The Belles

by Dhonielle Clayton

  “Does it hurt?” Gabrielle asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  Claudine plucks a strawberry from one of the dessert carts.

  “Don’t eat that food,” Sophia barks at Claudine. “It’s for Camellia only.”

  Claudine flushes the color of the strawberry in her hand, and drops it. Henrietta-Marie skips around the room, inspecting each corner. The Fashion Minister picks at invisible lint on his pants. He’s unusually quiet. I wait for him to say something lighthearted, make a joke, even look at me, but he stares into his lap.

  “You didn’t have to interrupt your busy schedule to bring me dinner and come talk to me. I’m fine,” I say, hoping Sophia and her ladies will leave. I watch the door, anticipating Arabella’s arrival.

  “Oh, but it’s not just a social call. Right, Gustave?” She turns to the Fashion Minister.

  “Her Highness has had me attempt to make several vivant dresses based on the one you created as her wedding look.” His voice is flat, eyes glassy. “We’d like your opinion on them.”

  He snaps his fingers.

  The Belle-apartment doors reopen, and his dandies push in massive bell jars that hold three dress stands. Three different gowns glitter beneath the glass. The first one blooms bright with the color of fresh blood, then turns snow white and back again. The second has the texture of a honeycomb; the fabric is cut in sharp angles, hugging the mannequin like it’s the queen of the hive, as the color oscillates like the sunrise from rich oranges to bright yellows to soft tangerines. The third is feathered and covered in seed pearls that shift into various gleaming shades of white—cream and milk and lily and ivory and bone.

  I do a lap around each one. They change as I pass. “They’re beautiful,” I tell the Fashion Minister.

  “But still not quite right.” Sophia joins me, slipping her hand into my good one. She strokes it like I’m one of her teacup pets. I flinch at her touch, but she tightens her grip. “I need your wisdom. I need you to help Gustave make these even better.”

  I pull away. “Of course, Your Highness.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.” She returns to her seat, a triumphant look on her face. “Tell me your ideas.”

  “Perhaps the fabrics can transform the length and style of the dress throughout the ceremony,” I say.

  Sophia leaps with joy. “That’s right. That’s right. It would be so unexpected.” She turns to the Fashion Minister. “Can it be done?”

  His eyes are wide with panic, but he says, “I will do my very best.”

  “You never disappoint. I will keep you in my cabinet forever.” She kisses him. “Now, come eat, Camellia. I’ve brought this just for you.”

  Bree makes me a plate, collecting different meats and vegetables from all the carts. Sophia sprinkles the plate with flowers. “Don’t forget these. They’re popular now. The Minister of Health says we all should ingest colorful vegetables and even flowers. It’s beneficial, supposedly.”

  I eat as the others watch. The food has a peculiar smell. Pungent. Flowery. Strange.

  Sophia smiles. They discuss the coming Declaration and what Sophia will wear. The Fashion Minister suggests several looks.

  I fade in and out of the conversation. Their voices turn muffled, their words drifting off like they’ve been set afloat. A shiver floods through me, both hot and cold at once. The room spins around like a télétrope reel. My stomach turns.

  “Are you all right?” Sophia asks.

  “I don’t feel . . .” I mumble as the food starts to come up and out and all over my dress.

  Bree rushes to my side. “What is it, miss?”

  “Don’t touch her,” Sophia commands.

  Bree jumps back.

  “Didn’t you serve her?” Sophia accuses.

  “Yes, Your Highness, but—” Bree stammers.

  “Did you put something in the food?” Gabrielle adds.

  The room rocks left and right like a boat. Sweat races down my cheeks. I can’t speak. I can’t defend Bree. I can’t stop vomiting.

  “Call the guards,” Sophia says. “Take her. She’s tried to kill the favorite.”

  Sophia’s guards drag Bree kicking and screaming and crying from the room. I want to stop them, but I can’t form the words. She becomes a tiny pinprick before everything goes dark.

  The hours tangle together, a mess of night sweats and medicine and not being able to keep anything in my stomach. The poison chokes my veins like a vise. It dulls and mutes the arcana. I can’t feel my gifts anymore; the gentle hum of power just beneath my skin is gone. My connection to my sisters and the Goddess of Beauty is lost. The drowsiness is too heavy to resist. My eyelids fight to stay open.

  Someone touches my wrists. There’s a pinch as needles push into my skin.

  “Low blood pressure.”

  “Extreme drowsiness.”

  “Dilated pupils.”

  “Very low arcana.”

  “Deep sleep. Almost coma-like.”

  “Poison for sure.”

  “But her blood is clean.”

  “How is this possible?”

  “We may never know.”

  45

  Three days pass, like sand falling from one side of an hourglass to the other. A new imperial servant—Marcella—helps me dress. It’s my first day out of bed. The queen’s post-balloon floats from my vanity hook. Her note—telling me to come immediately to her chambers when I am strong enough—is tucked into my dress. The Declaration of Heirs Ceremony has been postponed until both the queen and the princess can be prepared by the favorite.

  The main salon is a flurry of chaos. Battalions of gossip postballoons swarm the solarium as the morning-lanterns are lit. Their black noses click and clack against the glass, begging to be let in. I know they’re full of parchment that hold questions and tattlers replete with speculation about what happened to me.

  Knocks rattle the Belle-apartment door.

  “Lady Camellia isn’t seeing anyone yet. Please make an appointment,” Elisabeth shouts from her office. The circuit-phones blare.

  Rémy’s powerful voice blasts through the doors. “You can leave get-well flowers, but you must clear the hall.”

  Newspapers sit on tea tables flashing their headlines:

  FAVORITE ALMOST KILLED BY THE JILTED EX-FAVORITE

  POISON HAS BECOME MORE DEADLY AT

  COURT THAN AN ASSASSIN’S DAGGER

  PRINCESS SOPHIA OUTRAGED AT THE TREATMENT OF THE

  FAVORITE AND JAILS AN ENTIRE STAFF OF SERVANTS

  IMPERIAL SERVANT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE

  FAVORITE’S POISONING PUT IN STARVATION BOX

  “My jacket, Marcella,” I say, my words clipped. I want Bree back.

  She drapes it over my shoulders. I open the Belle-apartment doors. Claudine stands there with her attendant.

  “I didn’t even get a chance to knock,” she says.

  “I’m leaving. I have an appointment.” I step out. Rémy gathers flowers and cards and post-balloons left along the hall.

  “Wait. I need to talk to you. I have to tell you something.”

  “If it’s about what I saw in the Market Quartier, don’t worry, I haven’t told anyone. I promised you I wouldn’t.”

  “I know you haven’t,” Claudine whispers. “And I’m so, so grateful.” She takes a deep breath. “Are you feeling better?”

  “The poison has left my system, thanks to the leeches.” I don’t mention how it took a full day for my arcana to return.

  “And I’m sorry about your imperial servant. What was her name? I saw the headlines about the starvation.”

  “Bree.” I bite back tears.

  “Can we go inside for a moment?” She looks all around as if we’re being watched. “It’ll only take a moment.”

  I sigh, then return to the main salon.

  Claudine licks her bottom lip. “Actually, can we use one of the treatment rooms?”

  “Claudine, I must go.”

  “Please.” Her eyes are d
esperate.

  I lead her to a treatment salon and close the door behind us. “What is it?”

  She leans in and whispers, “Don’t react to what I’m saying. We’re always being watched. The servants. The attendants. Make sure to laugh as if I’m telling you something ridiculous, so they don’t pay attention.” She waits for me to nod. “I’m almost certain Sophia was the one that poisoned your food that night. She told us not to eat from the carts. She made it seem like it was a special treat just for you. But I knew. I suspected.”

  I cover up my anger with a laugh. “I knew it was her. Bree would never harm me.”

  “When we were younger, Sophia would hurt us. If we didn’t do what she wanted—even if it was to play a different game in the gardens or playroom—she’d get angry. And if we spent time with people other than her, she’d punish us.”

  “How?”

  She pauses as we hear someone pass outside the door.

  “She would slip draughts into our tea, or lace our rose creams with something to make us sick so we wouldn’t spend time with other people or go places she didn’t want us to. She always gets what she wants.” She pauses and fakes a giggle, so I mimic her. “And I’ve always obeyed.”

  “She can’t get away with this anymore,” I say.

  “She can, and she will. She’s just started manipulating you, Camille, and the more you fight back or resist what she wants, the worse it will get.” Claudine drops her head. “I’m not strong enough to fight her.”

  “I won’t let her get away with it.”

  “She’s talking about how she’d like to be able to change her look with the snap of a finger if she steps into a room and sees someone more beautiful than she is. She’s trying to figure out how to make this possible. She’s experimenting—”

  “We have to stop her.”

  “I don’t have the courage.” Claudine shakes her head. “I’m leaving. After her wedding. I just wanted to tell you to have Madam Du Barry hire a taster for your food. You’ve been kind to me, and I wanted to return the favor.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I don’t know. Just away from here.”

  After Claudine slips out, I slam skin-color pots and pastilles on the table. I throw one at the wall. It shatters, leaving its gooey contents behind like a spatter of blood.

  “In a bad mood?” a voice says from behind.

  “Auguste?”

  I whip around. He stands beside the dressing screen.

  “How did you get in here?”

  “I have my ways,” he says, closing the gap between us. His jacket and shirt hang open, his cravat is a loose tangle, and his sailor pants are worn at the knees. He smells like cologne and champagne. Stubble peppers his jaw, and his eyes look tired, like he’s been up all night. He removes his jacket.

  “You got past Rémy.” The thought both thrills and terrifies me.

  “And Claudine. I saw her in the hall,” he says. “The first time I visited you, I figured out there were ways in and out of these apartments without being seen. There would have to be. Gods forbid if there was a siege. There would have to be some way to get valued people out secretly.” He lifts his hand to touch my cheek. “Are you all right? I read in the papers about the poisoning.”

  I let his hand rest there for a moment too long before stepping away. The softness and the heat linger. “I’m better. I’m fine.”

  “I sent you a post-balloon. You never answered.”

  “I’ve received over four thousand letters and balloons. I’m still opening them.”

  He touches my shoulder, the pad of his thumb grazing where the fabric meets the skin.

  “I’m very busy, Auguste. I have an appointment with the queen.”

  “Maybe I should leave, then.” He sounds disappointed.

  There’s a pinch in my stomach. “You don’t have to just yet.” I can spare a minute. Just one.

  “No. I should go.” He gives me a sheepish look. “Truth is, I’m a little afraid of you,” he says.

  I laugh, presuming he’s joking. His expression tightens. A wrinkle furrows his brow. “I’m afraid of this.” He motions his hand between us, like he’s running it along a ribbon that connects the two of us.

  I turn my back to him. “I’m not sure what you mean.” I clutch my skirts to stop the tremors in my hands. I feel each one of his footsteps as he nears. I feel the warmth of him like a heat-lantern, the sensation pushing through the back of my dress. I feel his breath hit the top of my Belle-bun.

  “Have you ever wondered about love?”

  “Love?” I say, barely able to get the word out.

  He rests his hands on my waist and pivots me around. The scent of him wraps around me, and I inhale. I let him pull me forward. He places his fingers right above my breast. His thumb presses into my skin. He takes my hand and puts it to his chest. “You feel that?”

  “Yes.” His heart is racing.

  “Love is when hearts beat together.”

  I pull away. “I have that with my sisters.”

  “Have you ever wanted it with someone other than them?”

  “I’m not allowed to entertain that idea. It would be dangerous.”

  “Another rule?”

  “A reality.”

  “I’m going to leave,” he says. “Leave court, I mean.”

  My heart plummets, even though it shouldn’t. Is Sophia chasing everyone away?

  “Why?”

  “I’m taking myself out of the running to be one of Sophia’s suitors.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  He touches my face. Fingertips drift over my forehead, down my cheeks, and across my lips.

  My pulse races. A blush rises in my cheeks. The warmth of the heat-lanterns and his body are making me sweat. He presses the answer to my question against my lips, and I taste it, wrapped with the faint flavor of the rose pigment I smeared on my mouth and the cinnamon he must’ve taken in his tea. The kiss is soft at first, then harder. He opens my mouth with his tongue, and I let him.

  My heart flutters. All of the things Du Barry warned us about—our blood, our arcana, our gifts—are forgotten. There’s me. There’s him. There’s a meeting of our mouths, our skin and bodies. He pushes deeper. His hands drift up and down my back. I tug his hair. The world is this room around us, and all I want to do is feel this over and over again. I could kiss him for a thousand hourglasses. Even if Du Barry says it will damage my arcana.

  I pull away to catch my breath.

  “I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you,” he says.

  I tap my fingers over my puffy lips. They tingle. I don’t want to lose that feeling.

  “I know,” I say, still breathless. “Me too.”

  “You should leave with me,” he says, kissing my forehead, then nose, then mouth again. The heaviness of his words settles into my shoulders.

  “Where would we go?”

  “To the edge of the world, beyond the barrier.”

  “They would hunt us. Sophia would—”

  “I don’t want to marry her. She’s a—”

  “Monster,” I say, and he smiles.

  “So leave with me. It would be an adventure. We’d be together.”

  “I would get sick. I’m not supposed to love. I’m a Belle.”

  “But you can.” He traces a finger along the rim of my mouth. He lifts my chin and kisses me again. I imagine what it might be like—us in a boat, leaving Orléans and seeing the world, kissing him every day, learning what it’s like to be loved by someone other than my sisters.

  I sink deeper into his kiss. I float alongside the fantasy, giving it breath and flesh and bone. It could happen. I could leave with him.

  Maman’s voice whispers: Do what is right.

  Charlotte’s face flashes in my mind.

  The promise to Arabella and the queen.

  I place a hand to his chest and slide my mouth off his.

  “I can’t.” I whisper so softly, maybe he won’t hear
; maybe it won’t be true.

  “Is it because you love all of this too much?” He steps away with a frown. The warmth of him is lost, and a sudden chill settles in.

  “No. Auguste—”

  “I should’ve never come here.” His expression hardens. I reach for his hand. He yanks away.

  “Auguste.”

  Without another word, he storms out. I follow him into the hall. Tears well up in my eyes. There’s no trace of him. Just Marcella standing there holding the golden tail ribbons of the queen’s glittering post-balloon.

  I snatch it from her and retrieve the note.

  Camellia,

  Sophia is visiting her sister today. I’ll send an escort tomorrow.

  HRM

  46

  The next day, bells chime through the belly of the palace in honor of the queen. In preparation for the Declaration Ceremony, she’s announced her sickness. The court sent out mourning postballoons, complete with the queen’s joyful miniature portrait, and words about all she’s done for the kingdom during her reign. They putter along in the halls and corridors, and leave a sad trail of tear-shaped glitter and the noise of tiny wailing cries. The court is called to prayer in the Receiving Hall at different intervals of the day. Today will be marked as a day of mourning.

  I wait for word from her but instead receive a dress and a summons from Sophia. I walk to the princess’s chambers with Rémy at my side.

  Sophia’s private dining room sparkles like a diamond. Coldseason flowers burst from every surface. Goblets, champagne flutes, and tumblers boast jewel-toned liquid. Towers of silverflecked macarons sit like snow-covered trees on the grand table. Heat-lanterns add their warmth and light over us like stars.

  I am announced to the room, the last guest to arrive.

  “So glad you could make my spontaneous feast,” Sophia says. She wears a black mourning dress and a black diamond draped around her neck. Her blond hair-tower features a cameo of her mother.

  “May I express my sincerest apologies for the illness of your mother, our queen,” I say with a bow, and kiss two fingers to place at my heart. The whole table mimics my gesture to show respect for the dying.