The Everlasting Rose (Belles, The)

by Dhonielle Clayton

  Their headlines shimmer:

  ORLÉANS CABINET PASSES ONE LAW BEFORE NEW YEAR’S—SET TO REMOVE THE WAIST SIZE RESTRICTIONS

  LADY RUTH CARLON, HOUSE EUGENE, ACCUSED OF BEAUTY MIMICRY AND FINED 20,000 LEAS

  Gossip tattlers glow, drawing my eye to the Parlour of Titillating Tidbits and Speculations of the Foulest Kind, their reports teasing onlookers:

  SOPHIA TO TAKE A MISTRESS AFTER MARRIAGE; LONG-TERM LOVE DUCHESS ANGELIQUE DE BASSOMPIERRE OF HOUSE REIMS SEEN MOVING INTO SPECIAL PALACE APARTMENTS YESTERDAY

  RUMORED LOVE CHILD OF KING FRANCIS SLATED TO BRING A CASE BEFORE THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE TO OBTAIN A TITLE AT COURT

  QUEEN’S BETROTHED WON’T BE AFFECTIONATE WITH HER; OVERHEARD WHILE INEBRIATED TELLING A COURTIER HE’S IN LOVE WITH ANOTHER

  Auguste.

  A woman marches out of the back of the store. She has a large hourglass shape, her curves fitting beautifully into a robin’s egg–blue dress cinched at the waist with a golden sash, and her hair is pulled so tightly into a bun at first I don’t notice its curly texture and streaks of gray. “You’re right on time.”

  “I am Corrine—”

  “I know who you are. You can get rid of your veil. We have much work to do. You are to meet our future queen in less than an hourglass’s worth of time.”

  “And you’re Justine, I’m guessing?”

  “Never guess. And no, Justine is not here. She’s off chasing materials for her latest hat. But you don’t have to hide any longer. Or attempt to run.”

  A shiver prickles up my back. The familiarity of her voice seeps beneath my skin.

  “You are Camellia Beauregard. You were seven stones when you were born,” she says.

  Her words startle me. “My name is Corinne Sauveterre from the House of—”

  “It’s me, Madam Du Barry,” she says, reaching out her arms.

  I stumble backward. “No.”

  “Camille, I could never get you to follow rules, you always wanted to do the opposite of what I asked—always in the name of curiosity.” She pulls down the sweetheart collar of her dress and reveals her imperial identification mark, the cursive letters of her name—Ana Maria Lange Du Barry—spelled out in permanent ink.

  My mouth drops open.

  “It’s really you,” I say, reaching out to touch her, and she grabs my hand, squeezes it, and pulls me into a hug.

  I crumple in her arms. Even though I spent most of my life fearing this woman and the past few months uncovering all the lies she told us, her scent wraps around me like a cozy blanket. The comfort of her quiets the anger. I’m a little girl again.

  The teacup dragons inch their way out of my waist-sash and start to whiz around, spraying their tiny coughs of fire at the bigger one in the hearth.

  “What happened to you? Where did you go?” My eyes search her body and face, her outside so different and foreign from the shape of her I’ve always known. But her eyes—they always keep the same eyes. I can see her in there.

  She leads me to chairs in front of the fireplace. “We don’t have much time. But while your bath is being prepared, I will tell you what I can. When the queen’s death was imminent and Sophia’s behavior ever more unpredictable, I’d caught wind that she was planning to replace me and topple our traditions. There was a rumor that they planned to hold me in the dungeons, so I tried to take Elisabeth and leave the palace right after you did, but they’d already taken her. So I had to go on my own. It is something I’ve regretted ever since that day.”

  “She was in the prisons with us for a while. How is she faring at the palace?” I ask, remembering the sound of her voice on the other end of the circuit-phone at the Silk Teahouse. My anger toward Du Barry cools slightly, seeming so silly now after all that’s happened.

  “She’s been sending me information when she can. Sophia won’t let her go. She threatens to put my daughter in one of her new starvation boxes—allow the whole kingdom to see her nude body and watch it turn gray.” Her voice quavers, but she quickly coughs, pours tea, and hands it to me.

  “Thank you.” The heat warms my hands.

  “Elisabeth sends me letters every week if she can,” she says, pulling a wad of parchment out of her pocket, and handing it to me. “She helps me track information and inform the Iron Ladies.”

  I purse my lips. “How did you meet them? And why? You are a guardian. We were a business to you. And it was profitable.”

  “It was our way of life.”

  “But you lied to us. You kept so many secrets from us,” I say.

  “And I’m sorry for that. I truly am. But I know that apology might be too little and too late.” Her eyes gleam with tears in the firelight.

  “I spent most of my life being angry with you.”

  “And I’m sorry.”

  That word again. It means nothing.

  “You weren’t children for very long, but I should’ve done things differently than my maman. I mimicked what was in the Belle-manuals, what my maman and grand-mère had done.” She puts a hand on her face. “Camille, you have to understand... this was the way it was always done. Since the beginning of time. It wouldn’t even have occurred to me to do anything differently than what my maman had trained me to do. But then, I saw the way Sophia treated Amber, and then you... It was clear something had to change. Perhaps the Iron Ladies’ way is the better way. I met them while evading Sophia’s network of guards.

  “I know you’ve seen Sophia’s pods. I never appropriately explained the other Belles that you discovered at the Chrysanthemum Teahouse. I should’ve told all of you about how you were born. I regret not being forthright. Adhering to the guide, I foolishly didn’t realize that you having knowledge would keep you safe if things were to ever go wrong.” She knits her hands in her lap. “I should have shown you how it worked.”

  The memory of Sophia’s glass contraption slides into my head. “Were we all born from those pods?”

  “The favored generation isn’t.” Her voice cracks.

  “Why not? How did we grow?”

  “From the goddess.”

  “Is she even real?” Anger chokes in my voice.

  “That story has some truth. The Goddess of Beauty used to send Belles down from the sky like rain, and they’d burrow into the ground as seeds and grow under the protection of the dark forest behind Maison Rouge. They were beautiful bulbs. When I was a little girl I’d go out there with my mother to tend to the Belles. I used to think the bulbs were diamonds—their outer shells glittered in the darkness. We’d make sure they were covered by the rich soil and pour the blood of the previous generation over the them for nourishment.”

  My heart races alongside her story. It sounds like madness.

  “Guardians were tasked to tend to that forest. Protect it. Keep it holy. Keep it hidden.”

  “The one you forbade us to enter.”

  “But the one you were always drawn to. You thought I didn’t know when you and your sisters would sneak out there.” She stares off into the fire. “Over many weeks, thick stems would push out from the soil, holding the babies in petal-like cases covered with thorns.”

  I open and close my eyes. The images her words etch in my mind are like scenes plucked out of dreams and nightmares.

  “Once you were born, we’d pair you with one of the Belles who returned from court. To help raise you and prepare you for your duties. Over the centuries, fewer Belles dropped from the sky, and the guardians had to adopt radical methods to keep up with the growth in Orléansian population.”

  Du Barry purses her lips.

  “What did you do? What did the guardians do?” I ask.

  “I’m ashamed to tell you these guardian secrets. Saying them out loud solidifies just how wrong they’ve been all these years,” she says without looking up.

  “I want to know. I deserve to know.” My anger is a teapot boiling over.

  DuBarry takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, staring into the fire. “My great-great-great-grand
-mère figured out a way to extract some of your blood, parts of your tissue, and replicate the growing process in controlled pods. But this created greed and more demand.” She reaches out to touch my shoulder. “To be honest, I don’t think she really knew what she was doing. She thought she was solving a problem, but she only created more.”

  I clench my jaw and say nothing. What was there to say?

  “What she discovered, over time, is that there is one Belle in each generation whose blood is stronger than the rest,” she continues.

  “Me,” I say, and she blinks, surprised. “Arabella.”

  “Yes. You are the aether, as the guardians call it. Or as I thought of it as a child, the everlasting rose.”

  Sophia’s cruelty in naming her prison after us burns afresh. “That’s not how the story goes.”

  “It never is.”

  She pauses and leans closer to the crackling fire in the hearth. Her eyes gaze at the wild flames.

  “This world doesn’t deserve Belles,” I yell, standing up and pacing around the room.

  “You are right to be angry.”

  She stands and reaches out a hand, but I avoid her touch.

  “Angry? That word is too small to describe how I feel.” My muscles tense and my fists ball. I want to knock every hat from every perch and punch every post-balloon until they crash to the ground. “Sophia has Amber and Edel and Ivy and all the other Belles you lied to us about, like Delphine. And Valerie is dead.”

  Du Barry flinches, clutching her heart and stumbling backward into her seat. “What?”

  “You heard me. She’s gone. Sophia bled her to death, and she couldn’t handle it any longer.”

  Du Barry holds her head in her hands. “I’m so very sorry.”

  “I don’t understand why this all happened—how the world could treat us like this. How could you lie to us over and over again?”

  “You need to understand the value of beauty and how it creates deficiencies in the world. Deficiency is weakness. Beauty is power. It creates need and desire and want. Not having it creates a market.” Du Barry looks up at me, her eyes watery and her cheeks tear-stained. “I can never be sorry enough.”

  “I’ve heard too many sorrys and none of them change anything.”

  An hourglass on the mantel flips. A long silence seeps between us. It seems there is nothing more to be said. Eventually, Du Barry clears her throat.

  “Your imperial carriage will be back to get you and take you to her,” she says, all business. It is a tone I recognize. “It’s time to get ready.”

  Time to face Sophia.

  “This arrived moments before you did. Lady Arane had it made,” Du Barry says, holding a small box in one hand as I stand before a mirror. “I don’t know how they got it into this tiny thing. It’s not bigger than a hatbox.”

  She hands it to me and I open it, removing a card on top of the soft paper wrapping. It reads: Pull the ribbon and wait for the dress to reveal itself.

  “Where did the Lady order this from?” I ask.

  “The shop next door—Lili’s Marchande de Modes. Very popular on this street.”

  I peel back the paper covering to reveal a thick red velvet ribbon. I pull it. The box flattens and I jump back, startled.

  Bolts of turquoise-and-gold fabric unfurl, tumbling out like an ocean wave. Glittering sequins coat the fabric like scales. It starts to assemble itself upright. A row of black-and-white bows dot the center of the fitted bodice. The neckline dips into a sweetheart with champagne beadwork and a graceful train. The skirt ruffles alternate colors, and tiny golden cages push through. Finally, an oversize matching hat appears atop the box.

  I gasp, circle it, and touch its edges. “It’s perfect! Sophia will be intrigued.”

  The teacup dragons fly around the dress.

  “There’s a compartment in the bustle where you can store your things so you can travel lightly. Any luggage you might bring would be inspected, and your identity quickly uncovered.” She shows me the small space almost the size of my satchel.

  Du Barry’s attendant whistles to get the dragons’ attention and lures them into a low basin to wash the fireplace soot from their scales.

  “Do you want their collars back on?” she asks me.

  “No, thank you,” I reply.

  “Prepare her veil as well, Mia,” Du Barry orders.

  “I don’t need one,” I say with confidence, stretching upright.

  “She will recognize you.”

  “No, she won’t,” I reply. I can’t tell her about the glamours. Edel would never forgive me for divulging her discovery to the woman who lied to us our entire lives. “Please trust me.”

  “You must take it just to be safe. It’s a new style called lace-skin.” She holds up a tract of lace, shaped with the contours of a face, and rubs it against my skin. The thin black material spreads around my cheeks and down my neck like the intricate frosting on a cake. “All the ladies at court wear this now, to shield themselves from Sophia’s gaze and hide their beauty for as long as they can.”

  Du Barry’s attendant gingerly places each teacup dragon into its cage on my dress. They gnaw at the bars, hiccup fire, and stamp their talons in protest.

  A bell chimes.

  “It’s time.” Her eyes take me in and she touches my cheek. “You look extraordinary. If we never see each other again, I want you to know how much I do love you.” Her voice cracks, and she clears it. “Don’t lose sight of the real enemy.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  “Sophia is an enemy because she hurt you, hurt all of us. But the real enemy is inside every Orléans citizen. Cutting off Sophia’s head—and trust me, I’d love to see it displayed in all its glory in Trianon’s Royal Square—will do nothing, because another head will replace it. Stick to your plan. You must be a whisper in a field that turns to a roar right before she can sense it.” She kisses my forehead like she did when we were little and earned high marks. The warmth of her mouth is the same. “I hope to see you again.”

  She presses the official imperial invitation into my hand, the paper thick with promise and danger.

  The palace is awash with light, and the sky above it filled with snowflakes and pretty post-balloons headed to the Observatory Deck carrying gifts for the new queen. I smile for the first time in weeks, thinking about the Iron Ladies and Charlotte headed this way soon.

  Courtiers spill out of gilded carriages pausing at the palace checkpoint. Revelers stumble with excitement and clutch the remnants of candy houses and empty champagne flutes. They sing traditional blessings and wish each other well. They shout their names, the syllables stretched with slurs and excitement.

  I join the crowd. A set of imperial guards collects invitations and checks a parchment scroll. They let some courtiers in and reject others.

  I walk up and hand the guard my paper. “Corrine Sauveterre.”

  “There’s a star beside her name,” one guard says.

  “The queen has been waiting for her most of the night,” the other replies. “We must rush her in before the others and send word ahead.”

  A golden post-balloon bursts from the checkpoint building. Its ribbons snap and flicker in the wind. I wonder what the note inside says. If she believed Auguste’s offer of a gift. If she is excited to meet Corrine Sauveterre, premier dragon merchant, here to let her have her pick of dragons for her upcoming coronation.

  My heart shivers under my rib cage. The teacup dragons protest in their new cages, their wings batting against the bars, irritated at being jostled around.

  The guards lead me onto the palace grounds. The topiary maze is now a garden of flowers fashioned from jewels—roses with ruby petals and emerald stems. Perfume blimps making spritzing sounds skate over the fake flowers. Black gossip post-balloons stalk the gardens as if they’ve been calibrated to find information and sniff out stories in dark corners. The palace rivers are chock-full of newsie boats. They send fleets of story post-balloons up
to the entrance like a storm of navy birds. A newsblimp weaves in and out of the palace turrets holding banners of new year’s wishes.

  All I want to do is take out Rémy’s maps and let the ink reveal where the dungeons are. All I want to do is ensure his safety, then, first thing in the morning, I’ll go to the Observatory Deck to make sure the Iron Ladies and Charlotte can arrive undetected. All I want to do is execute this plan without any problem.

  I walk into the receiving room, and it has been transformed into a menagerie. Gilded cages descend from the high ceiling, made of fine porcelain edged in gold, holding every teacup pet one could imagine. A unicorn sports a tie. A pack of wolves wear tiny hair bows. A wall-length aquarium holds teacup fish, where a small narwhal chases a teacup shark. A family of teacup penguins shuffle an egg back and forth.

  A flood of memories follows me into the foyer of the main entrance, and I am transported back to the night Amber was declared the favorite. High-backed chairs flank the long carpet. Onlookers sport monocles and press eyescopes to their faces and lift up ear-trumpets. Light pushes through the ceiling glass; threads of it stitch across my path, creating a tapestry of orange and gold.

  We enter the throne room and I’m stunned in place, feet heavy and leaden.

  Sophia is just ahead, perched on her throne, singing at the top of her lungs out of tune, her blond hair tower full of teacup swans. Her ladies-of-honor surround her. They look the same as they did weeks ago when I was here. Gabrielle, closest to her, with beautiful dark brown skin, rich and coated with glitter, then a new girl with hair the color of black soil who has replaced Claudine fawns over a teacup sloth, and little Henrietta-Marie with her nose in a book.

  The sight of them fills me with rage. The arcana wake inside me, each skill a small, throbbing curl melding with my simmering ire. I’m not sure I can keep it contained. Sweat dots my brow and dampens the lace-skin Du Barry put over my face. With each breath I take, the anger bubbles up, clawing at my throat and eager to escape my mouth.

  Sophia’s new royal emblem banner hangs proudly from the ceiling. Her ladies-of-honor perch on pillows at her feet, watching and goading her on. Courtiers shout blessings and sweet nothings at her, desperate for her attention.