The Belles

by Dhonielle Clayton

  “Do you behave like this with all women?”

  “No, just you.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “You don’t trust me?” he asks.

  “I don’t know you.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Nothing.” Everything. Bree lifts one of the hourglasses on the table, showing me I only have a few more minutes left in his session.

  “It’s almost time for my next client.”

  “Well, you’ve done an awful lot of talking,” he says. “So I should get more time. You haven’t given me my spintria’s worth.”

  “You’re the one who’s been asking questions. And you haven’t told me what you want.”

  “You choose. I, at least, trust you.” He closes his eyes.

  I dust his face with bei powder and put some up his nose to make him sneeze. I only have time for a quick treatment. I paint tiny freckles across the bridge of his nose and cheekbones, like caramel raindrops. The arcana wake up inside me.

  I brush my fingers over his face: his skin is soft and warm, his breath hot on my hands. His pale white face appears in my mind. I add the freckles one by one, like I’m painting delicate flowers on a canvas.

  I close my eyes.

  He moves. Bree gasps.

  My eyes snap open. A grinning Auguste covered in bei powder sits inches from my face. The heat of his skin warms mine. I smell the strawberries he ate before the appointment. The softness of his breath lands on my cheek. I can almost taste him.

  He kisses my cheek and says, “For luck. I trust you won’t tell anyone.” Then he disappears out the door.

  31

  After my morning appointments, Rémy walks Ivy and me to the queen’s sitting room for a private meeting. Ivy fusses about Auguste the entire walk. But her words can’t erase the dangerous feeling of his mouth against my cheek. Even though they should. The thought of him almost distracts me from the fact that I’m about to have my first semi-private audience with the queen.

  The large doors open for us. The red damask walls of the queen’s tea salon display her royal emblem—a six-pointed crown with a glittering ruby and chrysanthemum in the center. Chafing dishes melt medicinal pastilles, and steam vases release vapor into the room. A fireplace hisses and crackles.

  Rémy posts himself near the door with the other guards.

  “Your Majesty—Lady Camellia, the favorite, here to see you as requested,” her attendant says.

  The queen stares out an arched window. Wrinkles mar her rich brown forehead. “Sit with me, Camellia.” Her voice is soft and reminds me of my mother’s.

  I ease into the chair beside her. A teacup and saucer find their way into my nervous hands. I take small sips, wondering why she wants to see me.

  “I’m very impressed with the strength of your arcana.” She finally looks up.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” I say.

  “You do things with them that I’ve never seen before,” she says. “I wasn’t sure about you. I think you know that.” She pats my hand. “I thought you’d be as reckless as my daughter.”

  I gulp.

  “But . . . I think you will be the one to help me. After all this time. You might just be strong enough.” She rises. “Come with me. You, too, Ivy.”

  I stand, then stare back at Ivy. She shoos me forward and follows behind. We navigate a series of hallways in silence. We pass an indoor garden, a marble bathing onsen, and a series of offices, until we stop before a white door marked with a white rose snaking through a four-pointed crown.

  The servants stand aside, and the queen herself pushes this door open. I have no idea what to expect.

  Cerulean light escapes the healing-lanterns drifting through the chamber. The walls are papered with thick lines of black and cream. A fire roars in the hearth, warm and bright and comforting, splashing coppery beams across a large, gauze-draped bed. The wood crackles as it burns, providing the only sound in the room. A beautiful, dark-haired woman stands beside the bed, her light brown hands knitting a scarf.

  The queen smiles at her. “How is she?”

  “The same,” the woman replies, walking over to kiss the queen on the mouth.

  “Camellia, this is Lady Zurie Pelletier.”

  I bow. Her lover.

  Servants and nurses curtsy to the queen as they scurry around as quietly as mice.

  “May I introduce you to my firstborn, Princess Charlotte,” the queen says, “heir to the kingdom of Orléans.” She goes to the bedside and lifts the whisper-thin curtain.

  I step lightly forward, peering in. A sleeping young woman is propped up on silk pillows stuffed with feathers; a quilted blanket laced with thick gold ribbons lies over her. She looks like a perfect blend of the king and the queen. Her ponytail is a long rope at her side, with tiny frizzy curls that blend the color of the king’s currant-red and the queen’s midnight-black coils. A jewel-encrusted hair comb winks in the light. Her skin is a warm bronze dotted with freckles.

  The queen rubs her daughter’s hand and hums a song.

  Newsies have speculated about Princess Charlotte’s condition. Some reports say she was born frail and unable to fend off disease. Others say she suffered from a broken heart after her childhood sweetheart and betrothed died in a freak accident.

  I have never known what to believe, but one thing is clear—the queen loves Charlotte with all her being.

  “Isn’t she beautiful?” The queen sweeps a loose curl from Charlotte’s forehead. Weary creases ring the queen’s eyes, and sadness slopes her shoulders forward over the sleeping princess. She looks up, and our eyes meet. I’m seeing Her Majesty for the first time. I glance away, feeling like I’ve discovered something hidden, something not meant for me to see.

  “Yes, she is,” I say.

  “She’s been asleep for four years.” She kisses her daughter’s cheek. “And I make sure she never fades to gray.” She waves me forward. “Come closer.”

  I ease into my question. “May I ask what happened to her?”

  “You may, but I have no answer for you.” She strokes Princess Charlotte’s cheek. “And that’s why I’ve brought you here. I need you to make her well. The royal physicians haven’t been able to awaken her. Even my Belle, Arabella, has been unsuccessful.”

  “I don’t have the power to heal.” I bite the inside of my cheek.

  “But you must be able to do something. I need her awake. Even if she’s no longer beautiful. It’s too early for her sunset. You must find a way to help me. To help your people.”

  “Your Majesty, I don’t understand. How does healing Charlotte help my people?”

  The queen grasps my hands. Her own are cold and clammy. “The Declaration of Heirs Ceremony is coming in eight days’ time. I will have to tell the kingdom that I’m sick, and designate who the crown will pass to. Sophia cannot become queen. She must never have the throne.”

  Her words send a tremor through the room. I remember Sophia in her workshop, her eyes wild and frantic.

  “Sophia isn’t fit. She’s the way she is because I didn’t give her enough of myself. I didn’t have enough to give her after Charlotte became ill. And if I’m honest, she’s too much like me. Full of the temper I had in my youth. The one that had to be leeched out of me by Belles every month.” She coughs. Attendants rush forward, bringing her medicinal chafing dish closer. Her coughing subsides. “I tried to do the same with Sophia, but it didn’t work.” She sips hot tea. “I pray to the God of Life every day that Charlotte wakes up before I die so she can take her rightful place as queen. To be at my side when I announce my illness.”

  I can’t imagine the queen and Sophia being anything alike.

  “I must tell my people. The newsies are starting to speculate. They’ve been ruthless with me as of late. The sicker I get, the more the gray seeps to the surface, it seems. The more I return to my natural form.” She takes a deep breath. “Orléans will not survive having Sophia as its queen. I need you to wake Ch
arlotte. Use the arcana in any way you can to heal her. Experiment. Do trials. Something. Anything. It would be a sacrifice, I know, but you would save us.”

  I open my mouth several times. The words stick at the back of my throat.

  “Your Majesty,” Ivy says, stepping closer, “Camellia will die if she attempts this. The arcana aren’t—”

  The queen puts her hand in the air. Ivy swallows the rest of her sentence.

  “I need you to consider doing this for me. I’ll need an answer and a plan in eight days’ time. By the Declaration of Heirs Ceremony, Charlotte must be awake. We must try.”

  My heart leaps with each beat. “But—”

  “The kingdom needs you. I need you.” She leaves me at Princess Charlotte’s bedside. “Ivy, come with me.”

  They leave me alone with the servants and nurses and their charge. I’m a mess of worries and questions. Princess Charlotte’s soft breaths hum. Her chest lifts and falls. I touch her cheek. She doesn’t react. Her skin is warm to the touch.

  “What happened to you?” I ask her. What if I can’t help you?

  I watch her lying there. I wonder what Maman would do: risk her arcana to help her country and queen, or refuse. What if I fail? How terrible of a queen would Sophia be? Why doesn’t the queen trust her own daughter?

  I crave the way the queen looked at me—her eyes full of admiration and confidence. I want to be able to meet every challenge she gives me.

  I slip the chained mirror from around my neck, then take a pin from my Belle-bun and stick my finger. The seed of blood climbs through the mirror’s ridges. The roses twist and reveal their message—BLOOD FOR TRUTH.

  I place the mirror before Charlotte and wait for the fog to reveal her true reflection.

  “What are you doing?” a voice says.

  I scramble to shove the necklace down the front of my dress. A round veiled woman stands behind a screen; only her silhouette shows.

  “Who are you?”

  “You know who I am.”

  “Arabella.”

  “Yes.” She steps from behind the screen and joins me at the princess’s bedside. She’s reed-thin and tall, her limbs swaying as she walks. Her unusual veil is the entire length of her gown, giving away nothing of her outward appearance.

  “What happened to Princess Charlotte?”

  “One day she wasn’t feeling well, and she went to bed, and never woke up.”

  I glance over her again. “Have you tried—”

  “I’ve tried it all,” she whispers tersely. “Nothing I’ve done has worked. My arcana cannot fix her.”

  “Then why does the queen think I can help?”

  “The papers speak of your legendary feats,” she says with curiosity. “And I saw what you did in the Receiving Hall with Sophia’s wedding looks. Your arcana are more powerful than mine. They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

  Her compliment surges through me with a mix of excitement and nerves and concern. I’ve always felt the same as my sisters—the only difference was that I liked to experiment with my arcana, even if it landed me in trouble.

  “She thinks you can do miracles. She takes your power as a sign that the gods haven’t forsaken her child.” Arabella sits on the bed and rubs a gloved hand along Charlotte’s cheek. “Maybe they’re right. You might be the only one who can save her.”

  32

  I chase Maman around the perimeter of the forest behind Maison Rouge de la Beauté in my nightmares. She’s a dream specter racing past the naked trees, her red hair a flame against the darkness. My bare feet find every discarded twig and branch on the forest floor.

  “Maman!” I shout behind her. “Wait for me.”

  She looks over her shoulder and smiles, leading me farther in.

  I ask her what to do about Charlotte and the queen. “I need help.”

  She stares back at me.

  “Tell me what to do. They say I can use my arcana to heal,” I shout.

  “What do you think?” Maman asks without turning around but instead ventures deeper into the forest, dodging massive roots poking out of the dark soil.

  “I don’t know,” I say, almost catching up, but she turns left, just out of reach. “I need you to tell me what to do.”

  “I can’t. You have to decide for yourself.”

  “But what would you do?” I stop to catch my breath.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Her words dig under my skin like pinpricks.

  “You have to decide for yourself. It is you who must live with the outcome.”

  “What if I die?”

  “Do what is right. Always.”

  Camille.

  “Camille.”

  A hand jerks my shoulder. I startle awake and jump at the sight of Ivy’s dark veil leaning over me.

  “I need to talk to you. Get up, quickly.” Her whispers are panicked.

  “What is it?” I rub my eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Just after the midnight star. The staff have gone to bed.”

  I sit up. Ivy hands me a fur-lined robe and points at satin slippers on the floor. She lights a heat-lantern and tugs its thick ribbons. My nightmare still hums through me.

  “Come.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Shh.” She takes my hand in hers. It trembles. I squeeze it tight to keep my own hand from quivering. We tiptoe down the hall. Dim night-lanterns float overhead, bathing our footsteps in light. The marble floor holds the cold, pushing it up through my slippers.

  Ivy eases open the solarium door. A garden of Belle-roses reaches up toward a dark sky, their petals large and rich as sunshades, their thorns glistening like arrows. We step into the chilly garden crusted over with a layer of frost.

  “Why—”

  “Whisper, so your voice doesn’t carry.” She takes a deep breath. Rose vines push from their pots, curling and lengthening to create a thick and thorny arbor over our heads. Ivy is manipulating them. The Belle-rose petals bloom so big we’re now inside a pavilion of flowers, shielded from the solarium’s glass walls. The heat-lantern bobs between us. I warm my hands under its fiery belly.

  “You can’t do what the queen asked. It’s too much,” she whispers.

  “I didn’t say yes.”

  “You have to say no.”

  “I thought . . . maybe . . . I should try.” The queen’s desperate voice is a sharp memory alongside Maman’s dream advice.

  “Do you understand how our arcana work?”

  “Yes, of course. We study—”

  “If you truly did, you would have said no immediately. This could warp your blood proteins. The arcana are meant to beautify. The Goddess of Beauty blessed us with them to help enhance people’s natural templates. The template she gave them, buried deep below the gray. They are not meant to heal like medicine.”

  “What if I worked on her organs? Made them youthful again. Perhaps there’s some failing within her body that keeps Charlotte in this sleeping sickness.”

  “You think Arabella hasn’t tried that already? The queen is looking for more from you.” Ivy starts to pace. “Your showing off made her think you’re a miracle worker. Made her think the arcana can be used in unintended ways. But only the God of Life can control sickness and death. Not us.”

  I think of how Maman accidentally killed a woman. If we can bring about death, then why not life?

  “But what if it can? The queen thinks Sophia will destroy the kingdom. Ruin lives. Is my life not worth the lives of so many others? Don’t you think we should find out?”

  “No, I think you should leave.”

  The word crashes through the garden like a bolt of lightning.

  “Leave?” I stare at her, unsure if I understand exactly what she means.

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t leave. Where would I go? I worked so hard to get here. All I ever wanted was to be the favorite. I’m supposed to be here. I’m supposed to help.”

  “I thought the same thi
ng. It’s what Du Barry wants you to believe. It’s what the world tells us we should be.” She puts a finger to her lips and turns to the solarium door. “I hear something.”

  My heart pumps hard, each beat fueled by panic.

  When Ivy faces me again, she lifts her veil, and I take a step back, holding in a gasp. Her skin is a patchwork of colors—gray, white, beige—and wrinkled like a paper sack. Her lips resemble two leeches puffed up from gorging on blood. Her eyes have drifted toward the corners of her face, giving her the appearance of a fish. “Some days are better than others, and my arcana can repair it. But tonight is a bad one.”

  “What happened . . . ?”

  “Sophia,” she says, biting back tears. “I overused my arcana to please her. Now they are forever unbalanced. The proteins are unable to regenerate and keep me beautiful. Our arcana help us maintain ourselves, too. They keep us alive.”

  I touch Ivy’s cheek. The skin feels like clotted cream. “Can I fix it?”

  A tear escapes one of her eyes. “Not without damaging your own gifts.” She drops her veil. “But thank you. And it’s not always this bad. Only after I’ve used the arcana. My eyes will drift back into place after a few hourglasses.” She touches my shoulder. “You can’t let this happen to you. You have to get out of here.”

  “Where would I go? Back home? And even if I did, the queen would just bring one of my sisters to court to try to help Charlotte. I have to find another way.”

  Ivy clenches her fists. “You’re not listening.” She storms toward the garden door, shrinking the Belle-rose stems and returning the swollen petals to their original size.

  “Ivy,” I call after her.

  She doesn’t return. I linger in the garden alone. My thoughts are a tangle of Ivy’s words; the queen’s request; Sophia’s tinkling laughter and her worries about being beautiful; how the queen spoke about Sophia as selfish, jealous, and spiteful; and the ways in which Sophia and I are alike. The reasons line up next to each other like matching pairs of earrings—both of us want to please our mothers, both of us want to be the best, both of us want respect and adoration.