”

Sigil said, “Why no, Lady Patch. We have chambers, that is it. Our home is that of our liege.”

That told me nothing. “When you awoke to your power, did your chamber grow as your power grew?”

“My chamber has never changed, lady. My power has never altered either.”

“And the world as a whole, is it the same now as when you woke?”

“What does she mean?” Hex whispered.

These were matters above princes, I could tell. “It’s of no matter. The way I see Vitale changes as I go, is all. I become more ancient and see more beauty, but I awoke to monsterdom in an unusual sort of way.”

Toil said, “That doesn’t sound pleasant to think a thing is one thing, then it becomes another thing. You wouldn’t know what to expect from one minute to the next.”

That was a good summary of it, really, and the phenomenon didn’t just apply to buildings. I could sense the new strength in me. I’d been able to rip bars from windows before the last slumber, and now I felt certain of my ability to crumble the metal to dust if I wished. The strength reminded me of the power in Change’s princes, of the way Huckery, Unguis, and Loup had lunged and snapped and buckled in the cage.

“You came early today,” Will Be grumbled as he joined us, closely followed by Is and Has Been. “And you took up most of the courtyard with your trinkets.”

I whipped to glance over my shoulder so fast that my brain rattled. “Trinkets?”

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