“I do. Like the way I love you.” I grab her and pull her into the water. She relents.
“I saw the way you look at each other. That love must be different. What is that like?” she asks.
“Do you trust me?” I say, brushing away her question. She’s always been a cold teapot, slow to warm.
“Yes.”
“Good. The Fashion Minister will help us. In a few hours, we’ll get Valerie and she will tell us what to do about the Belle babies and we will all go to the Gold Isles together.”
“Don’t want to talk about boys, huh?” She dunks her head in the steaming water.
She doesn’t resurface for so long I begin to worry, then suddenly she comes up sputtering.
“Are you all right?”
Her skin is blush pink like a teacup pig, and water dribbles out of her mouth. “I will be once we leave here.”
“We’re getting closer.” I grab her hand and squeeze it. “We will succeed. I know we will.”
We soak until our skin prunes. Soft nightgowns hang from nearby hooks, awaiting our tired bodies. A side door leads into a small bedroom complete with a large four-post bed. A single night-lantern scrapes its head beneath the bed’s canopy, and two carts sit at the foot—one with foods rich with arcana-resetting properties like salmon puffs, beef skewers, bacon-wrapped shrimp, and chocolate squares, and the other with jars of sangsues.
Edel stuffs her mouth with three salmon puffs. “I’m so tired I can barely chew,” she grumbles, then climbs into bed and pushes the night-lantern out before pulling the curtains shut.
While Edel’s light snores fill the room, I cover my arm with leeches and take out Arabella’s Belle-book. Under the soft glow of a single night-lantern, I read through more entries.
Date: Day 3,510 at court
Sophia’s beauty addiction has reached new heights. She changed her look for each of her morning activities—brunch with her ladies-of-honor, walking in the winter gardens, meeting her cabinet—and then, again, in the evening for her nightly card games and parties. Before one can join her, she’s developed a vigorous beauty test for them. They must stand on a platform to be analyzed and scored. If found to be more beautiful, they are given two options—see me to immediately change themselves, or receive a fine and leave the palace. Most submit to this new routine because they are desperate to be in her presence.
I’m afraid of what’s next for Sophia and her grandiose desires.
Date: Day 3,435 at court
Sophia brought in new cabinet members today during the assembly meeting. They filed into the Royal Law Room in the Imperial Library, all eager to be her puppets and do her bidding. I hid in the legal stacks while they met below.
Sophia revealed her imperial cameos—mirror-size and perfect for the walls or vanities—and the advertising campaign intended to sell them to the masses. She said the cameos will connect her to the people of her kingdom, when really they will connect everyone to her obsessive wall. The Royal Beauty Minister, Rose Bertain, challenged her in front of everyone, and the meeting ended early. Sadly, the minister will pay for that.
She’s trying to have eyes everywhere. Next, she’ll probably institute beauty checkpoints as she continues to turn the palace upside down. She receives a ledger of all visitors to her court now. The Minister of War has provided her with a thousand extra guards, pulling them from posts around the kingdom, despite his protests about the safety of the borders being at risk.
I take a deep breath, her words drumming up even more distress inside me.
A post-balloon putters into the room, sea blue and covered in silk threads. It knocks into the dying night-lantern over my head. I put Arabella’s Belle-book to the side and grab the balloon’s tail ribbons. It holds a rolled newspaper and a note marked with my name.
I open it:
My dearest owl,
I saw the night-lantern light in your room and figured you were still up. I wanted to tell you again how happy I am to see your face and have you with me. Here’s a little something to read. Pay particular attention to the Letter from the Editor column. We can discuss in the morning.
Sleep well,
Gustave
I unfurl the newspaper. My heart squeezes.
The Spider’s Web.
The white ink rises on the black parchment. A tiny ink spider trots along the border. Under the Night Edition header, headlines appear.
COURTSHIP OFF TO A ROCKY START: QUEEN’S FIANCÉ STAYING AT SPRING PALACE IN GLASS ISLES RATHER THAN THE IMPERIAL PALACE
MINISTER OF WAR’S FLEET MOVING THROUGH THE WARM SEA IN SEARCH OF FUGITIVE BELLES
DANGERS OF BEING GRIS—MINISTER OF NEWS CIRCULATES NEW PAMPHLETS DETAILING DANGERS AND WARNING
WILL THERE BE A WEDDING SOMETIME THIS YEAR? QUEEN’S FIANCÉ DERAILS ALL TALKS AND PLANS DURING PALACE MEETINGS
EYES EVERYWHERE! QUEEN’S NEW DRESS LINE FOUND TO BE ANOTHER WAY TO CONTROL AND MONITOR THE BEAUTY OF OTHERS
HOPE REMAINS AS THE FAVORITE BELLE AND HER SISTER EVADE CAPTURE!
A tiny jolt makes me sit upright.
I find the Letter from the Editor column.
Dear Spiders,
A mandate to all followers!
In the past days, there has been debate about whether or not we, the Iron Ladies, support the Belles.
Despite how we feel about their place in society and their gifts, we back their endeavors. Belles Camille Beauregard and her sister Edel Beauregard remain at large, eluding the queen’s efforts. As long as they successfully avoid capture, there’s hope we can depose this queen and change Orléans once and for all. With her ego bruised and her attention set on revenge, she’s vulnerable—distracted and unfocused on the pitter-patter of spiders’ feet. Our sources say the palace has been locked down, with one sole checkpoint allowing entry in and out. Trianon is an occupied city, guards as plentiful as lanterns.
The Belles need our help.
Allies to our cause, we implore all followers to aid them if they come across your path. Share your food, shelter, or money. We pledge to replace all things lost in this noble endeavor and assist in any consequences administered if caught. I will honor them myself.
We are behind the Belles.
We stand in solidarity.
May our threads remain strong and our webs serve us well.
Lady Arane, Leader of the Iron Ladies
My breathing rushes out so loud it feels like words. A surge of adrenaline accelerates my heart.
They support us.
They support me.
I read it once more, tracing my finger over the white letters full of hope and promise and confidence.
I rush to the bed, yank open the bed-curtains, and jostle Edel. “Wake up,” I whisper.
She grunts and rolls over.
My eyes cut to the door, and I wish Rémy were there, sitting in a chair beside it. It hasn’t been a full day since he left, but the hole he’s left behind is quickly becoming a gaping pit. I wish I could share this with him.
I gaze back down at the article, tracing my fingers over the white letters. I glance over Arabella’s diary entry again.
The palace checkpoints. Does he know? I think of Rémy trying all the various ways inside the palace and being foiled at every turn. Did he even make it there? What if he’s already been captured? I wish I could know if he was all right. I unpack one of the invisible post-balloons Rémy left for us. As the night-lantern light crests over me, the balloon’s outline appears and disappears.
I take out parchment, my quill, and an inkpot. After three false starts, I finally quiet my nerves and write to him. It’s not too early, I tell myself.
Rémy,
Sophia has closed all entrances and exits to the palace save one.
Be careful.
The quill falters before I finish. I think about how to close the letter. Writing the word love feels heavy and hard. What does it even mean? I know I care about him and don’t want him to be hurt. What if it makes him feel uncom
fortable? What if it’s too strange a word and feeling to use now?
The hourglass on the table flips over, signaling another hour passed, inching closer to dawn. I scribble the word and fold the note before losing my nerve. I prepare the post-balloon with the charcoal. I pull one of the leeches I’ve just used from the porcelain jar and pin it inside the balloon.
“Or,” I whisper into the dragons’ cage. “Wake up, little girl.” Her golden scales resemble leas coins. I ease her from the pile of sleeping teacup dragons, hoping not to wake them all. “I need you to find Rémy, petite. I need you to make sure he’s safe.”
I fetch a piece of bacon from the food carts, then pluck one of Rémy’s leeches from my tiny set of labeled jars, and wrap it around the meat. She chomps it down, then coughs out a tiny tuft of fire.
“Not very tasty, I know, I know. Sorry.” I tie a silvery ribbon around her neck like a collar, then open the single window in the room. A dusting of snow has fallen, and fog hugs the buildings. The lack of visibility should bode well for little Or. She’ll look like nothing more than a fallen star, a tear of the God of the Sky, headed for the ground.
A good omen.
She flies off, and I watch her until she’s a pinprick of light in the distance.
We wake three hours after the morning star has risen. Edel is in a panic, snatching at the bedsheets and clawing her way out of the massive bed.
“We slept too late,” she complains.
I yawn and stretch.
“You needed your rest,” a voice calls from the doorway. The Fashion Minister hovers in a leather travel cloak. “It’s been so long since you’ve had such comforts, I thought I might as well let you enjoy them.”
“We did,” I reply, letting my legs linger in the softness of the sheets one moment longer.
“We don’t have time!” Edel yells.
“Please settle down with the theatrics. We aren’t in the Grand Opera House. That’s been closed for a week, honey. I didn’t wake you because I had things to put in place—to help you.” He dangles another fat leas purse in the air, then sets it on the table beside the dragons’ cage. “Get dressed and packed up, then meet me in the adjacent parlor for a late breakfast. You can’t do anything on an empty stomach.”
We bathe again, quickly this time, and dress in the new garments he’s left for us, including thick cold-season veils.
I tuck the remaining teacup dragons, Fantôme, Poivre, Feuille, Ryra, and Eau, into my new waist-sash that is expertly tailored to hold them and even has peepholes for them to gaze out, compartments for each to nuzzle in, and a side pocket that allows me to slip food in and out. I smile. There’s even a space for Rémy’s maps, and my beauty caisse. I’ll have to thank the Fashion Minister later.
“Where’s Or?” Edel asks, tying her hair up and away from her face.
“I sent her out last night to deliver a message to Rémy.” I fit the sangsues into new travel jars left for me by the Fashion Minister, and parcels of food into my satchel.
“Shouldn’t you have consulted with me first?” She flattens the dragons’ portable cage and puts it in her bag.
“You were snoring into your pillow,” I reply. “I did try to wake you up, I’ll have you know.”
“You could’ve waited until the morning to send her.” She swipes the second leas pouch from the table.
“And have that glittering little dragon flying about in daylight? No, I thought it better to do it at night.”
“Fine. But I like to know things.”
“Fine. Then I have something to show you.” I hand her the Spider’s Web paper. “I had to warn Rémy after reading it. The Letter from the Editor.”
“Little dolls,” the Fashion Minister calls from the adjoining room. “The food is growing cold.”
I lead the way. Edel follows, her eyes scanning the page, and she crashes into the table.
Beside the Fashion Minister, breakfast carts sit as tall as the hair tower he sports today, laden with tiers of quiches, trays of steak skewers, stacks of honey crepes, and carafes of milk and snowmelon juice. My stomach growls at the sight of the decadent food, erasing the memory of mornings filled with lumpy porridge and hard biscuits at the various bordinghouses.
“I see you got the paper I sent you last night,” he says.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I admit.
“Many throughout the kingdom struggle to as well. They lie awake, panicked with worry. I can’t imagine many of us are getting the proper rest.” He plucks a strawberry from a warm pile of sugar-dusted crepes.
“Only Soph—”
He tsk-tsks. “Shh, don’t forget not to say her name.”
I nod and take a caramel-drizzled waffle from the cart.
“And you’d be surprised. I don’t think she’s sleeping much either. It’s hard to try to keep things together when all you have are fear and lies.”
Edel gazes up from the paper. “They’re tracking us?” she says to me.
“Indeed. Supporting you from afar,” the Fashion Minister inserts.
“What will they want in return?” she asks him.
He sits back and narrows his eyes. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean?”
“There’s always a price for help. No one does it for free,” Edel says. “If they’re a group that lives away from the rest of us, rejecting beauty work and tradition, then they can’t really like us. We represent the things they hate.”
“I didn’t read it that way,” I say.
“Because you have hope,” she says with a snarl.
“And you have none,” the Fashion Minister says. “But resistance comes in many forms and alliances take many shapes. Sometimes it’s all fire and storms, cutting off the heads of important people. Other times, it’s slow, a crack forming in glass, inching forward sliver by sliver, spreading out across the entire surface.” He takes a bite of his strawberry; the juice dribbles down his lips like pale blood. “You don’t always have to agree fully to work together. Our stars can align in various ways.”
The boom of thunder shakes the room.
Edel and I flinch.
He gazes up at the skylight windows. “The weather’s starting to turn. The papers said we’d have thundersnow. The God of the Sky is angry today. He’s always a bit fussy as the new year approaches.”
Edel stuffs a beignet into her mouth. “I’m ready.”
“So, you now have money, and I’m going to take you to the Silk Teahouse. Once you have your sister, be sure to leave by the northwest door. That’s the house’s pier for deliveries and discreet visitors. A private boat will be waiting to take you to the city of Céline in the Gold Isles. You’ll be headed up the Rean Mountains to see our sleeping beauty.”
His plan laid out before us invites a calm to settle into me for the first time since I left the palace.
“Do you both agree?” he asks.
I look at Edel, who hesitates a moment, then nods.
I reach for the Fashion Minister’s hand. He takes mine and squeezes it. “Thank you,” I say. I wish I could make him understand how much his help means to me, but there’s no time.
He rises to his feet. “I have replaced your old travel cloaks, and you can use the veils I left for you. Masks aren’t as in fashion here or the Gold Isles. The veils help block all the snow they’re plagued with and with all the teahouses shut down, it hides fading beauty, so they’ve made it into a thing.” He sighs.
We drape the dark veils over our heads. The Fashion Minister crisscrosses the ribbons along our necks and drapes my royal emblem on my forehead like the center jewel of a diadem.
The Fashion Minister opens the door and barks to an attendant standing outside the parlor room, “Ready my carriage.”
“Yes, sir, Minister,” the man replies and bows.
We follow the minister out a side door and into a luxurious imperial carriage the size of three put together. The goldenrod cushions and teakwood paneling enclose us in the front chamber, safe from a heavy sn
ow that’s started to fall. Chandelier lamps tinkle as the horses clip-clop over the cobblestones in the aristocratic Rose Quartier of Carondelet.
“She’s spoiling me,” he says, noticing my eyes taking in the carriage’s luxurious interior. “Thinking it’ll make me hate her less for taking my husband or somehow win me over. Stamp out my suspicions and doubts.”
A servant hobbles around, attempting to serve tea. Instead it drips down her purple servant gown like streaks of mud.
“You should be better at this by now,” the Fashion Minister snaps at her. “Steady yourself.” He stands to demonstrate.
My stomach twists. I open the carriage drapes and gaze out. Ice coats the window with a delicate lace pattern, and snow scratches the sides of the carriage like sugar grains. Crowds still swell the entrance to the Great Hall as we pass. They’re all huddled beneath snow umbrellas with heat-lanterns floating close. Eager faces bear toothy grins and hands clutch leas pouches, ready to admire the dress exhibition and place their orders.
I think about what we might find inside the teahouse. I think about seeing Valerie again, which calls back the pain of losing Amber.
“What’s our plan?” Edel asks me.
“We’ll go straight in and use our arcana to disarm anyone in our way.”
She nods in agreement.
“Don’t be so quick to be loud. Try being like a whisper first,” the Fashion Minister advises. “Valerie will most likely be very weak.”
“Why? What do you know?” Edel asks.
The carriage arrives at the pier before he can answer. Snow-lanterns dot its pathway to a series of lavish watercoaches, like beautiful jeweled swans ready to swim to the teahouse shore. Guards survey the pier, but not as many as when we first arrived. The woman still sits in the Silk Teahouse reception booth, a fire-lantern bobbing over her head and illuminating her face like a tiny sun.
“I’ve left instructions with my boatman to wait only an hourglass,” the minister whispers before tapping the glass with his cane.
The woman jumps, then slides open the window.
“Sir, Minister, what a great honor it is—”
“Prepare a watercoach. I need to see the house madam,” he orders.
The Everlasting Rose (Belles, The) Page 12