The Belles

by Dhonielle Clayton

  Maybe if I can’t heal Charlotte, I can help Sophia be a better version of herself. Maybe that’s the answer. Make her a better future queen.

  “I can’t give up!” I call out, hoping Ivy is still somewhere near.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  I whip around and find Rémy in the solarium.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” I lie. “And what’s your excuse?”

  “My nightly security round.” He holds the door open as I step through toting the heat-lantern.

  We stand in the hallway. I’m buzzing with questions and indecision. I’m not ready to go back to bed. “Have tea with me?” I ask, then immediately want to take it back. “If you’re busy, then never mind. I can just . . .”

  He pauses. I wait for him to say no. He opens and closes his mouth two times before saying, “Yes, all right.”

  “Meet me in the tea salon.”

  He nods.

  I take the heat-lantern and go to a smaller room beside the main salon. I pull three night-lanterns inside; their light illuminates two low tea tables and mauve-papered walls and cream floor cushions. I tug a string on the wall, and a woman appears from behind a panel. “Yes, miss.”

  “Could I have tea? Enough for two. And would you mind lighting the fireplace?”

  “Yes, of course.” She bows and disappears.

  Rémy returns. His boots clomp against the floor as if he’s stomping bugs.

  “You’re quite noisy for this time of night,” I say.

  He grumbles and sits on the floor pillow across from me.

  The woman returns with a tea cart and pours us both a cup.

  “Thank you,” Rémy and I say in unison.

  I laugh. He fights away a smile. She lights a fire, and the bright flames cast shadows across his deep-brown skin.

  We sip tea in long stretches of silence. Whenever one of us can’t bear it any longer, we ask the other a question: What is your favorite season? Do you miss home? Do you have a favorite sister? If I was sitting with Auguste, the conversation might never stop.

  But when the quiet expands and the tea grows cold, my thoughts return to the queen and Princess Charlotte, and Ivy’s fears. This is the time of night when I miss my sisters the most. Whenever one of us had a problem, we’d wait until our mothers were sound asleep and Du Barry’s snores roared through the belly of the house; then we’d slip out of bed, sneak onto the veranda, and climb up on the roof. We’d lie there lined up like snow owls, staring into the heavens and talking out whatever trouble Edel had gotten herself into, or Valerie’s newest upset about being left out, or Amber’s anxious nerves over her lessons. We’d entertain Hana’s latest fantasy of kissing someone, or Padma’s worries about the babies in the nursery, or my daydreams of seeing the world, or what might be in the dark forest behind our house. They’d argue back and forth about what I should do.

  But I was never alone.

  I steal glances at Rémy. The silver streak down the crown of his head almost glows as the night-lanterns sail over us. I remove the small mirror from beneath my gown and finger it. I wish I could find a way to use it—to see what his reflection holds, to see if I can trust him.

  “What’s that?” He points to the mirror.

  “Nothing.” I take a chance. “Actually, can I ask you a different kind of question?”

  “It depends on what kind.”

  I force a laugh at Rémy’s attempt at humor. “How would you respond if someone asked you to do something dangerous?”

  He sets down his teacup. His eyes narrow, and somehow his perfect posture becomes even straighter. “Dangerous how?”

  I search for the right word. “Something that could make you sick.”

  “Why would anyone ask you to harm yourself?”

  “What if it could save a life?”

  “Is the person being asked you?”

  “No,” I lie. “Of course not. I need to . . . I need to advise one of my sisters on whether she should complete a specific beauty request for one of her clients.”

  He nods, but I can’t tell if he believes me.

  “Clients ask Belles to do many things,” I add.

  “I suppose.”

  “What would you do?”

  “People have duties. She’s been tasked—like you—with a massive responsibility, and has vowed to fulfill a specific obligation. But none of those obligations require risking one’s life. That is the role of a soldier. Is your sister changing professions?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then she can set boundaries,” he says.

  “That’s another way of saying no. Can you say no to the House of War?”

  “Soldiers take a vow to protect Orléans to the death. I can’t, but your sister can.”

  I want to tell him that refusing Du Barry, the Beauty Minister, clients, and most of all the queen or Sophia, feels impossible.

  “No one is a prisoner.” He takes a sip of tea. “Even you have the power to make your own choices.”

  His words burn and crackle like the logs on the hearth.

  33

  Today is Maman’s birthday. All the mothers’ birthdays. Forty days after the last warm day, deep into the windy season. I set her mortuary tablets on my vanity. I place her Belle-book beside them and trace my finger over her portrait on the cover.

  “Maman, what would you do?” I whisper. “Help the queen?”

  I wait to hear her voice.

  Silence.

  I open her Belle-book and comb through entries that mention the queen. It’s so strange, knowing that my mother dealt with the same queen every day that I deal with now. I wonder how Maman felt about Her Majesty. I wonder if the queen liked her.

  Date: Day 96 at court

  The queen was angry today. More than I’d ever seen before. The newsies buzzed about her inability to get pregnant. When I went to her chambers she had all the papers strewn over her tables, the ink scattering and reassembling, hollering their scandalous headlines. The tattlers and newspapers had released cameo portraits of the queen’s sisters and their newborns. They say she is desperate to birth an heir. The worst of them claims she might replace the king, or use another man to father her bloodline. Everyone at court knew that she preferred the company of her lover, Lady Zurie Pelletier, but securing an heir had become her cabinet’s top priority. She felt the pressure.

  I sat in the corner of her chambers for three hourglasses. I waited for her to tell me she was ready for beauty work. She paced so furiously I thought she might put a hole in the fur rug beneath her feet. She threw vases and Belle-products and her own shoes. When exasperated and out of things to pummel against the wall, she turned to me and said, “Get rid of my anger. Make it go away. He won’t lie with me. He says my temper is too much. He says I lack patience with him because he’s not Zurie.”

  She yanked me from my chair and dragged me to her treatment salon. I pressed my fingers along her spine, pushing my Manner arcana deep inside her. For hours and hours she had me drain her temper from her, like how the leeches remove the toxins from our blood. She never felt like it was gone. I worked on her for three days straight. She wouldn’t let me stop for meals or to rest. Leeches crawled over my limbs to help me push through, and I had to eat pastille cakes and skin-color pastes to quiet my stomach.

  This can’t be Queen Celeste. It doesn’t sound like the person I know. Her gentle brown eyes and slow smile flicker in my memory.

  I reread the passage twice.

  Bree tiptoes up to my desk. I press Maman’s book to my chest.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you.” She sets down a fresh stack of newspapers, scandal sheets, and tattlers, plus a shiny beauty-scope. “These just arrived.”

  “Thanks.” I smile at her. She rushes off.

  I thumb through the papers. Headlines pulse and flash.

  PATRONS LEAVE THE GLASS TEAHOUSE WITH

  GILDED HAIR AND PERMANENT MAKEUP

  BEAUTY LOBBYISTS MEET WITH THE QUEEN TO


  PETITION FOR AN EASE ON BEAUTY RESTRICTIONS

  AND TOILETTE-BOX ALLOTMENTS

  MAKING ORGANS MORE YOUTHFUL TO BE OUTLAWED

  BY THE QUEEN IN FAVOR OF NATURAL DEATHS

  WILLOWY FRAMES AND DAINTY HANDS,

  THE MOST REQUESTED LOOK

  FASHION MINISTER’S NEW DRESS COLLECTION BOASTS NEW

  VIVANT DRESSES MADE OF LIVING THINGS LIKE BUTTERFLIES

  QUEEN CHANGES LAW: ALLOWS BOY TO

  REVEAL TRUE SELF AND TRANSFORM INTO A

  GIRL AT MAISON ROUGE DE LA BEAUTé

  “Camellia. Correspondence is here.” Bree guides a massive rose-petal-pink post-balloon into my bedroom. The princess’s royal emblem blazes brightly on its side. Two cream-colored ribbons hold a dress box.

  I open the back of the balloon. Sparkles rain down at my feet. I slip out a sealed letter and read aloud.

  “Your presence is requested by Her Royal Highness Princess Sophia in her chambers in an hourglass’s worth of time.”

  I open the dress box. A windy-season tea dress stares up at me with a handwritten note that says WEAR ME. The plum silk and tulle are the shade of a fresh bruise.

  “What is it, Lady Camellia?” Bree asks. Her voice squeaks and she clears her throat before continuing. “Do you not like the dress?”

  “No, it’s beautiful,” I say.

  She takes it out of the box and holds it up. “The princess has excellent taste.”

  “What do you think of her?”

  “Who, my lady?”

  “The princess. Sophia.”

  She shudders. “I—”

  I take the dress from her. “What is it? Tell me.”

  “I’m not supposed to have opinions of royalty. I’m supposed to do my job.” She turns to fuss with the dress and make sure it doesn’t get a single wrinkle while draped across the bed.

  “But if you did. What would it be?” I step closer to her.

  “The servants call her ‘la chat,’ my lady,” she whispers.

  “Why? Cats are sweet.”

  “Not always. At least, not the teacup ones. It’s just that Her Highness loves you one day and hates you the next.”

  “Temperamental,” I say.

  “Worse. Cats cuddle you when they want something and will scratch your face when you don’t give it to them.”

  “Give me an example,” I say.

  “Last year one of the servant girls, Aria, was put in a starvation box by the princess. She had been a favored servant of the royalty. She got to wear that purple pin on her uniform. The princess would shower her with extra gifts—beauty tokens, food—and allow her to travel as her companion on trips to palaces in the other isles.”

  “And? What happened?”

  Bree sighed before continuing. “One day the princess said Aria’s eyes were too beautiful for a servant girl. Even though Aria maintained the beauty restrictions for servants. She accused her of getting additional work done, and put her in the box for three days. She had her eyes pecked out by birds. She almost died.”

  My stomach lurches. A chill settles over me.

  Sophia cannot become queen.

  Bree slips her hand in mine. “Please don’t ever tell anyone I told you that. I could be—”

  “Don’t worry.” I stare into her eyes to reassure her. Tiny hints of red push against the warm sepia brown of her irises. A gray tinge lingers beneath her pink-white skin and more stubble dots along her chin.

  “Let me refresh you.” I touch her face lovingly.

  “I couldn’t—”

  “You will.” I lead her to my vanity and force her into the seat. Her mouth fights away a grin. She sinks into the high-backed chair. I grab a pot of Belle-rose tea from the tearoom and bring her a cup. She sips and smiles.

  “Close your eyes.” I open my beauty caisse, remove a bei-powder bundle, and find a skin-pot color that matches hers. I cover her face with the skin paste. I slip my mirror from inside my dress. I quickly push the pin into my finger and wipe the blood on the base of my mirror. I watch it climb, willing it to go faster. The rose turns red and twists into its message—BLOOD FOR TRUTH.

  I examine her. The glass fogs, then it reveals her smiling face bathed in a halo. Her loyalty reflects in the glass like a warm sun. The confirmation surges through me.

  I restore her skin color, add more freckles to her nose and cheeks, and deepen the brown of her eyes. I touch the light stubble on her chin and cheeks.

  “Do you mind. . .” she starts to ask.

  I smile at her and touch her face, pulling the short hairs out and killing the roots of them.

  “Those hairs won’t come back again,” I say.

  “Thanks,” she whispers.

  I add a small dimple—like mine—to her cheek as a bonus.

  “Do you like the new dress?” Sophia asks as she flits around her boudoir in a sheer bathing gown. Her legs and hands twitch, and she fights to keep herself still. Wire-rimmed glasses sit on a wide nose, and her deep-set hazel eyes are two pools of sadness. She reminds me of a flower that’s lost all its petals. Her hair-tower is a frantic mess of tangles and jewels. Old makeup rings her eyes and lingers on her cheeks.

  “It’s pretty,” I say.

  “Spin for me.”

  I do a careful turn. Unease fills me.

  Sophia cannot be queen.

  Sophia is unfit.

  Sophia is temperamental.

  The dress folds release a tiny melody each time I move.

  “Isn’t it a lovely sound?” She leaps around to the beat of it. “I’m working with the Fashion Minister to make a line of dresses that sing. This is my first attempt.”

  “Very clever.” I don’t tell her Rémy teased me on the entire walk to her chambers, calling me a pavilion bell.

  “I need to make sure I take fashion to a new place, too. My mother is not a very fashionable queen. Her dresses are always rather dull. I will commission gowns the likes of which the world has never seen.” She digs into her vanity, throwing creams and puffs and tonics and perfume vials. Glass shatters.

  I step back as some of the objects fly over my head like shooting stars. Servants rush to clean, but more hit the floor and splatter their contents before the servants can catch them. I shift my weight and try to find the right moment to interject.

  “Will we be having lunch, Your Highness?” I ask tentatively.

  She pauses. “I’ve planned a windy-season picnic. It’s partly a date with another one of my suitors.”

  I wait for her to say Auguste’s name.

  “Ethan Laurent from House Merania.”

  I smile with strange, unexpected relief.

  She returns to lobbing beauty products. “But I just can’t find . . .” She jerks upright. “Hmm, I can’t seem to remember what it is I was looking for.” She stares at the ceiling.

  Servants duck and dart around her, trying to sweep up her mess.

  Sophia steps in front of her vanity. “I look horrendous, favorite. I need you. I was up too late.” She reaches out her hand. I hesitate before taking it. “Fix me.”

  “I must change into my work dress.”

  “No, I want you as beautiful as possible while you work on me. Perhaps it’ll inspire you.”

  We go to her treatment salon.

  “Can we send for Bree? I need my beauty caisse.”

  Sophia snaps a finger at a nearby servant. The woman ducks out of the room. I call out a thank you behind her.

  “I will go bathe while you set up,” she says.

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  I double-check the treatment room: adequate beauty-lanterns floating about, a servant setting Belle-rose tea on the table, pastilles melting on chafing dishes and filling the room with a lavender scent, another servant draping a large bed with pillows and linens, Belle-products sparkling on tiered trays. I trace my fingers over the fleur-de-lis Belle-emblems etched onto each item.

  I remember the first time Amber and I sneaked into the Belle-product storeroo
m. After the house had gotten quiet, we stole night-lanterns and dragged them to the back of the house. The room’s wonders had unfolded to us for hours: perfume atomizers and color crème-cakes and rouge-sticks and powders and kohl pencils and golden vinaigrettes and pastilles and potpourri and oils and sachets. The room had smelled heady and sweet, and we’d fallen asleep there after powdering ourselves all night. Du Barry made us write fifty lines each as punishment.

  I wish Amber was here now. What would she tell me to do?

  Bree arrives with my beauty caisse. “I thought you were headed to a luncheon,” she whispers.

  “So did I.”

  Bree sets it up on a nearby cart and begins the process of unhooking its compartments. Servants usher Sophia back into the room. She guzzles a vial of her specially made Belle-rose elixir and climbs onto the bed.

  I pace around, trying to figure out what look I’ll give her. An idea wells up.

  “Facedown, please,” I say.

  “Why?” Her eyebrows lift in surprise.

  “I need to get a good look at your hair,” I lie. “I want to experiment.”

  Sophia claps giddily. “You know how much I love to toy with things.” She turns over.

  I stand at the top of the treatment table. Bree and I work to cover her with bei powder. The weight of my plan is like a solid-gold spintria block, heavy with risk. Doubt curls into my stomach, souring it with anxiety.

  I brush her hair down her back. I lighten the strands to the color of snow and add streaks of silver and embed diamonds. I paint her in a new skin tone, the color of freshly laid eggs. The second arcana awakens. I freckle her body with beautiful beauty marks. Goddess-of-Beauty kisses.

  She grunts, and sweat dots her skin.

  “Are you all right, Your Highness?” I pretend to fuss with the metal rods used to shape the contours of the face and body.

  “Yes, proceed,” she whispers.

  I motion to Bree to lift her hair. Bree’s shaky hands gather the new strands. Sophia’s spine curves beneath her skin, visible on her skinny frame. The first arcana awakens inside me at the sight of it. I think of Maman’s entry about the queen. A poor manner can be leeched out of anyone.

  I take a deep breath. I nudge my fingers lightly into the back of her neck. Her soft skin warms beneath my fingertips. I push out her temper, plucking it from inside her like a weed in a garden, and plant the virtues of patience and serenity.