Hyacinth Hotel
The Hyacinth Hotel is the Grappo guild-family's most important holding in Ossa, serving as both a hotel and the guild-family mansion. It is a magnificent four-story granite structure that sits in an enviable piece of real estate in the Assembly District. Its façade is adorned with golden gargoyles, immense hammerglass windows, purple drapes embroidered with the Grappo silic sigil, an immense marble staircase, and massive double doors. Inside, the hotel is furnished with crimson carpets, marble staircases, white walls with purple accents, and gold leaf door latches. The hotel grounds also include a restaurant, a hotel garden, a large mews, some stables, an old glassworks, a gymnasium, and the family mausoleum, which is carved with the faces of the Grappo family founders.
Adriana Grappo always preferred to treat the building as a hotel rather than a guild-family mansion, keeping the security light for the comfort of the guests. The hotel's concierge is Breenen Alvari, who also serves as the Grappo guild-family's majordomo. Tirana Kirkovik serves as the hotel's master-at-arms. The hotel also employs dozens of porters, bellboys, waiters, maids, and enforcers. Demir believes it stands as a testament to power the Grappo guild-family used to enjoy generations ago, though the Hyacinth Hotel is all that remains of that wealth and prestige.
STORY
When Demir Grappo returns from his self-imposed exile in the provinces, he goes straight to the Hyacinth Hotel to take over its management. He does not recognize any of its current staff and skirts around them until he is stopped by Tirana Kirkovik, who does not recognize him at first. Demir studies his mother's suites, realizing that all of her papers had been confiscated by the Cinders after her murder. However, Breenen Alvari gives him a secret death journal written by his mother which contains ledgers and a note that explains he is now owner of the hotel. While looking around, Demir spots the monstrous face of a Yuglid through one of the windows, though he believes the nightmarish face to be only a trick of his mind due to stress. He asks Breenen if the hotel has ever become haunted in the nine years of his absence, but the majordomo asks if he is being serious.
During the attack at the Grent Royal Glassworks, Master Kastora tells Thessa Foleer to take his phoenix channel schematics to Adriana Grappo at the Hyacinth Hotel, not realizing that Adriana had already been murdered. He says he will meet her there later, but he dies before he can leave the glassworks. Thessa tries to make her way to Ossa but is captured on the road at Ossan military roadblock. She tries to bargain for her freedom, saying Adriana Grappo at the Hyacinth Hotel will pay her ransom, but the soldiers simply tell her Adriana is dead, and they send Thessa to the Ivory Forest Glassworks instead.
After Demir returns from the Grent Royal Glassworks, he puts Thessa's falcon Ekhi into the hotel's stateroom-sized mews. Demir's own falcon died when he was young, so the mews had been abandoned until then. He then goes to the hotel garden, passing the old glassworks to the family mausoleum where he descends the purple and white marble staircase finds the marble busts of every guild-family matriarch or patriarch for the last thirty generations. Adriana does not yet have a bust, but Demir visits her ashes and talks aloud to them about his childhood before asking his father's bust to take care of her and leaves. As he leaves the crypt, he finds Baby Montego has arrived at the hotel, so he orders Breenen to set up a suite for his adopted brother next to his own and offer him every service and comfort available. They then go into his office to talk. Meanwhile, a package arrives from Idrian Sepulki, who sent Master Kastora's destroyed phoenix channel prototype to the hotel for Demir to study. Demir knows he must keep his phoenix channel project a highly protected secret, lest the hotel suddenly be crawling with guild-family spies, saboteurs, and assassins. Demir thinks Montego's presence might keep them at bay for some time but not for long.
After Demir and Montego con Ulina Magna out of her Ivory Forest Glassworks shares, Supi Magna visits the hotel to bargain with Demir. They meet in the restaurant, where Supi tries to buy back the shares, but Demir, who really wants the shares so he can save Thessa from the glassworks, refuses all offers, stating that if Supi truly made such offers, there must be something valuable there. Supi leaves empty-handed and furious. After Demir and Montego rescue Thessa, they bring her to the hotel and give her control over the old glassworks. She begins work on the phoenix channel immediately. She prevents anyone from entering the workshop, both for secrecy and their safety since the high resonance of the sorcery inside could immediately cause glassrot. She also meets with several craftsman in the hotel restaurant, commissioning work from a tinsmith, blacksmith, and carpenter. Breenen agrees to encourage the craftsmen to stay on task and work fast, though he also makes it clear to Thessa that the survival of the Grappo will be his legacy.
Kissandra Vorcien goes to the Hyacinth Hotel on several occasions to make reports to Demir about her investigation into Adriana's death. However, she does her best to avoid Montego while she is there, not wanting to see him due to their past history. After making her report to Demir about the involvement of several guild-families united by their involvement in a Fulgurist Society called the Glass Knife, Demir offers her a toffee from a drawer. Tasting and smelling the candy, Kizzie remembers the days she spent at the hotel in her childhood when she played with Demir and Montego on the floor of Adriana's study. Adriana gave the toffee to all of Demir's friends and showed Kizzie so many kindnesses that even her own family did not. Later, when Kizzie discovers her brother Capric Vorcien was one of the Adriana's killers, Kizzie finds the toffee wrapper in her pocket. Though she once again remembers the past days with fondness, decides to ignore those feelings in favor of loyalty to her own family and only tells her father about Capric's crime. However, she does send Capric's order to sack Holikan to Breenen at the hotel anonymously, hoping it would bring some closure to Demir.
During the forgeglass riot, a mob of laborers storm the Assembly District, tearing up cobblestones, upending carriages, breaking glass, setting fires, and beating people. They coming right up to the steps of the Hyacinth Hotel, where Tirana Kirkovik has set up a perimeter of her enforcers to guard the building. Demir goes out to talk to them, but Thessa worries he will kill the workers. When he blanks on what to say to the mob, Thessa tells him to go inside, but he says if he is not outside, his enforcers will have to be. Just as the Cinders arrive, ready to start attacking the rioters, Thessa thinks quickly and has Breenen fetch all the forgeglass in the hotel. To get the crowd's attention, Demir uses his sorcery to hang dozens of glass shards above their heads as a warning, and when they go silent, he states he will take the laborers' concerns to the Assembly before distributing the hotel's forgeglass to the protestors. Pacified by the offering, the mob disperses. Demir keeps watch on the hotel's front steps for the rest of the day before going in, knowing that the peace is only temporary since the godglass prices will continue to rise. That night, Demir finds Thessa in the mews with Ekhi, and she thanks him for saving her falcon, though he had no idea it was hers. They discuss their business partnership, and then the conversation turns more toward their personal relationship. Thessa invites Demir up to her suites, and they start heading to the wine cellar. However, Breenen interrupts them, saying the Cinders have come to the Hyacinth Hotel to escort Demir to the Inner Assembly. Demir worries they intend to execute him for his role in the riot earlier, and he apologizes to Thessa and tells Breenen to wake Montego if he does not return to the hotel in a few hours. Luckily, the Cinders only escort him to the Maerhorn where the Inner Assembly ask him to take charge of the military.
While Demir is away with the army, Dorlani Family agents enter the hotel using a door left open for them. They kill the night porter and drug Montego's tea before breaking into Thessa's workshop to steal her work, not necessarily knowing what they were stealing. Thessa finds the night porter's body and manages to wake up Montego by slapping his face. He grabs his cudgel, tells Thessa not to leave the room or look out the window, and rushes to the workshop where he kills every Dorlani agent before they can steal anything or escape. Tirana, still in her nightclothes though armed, takes charge of the situation and directs her enforcers as they swarm through the hotel. Meanwhile, porters go from room to room, apologizing to the guests and telling them to stay inside their suites until morning. Montego returns to his suite, drenched in blood, to report that there were six Dorlani agents and that they had killed Horphel and Faille. Tirana curses the loss of her enforcers. Pari comes to check on Thessa and insists she not look out the window at the bloody mess left by Montego downstairs until it has been cleaned up. Pari gets Thessa a pot of tea while Thessa reads Sumala Volos's book to calm her nerves. She then comes up with the idea of moving her phoenix channel operation away from the hotel to a location with more lightning, and Pari suggests they go to the Forge.
Demir returns to the hotel before visiting the Inner Assembly to make his report, and Breenen gives him the news of the Dorlani burglary and brings him Kizzie's anonymous envelop which contains Capric's signed order to sack Holikan. Despite Breenen's objections, Demir leaves the hotel to go straight to the High Vorcien Club to confront Capric. Just as the Cinders arrest him for dueling, he watches his carriage driver sprint on foot back to the Hyacinth Hotel to report his arrest to Breenen and Montego. After Father Vorcien forces Demir into a marriage contract with Kizzie, he sends her back to the hotel, telling her to ingratiate herself with the Grappo. When she asks about the blood-feud between Demir and Capric, her father tells her it has been resolved, though he does not mention her engagement. Knowing she has no other recourse, she goes to the hotel to ask Montego for help with the Tall Man and Aelia Dorlani. Seeing all the extra enforcers outside, she worries they are there to protect the Hyacinth Hotel against the Vorcien due to the blood-feud, and, worrying that Demir has fired her, she hides her Vorcien silic sigil tattooed hand in her pocket. When the porter at the front desk tries to turn her away, saying Montego did not wish to be disturbed, she shows the sigil and gives her name. The porter then informs her that Demir had left orders to accommodate her in every way, indicating she had not been fired. Kizzie finds Montego in the hotel gymnasium exercising, and she approaches him with apologies for avoiding him. The two talk over their fifteen-year estrangement, realizing they had both been acting like scared children, and they embrace before Montego agrees to help Kizzie in the final leg of her investigation. Montego decides to bring the corpses of the dead Dorlani porters with them to help in their plan to approach Aelia.
After Thessa, Pari, Tirana, Breenen, and several dozen enforcers go to the Forge, an enforcer named Justaci tumbles off the side of the cliff to her death. Tirana tells Thessa that Justaci had just secretly reported that she found an open door in the basement on the night of the Dorlani raid, suggesting that someone on the hotel staff had let the agents in. Tirana suggested that this information had endangered Justaci, and her death proved there was indeed a traitor in their midst. Looking for powder residue on everyone's hands, Thessa and Tirana catch Kempt, one of Breenen's loyal enforcers, who set up a signal flare to communicate with Kerite's Drakes. Breenen tries to intervene, but Tirana draws her weapons. She asks if Breenen brought his shackleglass, but he claims to have left it in the hotel. Thessa worries about traitors, wondering why the traitor would leave the door open for the Dorlani but also worked for Grent. However, the arrival of Captain Hellonian and his dragoons reveals the involvement of the Glass Knife and Breenen's personal deal with them.
Type
Hospitality, Hotel
Parent Location
