The Belles

by Dhonielle Clayton

  “You must pace yourself. You haven’t been here a whole week yet,” she says.

  I rest my head in my hands. “I wanted her to tell the court that I gave her everything she’d asked for,” I admit. “I wanted to prove that I should’ve been the favorite from the start.”

  “You’ll burn out if you overexert yourself, and you’ll end up like Ambrosia.”

  “What actually happened to her?”

  Ivy hesitates, then lowers her voice to the quietest whisper. “Princess Sophia had—”

  The bedcurtains snap open. The morning-lantern zips out. One of the Beauty Minister’s servants stares at us.

  “Oh, you’re awake?” The Beauty Minister peers in. “And Ivy, what in the name of the gods are you doing in bed with the favorite? Now, what if this hit the tattlers? It’d be an incest scandal.”

  Ivy slinks out. “Just checking on her, Madam Minister.”

  “Well, go tend to something else. The nurses are here to look after her. She doesn’t need additional fawning.” She shoos Ivy off with a flick of her delicate wrist. “How are you feeling, darling?”

  “A little tired, but better.”

  “Get her up on her feet,” she orders her servants and mine. “And have tea and a late lunch brought to the main salon. She needs her strength.”

  Bree rushes forward with a smile. She removes the needles from my arms and helps me out of bed. I slip on a fur robe. My legs feel soft and rubbery and unable to support my weight. Bree holds me up. “I’ve got you,” she whispers.

  “Thank you,” I reply. I find my footing and walk behind the Beauty Minister into the main salon. We sit in a pair of matching chairs.

  “You did splendidly with Princess Sabine. She’s been raving about you.” She leans over and kisses my clammy cheeks. “You now have a month-long waiting list.”

  “Really? I didn’t think it went so well.”

  “You gave her everything she wanted. She can’t wait to have another session with you.”

  Relief surges through me.

  “And look! There’s a congratulatory post-balloon from Madam Du Barry, and another from the princess. They’ve left a trail of glitter throughout the chambers.” The post-balloons spit out little fireworks, one crimson and the other rose-petal pink and cream. They dance around the room like children. Their ribbons swish and sweep the floor. I think of the one Auguste sent, and the memory of his words makes me smile—a shimmer of light in all this darkness.

  Servants park lunch carts beside us brimming over with cheese towers, spires of tomatoes, and piles of sweet rope bread and sliced meat. The minister nibbles, and I eat ravenously.

  “When will I get to work with the queen?” I want to show her what I can do and prove to her that I can be who she needs me to be.

  The Beauty Minister stifles a laugh, then looks up from her teacup. “Eager mouse, aren’t we? You have much more work to do before that.”

  “But I have a waiting list.”

  “Patience, little love.” She smiles indulgently. “Eat up. You have another beauty appointment this afternoon.”

  “I do?”

  “The princess has requested you.” The Beauty Minister taps my arm. “Even though she usually waits to see how the favorite settles in. The new hair you gave her for her birthday party was quite impressive. Very inventive. Landed her in the scopes for the first time. The press corps loved it.”

  “Thank you,” I say, filling with equal parts excitement and worry. “I wanted to please her.”

  “I hope you can continue to do so,” she says.

  After lunch, Bree and Rémy walk with me to the princess’s chambers. Bree pushes a trolley with my beauty caisse. Courtiers point and whisper as we pass through the palace corridors. I square my shoulders and try to feel less exhausted. A newsie post-balloon hovers overhead. Rémy pushes it away.

  “I hate these things,” he says.

  “Not exciting enough for you?” I ask.

  “Newspapers are pointless.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “Most of them spread lies.”

  “Some lies are delicious,” I say.

  He doesn’t laugh. “Lies are as dangerous as a sword. They can cut to the bone.” Rémy posts himself beside the princess’s doors like a statue. He’s back to his old self, the cold Rémy I first met, instead of the one who tried to make poor jokes and ask me questions the night of Sophia’s birthday. I sigh at him. His expression remains fixed.

  Bree lifts the brass knocker. Its heavy booms radiate through the chamber. A servant cracks open the door.

  “Lady Camellia, welcome,” she says. “We’re just about ready for you.”

  The servant scurries to an adjacent room, leaving us alone in the chamber foyer. The jewel-box room is no longer pink, cream, and gold. Cerulean walls hold golden fleurs-de-lis and the princess’s royal emblem. Frost-white chairs and chaises crowd around tables like swans floating on a serene pond.

  The servant returns for us. “She is ready.”

  Fear settles under my skin, and my hands quiver. But I know I can do this—I can impress her. I have to. We follow the servant into a massive treatment salon. Golden walls hug around us like we’re trapped inside the sun. Cabinets burst with so many Belle-products, it could be the storeroom at home. Dozens of jeweled beauty-lanterns leave the perfect amount of light in each corner. One can’t help but be beautiful in here. Tiered trays of rouge-sticks, complexion crème-cakes, skin-tone pots, and hair-color creams wink like diamonds beneath the light.

  “Camellia.” Princess Sophia rushes forward, wearing a sheer bathing gown. She slips her hands in mine. “I need you.”

  Her words sweep away the worries.

  “My parents scheduled dates with my suitors, and I don’t have the right look. I don’t know what to do.” She clings to me like I’m her last hope of survival. “The first one is tonight with Alexander Dubois from House Berry.”

  “I’m here, Princess. We’ll find the right look for you.”

  She leans away and beams at me. “I knew you’d be perfect.” Sophia skips over to a cart of tiered vials. “The way you changed my hair for my birthday party was just the start. You’re clever. You passed my first little test.”

  That was a test?

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” I say.

  “I want to become a beauty tastemaker. A queen who sets trends, unlike my mother. And it’s no secret that I haven’t been featured in a single beauty-scope. At least not until you came along. I swear, it’s like the newsies have a vendetta against me.” She runs her fingers across the vials, plucks one filled with violet liquid, and yanks out the stopper with a loud pop. “I brew my own Belle-rose elixir and mix it with other medicinal plants. The elixirs Madam Du Barry supplies aren’t strong enough to withstand the types of changes I want.” She drinks the entire vial, then wipes her lips.

  She pulls down her bathing gown and stands naked.

  I quickly turn around. “Your Highness.”

  “Oh, don’t be shy. You’ve probably seen countless bodies before.”

  “Well, yes, of course, but—”

  “How does mine match up?”

  My stomach churns. “What do you mean?”

  “As my body returns to its natural state, I wonder how it stacks up against others. I’m too scared to let it turn fully gray and see exactly what I was born with. So tell me . . .”

  “It would be inappropriate to compare, Your Highness. Plus—”

  “Look at me,” she yells, then softens. “Just look.”

  Her command jolts through me. I slowly pivot. She jams her hands to her hips. Her breasts are small apples, and her stomach is smooth.

  “Don’t you quantify us? Break us into parts? Tabulate what features are more beautiful than others?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then you must have an opinion.”

  “I don’t see you that way.”

  “How noble of you. I bet Du Barry taught you to sa
y that. To make us feel better.”

  “I don’t listen to everything Du Barry says.”

  She smiles.

  “I shouldn’t say that—”

  She raises a hand and wipes away my apology. “No need. I won’t tell her.” She uses a footstool to climb into the treatment bed. Servants tuck her in. “I’m ready. Come.”

  Sophia reaches her hand out to me. I take it. She squeezes. “Make me the most beautiful,” she says, then closes her eyes.

  Bree drapes her face with the measuring lace. The cloth drifts up and down as Sophia takes deep breaths. I shake out the nerves in my fingers. Bree nods encouragingly. I press my hands to my stomach, then run them over the mascara cakes and pastille waxes and hair-color pomades and texture wands.

  Sophia’s breathing slows. It’s so quiet in the room I can hear each inhale and exhale. I cover her with bei powder and brush it into her hair. The two-toned hair color I gave her still shines brightly. My hands tremble. I’m caught off guard. If I’d known I would be working with Sophia today, I would’ve planned out every single moment.

  Make her beauty mean something. Maman’s wisdom echoes inside of me.

  “Are you going to begin or just play with my hair?” Sophia says.

  “Yes, Your Highness.” My mind whizzes through dozens of looks like the spinning of a roulette wheel. Pictures of her from the tattlers, the scandal sheets, the newspapers, and the beauty magazines. I strike certain color schemes and hair textures from consideration. I want to do something original.

  I close my eyes.

  My nerves tingle with power. The arcana stir inside me like flickering candles. The warmth moves from the bottom of my toes to the crown of my head and the very tips of my fingers. Bree helps me paint her hair with oil-black hair cream, then streak it with red. I plunge my hands into the strands, pushing the color through it. I wrap a tendril around a rod to give her the perfect coil, and mix two skin tones together—seashell white and a dark citrine brown. The skin colors her parents each chose for themselves.

  Not a drop of sweat appears on her face. Kohl pencil marks map the changes I’ll make: higher cheekbones like her mother’s, a button nose like her father’s, and deep sloping eyes. I resist the urge to do more, remembering Ivy’s warning and what happened last time.

  “Your Highness,” I whisper.

  “Yes,” she replies.

  “I’m finished.”

  “So quickly? You didn’t do any body work.”

  “I wanted to be sure I was headed in the right direction first.”

  Sophia springs up. “Bring the full-length.” She slips back into her bathing gown.

  I wait for her praise, craving it like a hot luna pastry.

  Three servants march forward with a gilded mirror. She eyes herself, running her hands through her hair and over her skin, then leans close to the glass, inspecting her new cheekbones and nose. She bats her eyes, then pivots to see her profile. “I look too much like my mother.”

  “I did that on purpose, since the queen is incredibly beautiful.” I search her face for any trace of happiness.

  “I know she’s beautiful. But I don’t want to look like anyone else. I want to look like no one in the entire kingdom.” She studies her naked body. “Try again, favorite. And give me larger breasts. The size of grapefruits. They always seem to shrivel down by the middle of the month. Also, a creaseless eyelid. Those are trendy now.”

  The air streams out of me like a crumpled post-balloon.

  She gulps down another vial of Belle-rose elixir. Her servants help her back onto the treatment bed.

  I take a deep breath. Bree hands me a square of chocolate and whispers, “For strength.” She winks. “And patience.”

  I smile at her. “Thank you.”

  The chocolate dissolves on my tongue, and I think about the pounds of the stuff we devoured in the lesson rooms. I remember when Du Barry paired us up to change our very first person. In our lesson rooms, we’d stood beside the beds, and Penelope the kitchen sous chef had lain across mine. Hana and I held hands as we gave her a new hair color, eye color, and skin tone. But it all turned out brassy orange, and took three more tries to get it right. Du Barry had fed us chocolate squares to help us maintain our stamina.

  I erase Sophia’s new skin color and make her beige as a crepe. I use a hand-iron to press out the coil in her hair and give her strands as straight as a board. I add a teardrop curve to her eyelids, and take away the crease. I add thirteen tiny freckles to a new, slenderer nose. I use metal tongs to pull at her skin to add volume to her breasts and curvature to her waist.

  She looks like Hana. It makes me miss my sister.

  Sweat drips down my cheeks. Bree hands me a glass of water, which I drink down in one gulp.

  “I’m finished,” I say.

  She jumps out of bed and goes straight to the mirror again, examining herself from all angles. “The breasts are perfect. And I like the hips. But”—she pivots to face me—“I’ve never liked dark hair.” She fingers her waist-long strands. “It was always my mother’s—and sister’s—preferred shade.” Sophia kisses my cheek. “You are strong, yes?”

  “The strongest,” I say.

  She giggles. “Let’s try again. I’m not quite satisfied.”

  I force a smile and turn my back to her, pretending to rifle through a cabinet of Belle-products. Sophia gulps down another vial of Belle-rose elixir and climbs back onto the treatment bed. I press a hand to my stomach, trying to slow my breathing. Exhaustion seeps into every part of me.

  I wave Bree over. “Bring me my leeches, please, and quickly.”

  “Yes, my lady.” She scurries off.

  I run my fingers across glass pots, opening and closing compacts as if I’m preparing, until Bree returns moments later. She opens the porcelain jar, flashing its slimy contents. I reach my fingers in and grab a leech. It writhes within my grip. I hook the creature around the back of my neck. Its tiny teeth bite the skin. I wait to feel the tingle of its secretions pumping into me.

  I steel myself and return to Sophia’s bedside. I mix a new skin color—rich pearl white and buttermilk. I recreate the same two-toned hair color with a deep scarlet and ash blond. I give her my mother’s face—thin sloping nose, light brown freckles, a pink bow of a mouth. In my current state, my mother’s visage is all that will come to me.

  “Done,” I say, almost out of breath.

  “A looking-glass,” Sophia says. Her attendant holds the hand mirror over her and she smiles. “This is perfect for now. A good start.” Sophia’s eyes bob open and shut. “I’ve had too much Belle-rose elixir to do this anymore.”

  Her attendants help her shimmy into a robe and out of the room. When the doors close behind her, I collapse forward onto the treatment bed.

  “Are you all right, my lady?” Bree asks, but my mouth is too tired to open. She helps me into a chair.

  The overuse of the arcana dulls my senses; the room feels thicker around me, and I feel too thin to be part of it. My legs shake and coat with sweat. My limbs are light as feathers, ready to drift off in the wind.

  She hands me a cup of spicy cayenne tea and another sliver of chocolate, and adds a leech to each wrist. I close my eyes and sink into a nap.

  Bree jostles my shoulder. “Lady Camellia, it’s time to go. Do you feel better?”

  I stumble awake. “Yes. How long was I asleep?”

  “An hourglass’s worth of time.”

  We walk out of the treatment salon. My legs are more like putty than bone. Bree’s cart rattles behind me. I have to think about each step, willing my feet to move.

  The boudoir doors snap open. Rémy is waiting in the same spot I left him. His dark eyes hold concern. “Do you need help?”

  “No, I’m fine.” The edges of the hall fade into a haze.

  Bree hands me another square of chocolate. “I’ll meet you back at your room,” she reassures me, then heads off in the direction of the servants’ lifts.

  Rémy
offers me his arm.

  “Where are you running off to?” a voice says.

  It’s Auguste.

  26

  Auguste leans against one of the marble columns, thumping at a dying night-lantern. His hair is out of its usual knot, in a mess around his shoulders. Freckles create a trail across his cheeks. He wears a betrothal pin on his lapel—a reminder that he’s one of the princess’s suitors.

  An unexpected shiver rushes through me. I pull my shoulders back, open my eyes wide, and try to feel—and look—less exhausted. He smiles and stares as if he’s waiting for me to say something first. I bite the inside of my cheek and fuss with my hands, if only to have something to do.

  “What are you doing here?” is all I can manage.

  “I can’t be in the hall?” he replies.

  “I meant—”

  “You thought I was waiting for you,” he says.

  “I didn’t say—”

  “I’m not tracking you, if that’s your concern.” He shifts position, moving closer.

  Rémy steps forward, his jaw clenched. His hand goes to the dagger at his side.

  “Not to worry,” Auguste says. “I don’t plan on harming her.”

  I scoff.

  Auguste smiles. He points at Rémy. “Serious, this one is.”

  I stifle a laugh.

  “Maybe she’s following me,” he tells Rémy.

  Rémy doesn’t laugh. His grimace deepens.

  “I just came from a session with the princess,” I say.

  “Well, aren’t you lucky.”

  “Tired is more like it.” I move closer to Auguste, away from Rémy. It feels like I’ve stepped into a bubble with him. The hall’s grand staircase and white marble columns vanish. Nearby courtiers melt away. Rémy turns into a statue. The rules Du Barry made me swallow down about fraternizing with men and boys outside of beauty work vanish. It’s just the two of us talking, and it feels both deliciously terrifying and fascinating. I am a tangle of giggles and distractions and delirium. I should be back in the Belle apartments. I should be checking my arcana levels. I should be resting after hours of beauty work.