He pursed his lips. “What are you saying? You don’t like the key?”
“Not at all, they’re very art nouveau, but that’s probably because they’re at least a hundred years old, which means your door locks are the same age. I took a course in lock picking a year ago,” I said by way of explanation. “The instructor had a passion for old padlocks, and he said that a lot of locks shared keys. I was just pointing out that your keys might fall under that description.”
He lifted his eye patch to give me a long, pointed look, then lowered it again, and picked up his book. “The patrons at the Hotel Ocelot do not sleep in fear.”
Which was an odd sort of thing to say, when you think about it. And I did, for about as long as it took me to escort Mrs. P outside, and across the street, where we found a small ethnic grocery store, a brightly lit electronics store that blared Middle-Eastern music… and a tea shop.
“I’ll be damned,” I said, staring at the front of the small shop with faded curtains shading the lower half of the windows, no doubt to screen the customers sitting there.
“I hope not. Not in those shoes, anyway,” Mrs. P said with another derisive glance at my feet.
“Ponyhof?” I asked, reading the sign that said Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof. “That’s something to do with a pony, isn’t it?
“It means ‘life isn’t a place for riding ponies.’ You will take your shoes off to enter.”
“Really, what is your obsession with my choice of footwear—oh.” I read the small sign that lurked at knee level, and stated in three different languages that shoes were to be deposited at the entrance.
We entered, and immediately it felt as if I’d been swept back a hundred years. The room was lit by small shaded lamps perched in the center of tiny round tables, each of which was covered by a colorful paisley shawl. The lamps dripped with jet beads, while the room was dotted with large potted plants. The whole ambiance of the place reeked late Victorian/early Edwardian, and was oddly comforting.
That is, until I bent down to pluck off one of my shoes (and admittedly looked forward to it since even the most comfortable pair of heels has limits) when I caught sight of the two men sitting at the table half screened by a large potted palm.
One of them was a stranger, but the second was the man from the plane—the one who had tried to knife Mrs. P.
Except the handsome Rowan had said that it wasn’t a knife.
“My favorite table,” Mrs. P said, bustling forward barefoot and plopping herself down in a chair at a table that was already occupied by a man and woman, both of whom watched her in surprise.
I stopped frowning at the man from the plane, removed my shoes, and hurried after my charge.
“Er… hello,” the woman said to Mrs. P. She had a short black bob, the sort that flappers used to have in the 1920s, while her companion had dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail, latte-colored skin, and the most brilliant gray eyes I’d ever seen.
“I’m so sorry for disturbing you,” I said hurriedly, tapping Mrs. P on the arm while simultaneously trying to pull back her chair.
She clung to the table with a ferocity that I hadn’t expected, but the presence of the man who had tried to attack her made me very nervous, and I decided that the best thing was for us to skedaddle. “My… companion… is a bit enthusiastic. We’ll take ourselves away.”
“No. This is my favorite table. It has the best view of the spirits,” Mrs. P insisted, and gave a loud squawk when I tried to pull her chair back from the table.
“These nice people were already here,” I said in a reasonable tone that faded away to nothing when I realized that everyone in the tearoom—which was about three-quarters full—was watching us with horrified expressions.
“I don’t want to go back to the hotel!” Mrs. P said indignantly.
I slid a glance toward the plane man. He was tapping his fingers on the table and glaring at me.
“I really think we should be leaving,” I said, trying to gently heft Mrs. P from her chair without looking like an abusive caretaker who ran roughshod over her client’s wishes.
“The séance hasn’t started. We can’t leave until it is completed,” Mrs. P insisted, clutching the edge of the table. “Why aren’t you listening to me, gel?”
“I am listening to you, but I don’t think you’re safe here.”
“Nonsense. You there, tell Sophea that we can’t leave until the séance is over.”