· Inscribe your request upon a card. The book contains a selection of offerings but please do not let its listings dictate your choices, we will be happy to prepare anything you wish if it is within our means.
· Place your request card in the dumbwaiter. Close the door and press the button to send your request to the Kitchen.
· Your refreshment will be prepared and sent to you. A chime will indicate its arrival.
· Please return any unneeded or unused dishes, etcetera, via the same method when you are finished.
· Additional access is available throughout the Harbor in designated areas for use when you are not in your chamber.
If you have any questions feel free to include them with your requests and we shall do our best to answer them.
Thank you, and again, we hope you will enjoy your stay.
—The Kitchen
Inside the box there are a number of similar note cards and a fountain pen. Zachary flips through the book which contains the longest menu he has ever seen: chapters and lists of food and beverages organized and cross-referenced by style, taste, texture, temperature, and regional cuisines by continent.
He closes the book and picks up a card and after some consideration he writes down Hello and thanks for the welcome and requests coffee with cream and sugar and a muffin or a croissant, whatever they might have. He puts the card in the dumbwaiter and closes the door and presses the button. The button lights up and there is a soft mechanical noise, a miniature version of the elevator hum.
Zachary turns his attention back to the room and the books but a minute later there is a chime from the wall. As he opens the door he wonders if he did something incorrectly or if perhaps they are out of both muffins and croissants but inside he finds a silver tray containing a steaming pot of coffee, an empty mug, a bowl of sugar cubes and a tiny pitcher of (warmed) cream accompanied by a basket of warm pastries (three muffins of varying flavors, croissants of the butter and au chocolat variety, as well as a folded pastry that appears to involve apples and goat cheese). There is also a chilled bottle of sparkling water and a glass and a folded cloth napkin with a single yellow flower tucked inside.
Another card informs him that the lemon poppy seed muffin is gluten-free and if he has any dietary restrictions to please let them know. Also if he would like jam or honey.
Zachary stares at the pastry basket as he pours his coffee, adding a drop of cream and a single sugar cube. The coffee is a stronger blend than he is used to but smooth and excellent and so is everything he tries from the pastry basket of wonderment. Even the water is particularly nice, though he has always thought that sparkling water feels fancier because of the bubbles.
What is this place?
Zachary takes his pastries (which, though delicious, are blurry) and his coffee back to the desk, trying to clear his head with the aid of caffeine and carbohydrates. He opens Dorian’s book again. He turns the pages slowly. There are old-fashioned illustrations, lovely full-color pages sprinkled throughout, and the titles make it seem like a book of fairy tales. He reads a few lines of one called “The Girl and the Feather” before turning back to the beginning, but as he does a key falls from the space beneath the spine of the book and clatters onto the desk.
The key is long and thin, a skeleton key with a rounded head and small simple teeth. It is sticky, as though it had been glued into the spine of the book, behind the pages and underneath the leather.
Zachary wonders if it was the book or the key that Dorian was after. Or both.
He opens the book again and reads the first story, which includes within it a version of the same tale Dorian told him in the dark at the party. It does not, to his disappointment, elaborate as to what the mouse did with Fate’s heart. Reading the story brings back more complicated emotions than Zachary knows how to deal with this early in the morning so he closes the book and strings the key on the chain along with his room key and then pulls on the grey turtleneck sweater. It is such a heavy knit that the keys and the compass and the sword are camouflaged beneath the cables and it keeps them from clattering. He expects the sweater to smell like cedar but instead it smells faintly of pancakes.
On a whim he writes a note to the Kitchen and asks about laundry.
Do please send us anything that needs cleaning, Mr. Rawlins
comes the quick response.
Zachary piles his paint-splattered suit in the dumbwaiter as neatly as he can and sends it down.
A few seconds later the bell chimes, and at this point Zachary wouldn’t be surprised if his clothes were somehow clean already but instead he finds the forgotten contents of his pockets returned: his hotel key and his wallet and two pieces of paper, one the note from Dorian and the other a printed ticket with a scribbled word that was once a bourbon and is now a smudge. Zachary leaves everything on the mantel, beneath the bunny pirates.
He finds a messenger bag, an old military-type bag in a faded olive green with a number of buckles. He puts Fortunes and Fables inside along with a muffin carefully wrapped in his napkin and then, after half making the rumpled bed, leaves the room, locking the door behind him, and attempts to find his way back to the entrance. The Heart, the Keeper had called it.
He makes three turns before he resorts to consulting his compass. The halls look different, brighter than before, the light changed. There are lamps tucked between books, strings of bulbs hanging from the ceilings. Lights that look like gas lamps at intersections. There are stairs but he doesn’t remember stairs so he doesn’t take any of them. He passes through a large open room with long tables and green glass lamps that looks very library-like except for the fact that the entire floor is sunken into a reflecting pool, with paths left raised and dry to traverse the space or to reach the table islands. He passes a cat staring intently into the water and follows its gaze to a single orange koi swimming under the cat’s watchful eye.
This place is not what Zachary had pictured while reading Sweet Sorrows.
It is bigger, for a start. He can never see terribly far in one direction at any time but it feels like it goes on forever. He can’t even think how to describe it. It’s like an art museum and an overflowing library were relocated into a subway system.
More than anything it reminds Zachary of his university campus: the long stretches of walkways connecting different areas, the endless bookshelves, and something he can’t put his finger on, a feeling more than an architectural feature. A studiousness underlying a place of learning and stories and secrets.
Though he appears to be the only student. Or the only one who isn’t a cat.
After the reflecting-pool reading room and a hall full of books that all have blue covers Zachary takes a turn that leads him back to the tiled cathedral-esque entrance with its universe clock. The chandeliers are brighter, though some are slumped on the floor. They are suspended (or not) by long stringlike cords and chains, in blues and reds and greens. He hadn’t noticed that before. The tiles look more colorful but chipped and faded, parts seem like murals but there are not enough pieces left in place to make out any of the subjects. The pendulum sways in the middle of the room. The door to the elevator