Anjali Varma Chapter 1 The taxi snaked its way up the misty incline, past shuttered tea stalls and damp pine groves, until the silhouette of the Grand Eden Hotel loomed into view—its faded Tudor façade and ivy-strangled balconies exhaling secrets of a time long past. Aanya Mehra leaned forward from the backseat, pressing her hand to the fogged-up window. She had seen photographs of the place—black-and-white postcards tucked into history books and archived reports—but nothing prepared her for the haunting elegance of the real thing. Built in 1893, the hotel was a relic of the British Raj, its corridors having…