The Everlasting Rose (Belles, The)

by Dhonielle Clayton

  She’s creating a cat-and-mouse game to lead you into the trap. The longer you run, the more she believes the kingdom will turn in her favor. She envisions you arriving at the palace, trying to break into the Everlasting Rose, only to find your sisters are not there. She plans to record the incident and distribute the newsreels kingdom-wide, thinking this embarrassment will break you and the momentum you’ve gathered.

  She’s moving at a fevered pace—using my blood to create new Belles more quickly. But there’s only so much that she can use on a daily basis without nearly killing me, and that will never be an option for her. I am the aether. One Belle in every generation has the strongest blood—additional proteins that allow for her to help grow the next generation. Du Barry called us the everlasting roses.

  Camille, this is what I tried to tell you when I last saw you, but there wasn’t enough time. You are your generation’s aether. This is why Sophia has put a higher price on your head. She wants to use you, the way she’s using me. She even intends to combine our blood, to see what that yields her. She thinks the strongest Belle ever made. The guards will not kill you if they capture you. She needs us to populate her garden because ultimately she wants to find a way to sell many of the Belles in Trianon Square and will bleed us dry to do so. I keep hearing her say, “One for every household.”

  I’ve sent along my Belle-book with more details on the matter. Commit it all to memory, then burn the book. No one other than Belles must ever know all the inner workings. This information cannot fall into the wrong hands.

  You need to bring your sisters together, but be careful, Sophia has spies everywhere. More when I can.

  —A.

  I press the paper to my chest, the weight of her words holding my breath inside.

  “What do you want to do?” Rémy asks.

  The ship jerks. A baby pram being pushed by a woman crashes onto its side. Rémy races over to help her turn it upright and rescue the baby from the ground. The baby cries, the pitch of it searing through me, then blossoming an idea.

  I tuck my hand into my pocket where the poison bottle always sits like a dangerous treasure. What if Belle babies could be born without their arcana? What if they could be healthy—and Sophia unable to use them?

  I think of Valerie. She worked in the Belle-nursery, raising the new Belles with the nurses. She knows how we’re born, how we develop. If those Belle babies are born without their arcana, maybe they can be healthy and like everyone else, and will be unable to be used and sold.

  Valerie might know exactly how to stop that part of Sophia’s plan. We could work together to determine how to use the precise amount of this poison in the right way to kill arcana—how to save those Belle babies from this fate.

  I read the letter again. It doesn’t feel real. Hate simmers inside me, sharp, hot, and prickling. Arabella’s words are tinder for the fire inside me.

  “Last port ahead.” A bell rings and a man stalks through the ship’s underbelly. “Half an hourglass until docking.”

  Edel yawns and stretches out her arms. The teacup dragons hiccup and startle with annoyance.

  “Get up,” I whisper to her. “We need to talk.”

  She’s sluggish.

  “How do you feel?” I ask.

  “I’ll be better when we get on land,” she mutters.

  “Arabella sent a message.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “No time to argue.” I hand her Arabella’s letter.

  She unfurls the paper. Her eyes grow bigger and bigger as she reads, the words soaking in. She whispers the words aether and sold and everlasting rose. “How can any of this be true?”

  “It’s all in her Belle-book.” I show her the cover. “She’s put in clippings from old Belle-manuals and detailed everything.”

  She runs her fingers over the book, their white tips purpled with cold.

  “While we’re here, I want to get Valerie, too. I need her help,” I say.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” she says.

  “I don’t know all the details, but Valerie must. Once we find her, she can explain.”

  “Carondelet! Prepare to disembark.”

  Outside the circular windows, the sun spills buttery-orange rays across the water, lightening the dark waves to blue.

  I refasten the ribbon leashes around the teacup dragons’ necks and feed them tiny squares of salted pork. Ryra sits atop my hood. Happy and full, the others climb onto my shoulders, hooking their talons into my traveling cloak. I adjust the royal emblem Arabella gave me back at the palace—a dragon with a chrysanthemum hooked around its tail—that announces me as a favored reptilian merchant to the queen.

  “Ready?” Rémy asks, taking a deep breath and putting on his mask.

  “I have to be.” I gaze around, wondering if others will put on masks, if that’s the fashion here. “Should we wear these? Or will they attract more attention?”

  “I don’t have a choice,” he says.

  “If you would let me change you—”

  “We don’t have time to argue,” he replies as the crowd moves forward.

  I look at Edel. Her cheeks are clammy with the sheen of seasickness. “Can you hold a glamour until we find out if masks are popular here?”

  “I think so,” she grumbles.

  We hold hands, close our eyes, and call our arcana. My skin goes cold, the frost-laced wind now inside us as well as outside. Edel makes herself look like Du Barry—dark hair and a round face and beautiful full figure. I think of Maman again, assuming her outer appearance, but with deep black skin.

  Rémy gawks like he did the first time I used a glamour.

  “It’s still me,” I whisper.

  “I know,” he claims, though his eyes say otherwise. “I’m just getting used to it is all.”

  We walk onto the deck. Rich courtiers crowd the front with their servants at their sides toting children and boxes stacked like pastel patisserie treats.

  “I wonder if there’ll be more guards in Carondelet than Metairie,” a wealthy woman says while adjusting her large hair-tower. A sleeping teacup koala shifts higher into her strands, snuggling in to avoid the growing wind.

  “The whole world is under arrest right now,” her companion responds.

  “It’s time for things to return to order. I can’t last much longer without my beauty treatments. They’re going to be opening more asylums than teahouses if our new queen doesn’t get this all sorted soon,” another adds.

  “She’s made a lot of promises.”

  “That’s what children do.”

  “You shouldn’t talk about Her Majesty like that,” someone barks.

  “One must figure out the Belle situation,” a voice calls out.

  I stiffen. Rémy’s hand finds my waist. I hear Edel take a deep breath.

  “I’m tired of all the Belles fuss. I’m ready for things to go back to the way they’ve always been.”

  A nearby woman shouts, “The Belles cater to one class. What about the rest of us who can’t afford weekly or even monthly treatments?”

  The woman with the hair-tower gasps, then cranes, looking for the speaker in the small crowd.

  “They’ll have to bring in more to meet the demand. It’ll solve all this mess,” a man in a top hat replies, triumphantly. “Like télétrope sales. When they’re up, make more.”

  “Oh, hush up,” a woman beside him says.

  “Or we could get rid of all of them.”

  “Yeah, what about finding another way?”

  “All of this talk is upsetting my teacup sloth,” someone shouts.

  A loud bell rings, stamping out the conversation.

  A charged energy ripples over all of us. Rémy, Edel, and I make eye contact.

  “Line up to disembark. Keep the queue tidy,” a man directs. “No pushing.”

  The islands appear in the distance as the ship enters the Bay of Silk. Buildings boast sea-blue domes trimmed with a rose gold that glitters as
the sunrise hits it. Swaths of land are covered in huge spiraled silkworm cocoons and orchards of mulberry trees. Men and women climb ladders to reach the stacked towers, armed with silk collection baskets.

  Edel whispers, “Wow.”

  City-lanterns drift about like fallen stars, illuminating all of Carondelet’s wonders—deep canals cut through the quartiers grasping ornate watercoaches that sit on the blue like glittering jewels expelled by the God of the Sea. Advertising banners flutter behind vendor boats as they stop at piers and hustle their ornate wares to customers. A kaleidoscope of shops stretch as far as I can see.

  It’s one thing to be in the lesson rooms at Maison Rouge standing before Du Barry’s massive tapestry map of Orléans and another to actually see it for yourself. The world is vaster and more beautiful than she ever described. Each corner of it feels different and unique, part of a puzzle with disparate pieces that somehow fit together.

  The ship docks. Newsies swarm the pier with the morning papers. Others hold poles displaying silkscreen banners of the Fashion Minister, Gustave du Polignac. We disembark.

  “Early papers available!”

  “Get the Silk Post here!”

  “Daily Orléansian over this way!”

  “Sucré and the Beauty Tribune fresh off the presses.”

  The sight of the Fashion Minister’s face sends a temporary surge of relief into my bones. The silkscreens shift through images—his full lips break into a smile that lifts his freckled brown cheeks into a stoic and regal grimace. I almost lose hold of my glamour.

  “Queen Sophia’s new vivant dress line debuts today in preparation for the Coronation and Ascension. Come for a preview this afternoon with the Fashion Minister himself at the Silk Hall in Carondelet’s square,” a newsie hollers. “Look your best for our new queen.”

  “I’ve seen samples of the dresses. They’ll sell out quickly. Place your orders early,” another newsie shouts. “You don’t want to be left behind.”

  “Doors open at noon on the dot,” a third reminds. “Lines already forming along the mile.”

  “Let’s go get Valerie,” Edel says, marching ahead.

  “Wait! Didn’t you hear? People are already lining up to get in to see the Fashion Minister,” I say. “We should see him first.”

  “We have two hours. That’s too long to hold a glamour, especially after being sick. And we can’t go in there with these tattered masks. We’ll look out of place.”

  “But what if we don’t get in, and they close the doors?” I protest.

  “They want money. That won’t happen,” she replies, turning to Rémy. “What do you think?”

  “You care?” he asks.

  “No, but she does, so break the tie.”

  He sighs. “I think we should go assess the teahouse, see how many guards are stationed there and how we might get in.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Fine.”

  Edel pats Rémy’s shoulder and he tenses. “We agree on something,” she says and leads us to the line to board a small city boat.

  “The teahouse will be near the square,” Rémy whispers as we wait to board. “Nearest to the aristocratic Rose Quartier and the city’s Imperial Mile.” He points at the narrow canal to another prominent island. “All the cities are set up the same way.”

  “Silk Teahouse, please,” Edel tells the watercoach driver.

  “But it’s closed, miss,” he replies with a crooked grin.

  “Doesn’t matter. We have business there.”

  He shuffles away as we find tufted seats.

  The watercoach driver takes us to a nearby island where the Silk Teahouse sits. We climb out onto the pier. Rémy tells him to wait for us.

  Marble spirals cover the exterior of the teahouse, mimicking the pattern of the silkworm’s cocoons. A sloped roof is crusted over with snow, and its pier is red like a tongue that’s tasted too many strawberries. White sill-lanterns sit in the windows, dull and vacant.

  Guards stand at attention in front of the doorway and along the pier. Dozens of them.

  My heart beats too fast. How will we get past them?

  There is a Receiving House just ahead that’s a tiny replica of the teahouse and has a woman sitting inside it. A sign above her head reads SILK TEAHOUSE RECEPTION.

  “I’ll stand here to not draw as much attention,” Rémy says. “But I’ll keep watch.”

  “Ready?” I ask Edel.

  I take a deep breath and make sure the glamour is strong. I grimace as the cold pain radiates inside me and my bones feel like they might just splinter into shards.

  Edel nods. Rémy reaches out and gives my hand a squeeze before we go.

  We approach the woman behind a glass pane. She thumbs through a gossip tattler and wears a simple lavender dress with a royal emblem around her neck. It bears a silkworm coiled around a chrysanthemum, identifying her as an important courtier from the merchant House of Silk. A fire-lantern bathes her white skin in reds and oranges. The circuit-phones swallow the walls behind her.

  She doesn’t look up. Edel huffs, then taps the glass. The woman flinches in shock and the tattler drops from her lap, the fall shifting the portraits and animated ink across the parchment. Her eyes flutter over us and she is, apparently, unimpressed. She pins a CLOSED sign to the glass, rescues her tattler, and resumes flipping the pages.

  “Excuse me?” I say.

  “Don’t you see the sign?” she barks.

  Edel punches the glass, which causes the soldiers nearest us to look up.

  I cringe. “Edel.”

  The woman yanks open the window. “You could’ve broken it, you know that? The fine would be at least three hundred leas.”

  “You should’ve been courteous enough to open it,” Edel replies.

  “We’re closed,” she snaps. “Who are you?”

  “Courtiers from the House of Rare Reptilians, and in need of emergency beauty work,” I reply.

  “Let me see your emblems.” She stretches out her hand, waiting for me to untie the ribbon and place the heavy crest made of coral and ivory and gold in her palm.

  “What for?” Edel asks.

  “Not that I need to explain myself, but there have been forgeries floating around. I need to inspect them.”

  I gulp and remove the emblem. I hand it to her, hoping Arabella gave me a real one from the palace.

  “Hmm...” She turns it around in her hand, gazes up at the dragon sitting on my shoulder, then takes out a set of scales and a monocle. She weighs it, then lifts the glass eyepiece. “This one passes inspection, but what about hers?” Her discerning gaze turns to Edel.

  I almost sigh with relief, then say, “She’s my assistant. Now, when will the teahouse be taking clients again?”

  “When Madam Kristina Renault reopens—”

  The circuit-phone closest to her rings. The cone-shaped receiver shakes left and right on top of its slender base. She lifts it to her ear and says, “Silk Teahouse reception, Mira speaking, we are closed until further notice. May I please take your message or appointment request?”

  A loud voice shouts: “Additional vats needed to the palace port before sunrise by order of the queen.”

  The voice sends a jolt of lightning through me.

  Elisabeth Du Barry.

  Edel and I don’t dare look at each other. Elisabeth survived the palace dungeons and is still working for Sophia. That truth swirls around inside me. I want to strangle her through the phone lines.

  “Ensure Valerie is prepped for transport afterward,” Elisabeth barks.

  I squeeze Edel’s arm and look up at the teahouse’s windows. The sill-lanterns are unlit. No movement in or out. A space seemingly vacant. But my sister’s in there. Only twenty paces away.

  We have to get into that teahouse.

  “Will do,” the girl replies before cupping a hand over the receiver. “No one is at the teahouse. We’ve been sending people to Miel’s Makeup Galleria on the Imperial Mile because they have a limited supp
ly of Belle-products. Best to try there. Good day to you both.” She slides the glass window shut again and points at the CLOSED sign.

  The plan to get to Valerie bursts like a popped bubble.

  We have to find another way in.

  We settle into another shabby room in another boardinghouse to rest after using our glamours. We still have three hourglasses’ worth of time before the doors open for the Fashion Minister’s exhibition. Anxious flutters irritate my stomach, all the unknowns growing into a ball of nausea.

  “How do we get to Valerie now?” I ask Edel.

  She doesn’t answer, her face buried in Arabella’s letter, mumbling to herself about the aether and Sophia, trying to put the pieces together. Rémy stares out the window, his eyes surveying every passing body. The teacup dragons dance and play, chasing one another and the dusk-lanterns. Their scales glitter like beautiful gemstones. I watch them, thinking how nice it must be to be them, clueless, and without a worry. Their joyful movements remind me of how my sisters and I used to be as little girls.

  I comb through Arabella’s Belle-book to pass the anxious time.

  Date: Day 3,428 at court

  Sophia’s Belle-growing apparatus was unveiled today. The clear vats will hold future Belles like wombs. Sophia called them cradles. She thought it made what she’d created sound better. Sweeter and softer.

  I sneaked into the birthing chamber. The walls are filled with them now, stacked like eggs in a carton. I traced my fingers along gilded tubes that connected to massive arcana meters and tanks to be filled with my blood. Nurses used rolling ladders to tend to them.

  The sight of the room was maddening. Du Barry hid the truth. She said we’d fallen from the sky like seeds to be planted. She said she rescued us from the dark forest and put us into the hands of our mothers. She said the Goddess of Beauty made each one of us in her image. The beautiful lie burned a pit in my heart.