and animantic practitioners are extremely powerful.”
Emily narrowed her eyes. The name Lyakhov popped into her head. A Russian name.
“Fascinating,” she said.
It was nearly ten when they arrived in San Francisco, but Emily was so excited she didn’t feel tired at all. After retrieving the horses, they rode out from the wharves and into the largest aggregation of buildings Emily had ever seen. Structures towered above her—behemoths of brick and stone and wood, rising story upon story into the dark night sky. Gas streetlights cast a warm tawny glow over everything. Even at that late hour, the streets were alive with activity: hansom cabs and brewery carts, groups of men walking fast and talking loud. Romulus’ and Remus’ hooves clattered smartly against the street’s smoothly rounded cobblestones.
They rode to a hotel on Kearny Street. It was an extremely splendid hotel and made the other hotels they’d stayed in seem unforgivably shabby. Where other hotels had flashy red-lettered placards pushing their names, this hotel had only a small, refined sign of etched brass: Excelsior.
The lobby was huge, high ceilinged, with marble columns around which palms in celadon pots were decoratively arranged. Acres of extravagantly flowered carpeting stretched from wall to mahogany-paneled wall. The richly colored expanse was dotted with velvet-covered circular couches and plush overstuffed banquettes, islands in a baroque sea. The coved ceiling was encrusted with gilt plaster. Gaslight blazed from cut-crystal chandeliers.
Emily was suddenly acutely aware of how ridiculous she looked. Pap’s old denim pants peeked from beneath the hem of her skirt, her buffalo coat was matted and ripe from the soaking it had received two days before, and her white kid gloves had come to resemble the skin of a month-old corpse. Blushing, she thrust her hands deep into her pockets, trying to ignore the people in the lobby who were doing their best to stare without staring.
She hung back while Stanton arranged for rooms. After making sure Emily had a bellman to see her up, Stanton went to arrange the stabling of the horses.
“Doesn’t the hotel have stables?” Emily asked him.
“It certainly does,” Stanton said, tipping his hat to her. And then he was gone.
Throwing her saddlebags over her shoulder, Emily prepared to follow the neatly dressed bellman up to her room. But the fellow just stood there, looking uncomfortable. He had to clear his throat twice before she figured it out. She let the bags slide to the floor, and the bellman seized them happily.
Of course, she scolded herself, as she followed him up. That’s what they’re for. Toting bags and carrying notes and busting in on guilty lovers and such. Emily cast her mind back over all the stories from Ladies’ Repository in which bellmen had played a part.
The room was nice enough, with a lovely view of the bay, but it was the lavatory that fascinated Emily—right in the room itself! Emily had rarely seen water on tap, much less hot water. Fragrant soaps wrapped like little gifts sat on a side table and huge white towels were folded neatly on a nickel-plated rack above the steam register.
After some fiddling, she managed to run herself a hot bath. Sliding into the claw-footed tub, she unbraided her long hair and let it float around her. The hot water, the warmth of the steam registers, and the lilac scent of the soap all conspired to make her feel extremely sleepy.
She held up her right hand, lazily watching the light from the flickering gas jet shine through the stone. Strangely, the color of the stone seemed to have changed. She remembered it being as clear as a piece of blue glass, but now it seemed milkier, yellower, and it was flecked with little dark inclusions. She remembered Komé’s words … the stone is trying to speak to you, but you do not have the ears to hear, and it does not have the tongue to speak.
She stared at the stone hard, trying to feel the message it contained, trying to feel if there was really a message at all. Finally she gave up, plunging her hand into the soapy water.
After her bath she could have folded herself into the crisp white bed immediately, but she couldn’t let a whole tub of good hot water go to waste. She washed her chemise, petticoat, and stockings, hanging the items to dry over the steam register. When she was finished, she turned down the gas and slid between the smooth sheets, stark naked save for the silk pouch she always