The Belles

by Dhonielle Clayton

  “It’s finished,” I say.

  Her eyes pop open. She exclaims, touches her face, then bursts into tears. “Thank you, thank you. I just . . . can’t . . . thank you enough.”

  I rub her back.

  “It’s the least I can do.”

  I leave Astrid in front of the mirror, examining her new nose. Rémy and I walk out into the late morning sun, out of the Rose Quartier into the Market Quartier to hail a rickshaw back to the palace.

  “That was nice of you,” he says.

  “Nice?”

  “I mean, I’m glad you did it,” he mumbles.

  “Even though it wasn’t on the official agenda? And the princess will probably be upset?”

  “Yes. It was the right thing.”

  “So, do you break the rules for noble reasons?” I ask.

  He grunts in response. A poor version of a laugh.

  We navigate the bustling corridors of the Market Quartier with their cobalt-blue lanterns and clogged shops. Representatives of merchant houses parade their wares. Women wear dresses covered in products for sale: pearls, perfume bottles, spice pouches, and more. Men shout from their tents and lure customers with promises of what’s inside. I lift my veil to get a better look at it all.

  “Can I trust you not to run off?” Rémy asks.

  “Yes,” I reply.

  “Stay right here, I’m going to get us a rickshaw.” Rémy trudges ahead to a carriage-and-rickshaw pavilion. Courtiers haggle over prices and admire trinkets. Rickshaws empty passengers full of happy laughter and gasps of excitement.

  A royal carriage pulls up across the street. The emblem of one of Sophia’s ladies-of-honor winks in the sunlight. I move into the shadow of a nearby pavilion as the door opens.

  It’s Claudine. She steps off the carriage and reaches a hand back. Out climbs one of the servant girls I’ve seen tending to Sophia. Her uniform peeks out from under a luxurious fur coat. Claudine opens a parasol over their heads, and they disappear under it like a pair of gossiping courtiers.

  They giggle, exchange glances, and head into the market. I watch and follow them. They stop to admire baubles and necklaces, then enter a dress shop. The owner fusses over them with silks and brocades and taffetas. The woman pulls out a dress for the servant girl. When the owner turns her back, Claudine leans in, kisses the servant girl on the mouth, and runs her fingers through her cropped brown hair.

  “You told me you’d stay put.” Rémy startles me.

  I crash into the shop door. The owner turns around. The girls look at me and scamper away from each other.

  Claudine stomps forward. “Who’s there?”

  “Rémy, let’s go, quickly.” I try to hurry away.

  Claudine snatches the door open and catches my arm.

  My heart bubbles up into my throat. “Lady Claudine,” I say with a bow, and lift my veil.

  “Camellia.” She stares with a terrified look in her eyes. Rouge-stick rings her swollen lips. “And just what are you doing here? Does Sophia know?”

  “Pardon, Duchesse de Bissay.” Rémy bows. “It was my fault entirely. I was giving her a tour of Trianon.”

  “Well, I was just looking for dresses,” Claudine says. “With my attendant.” She points to the servant girl, who stares at the floor. “I wasn’t doing anything.” She wipes a handkerchief across her mouth, fusses with her hair, trying to pull herself together. Tears shimmer in her blue eyes. She fans them away. “Violetta, go prepare the carriage. We’ll return to the palace.”

  The girl rushes off.

  A heavy silence expands among the three of us.

  “Camellia, can we talk in private?”

  “Yes.”

  Rémy walks a few paces ahead.

  Claudine takes my hands. “Please don’t say anything. Even if Sophia asks about me being in Trianon.”

  “I—”

  “Sophia can’t know.” Her bottom lip quivers and her hands shake. “I’m in love with Violetta, Camellia.” She gulps. “And I know I shouldn’t be because she’s without status. I’ll be ruined. Sophia is trying to secure a marriage for me. Someone suitable. Titled. Someone my father would respect and want for me. Someone who would help him settle his debts. And I know I need to tell her about Violetta. But—”

  “I won’t say anything, my lady.” I hug her to get her to stop shaking. “I promise.”

  Claudine takes a deep breath. We stand there until her body stiffens and she pulls away.

  She steels herself. Wipes away falling tears, shakes out her arms. “I will marry the next person she proposes.”

  Her words feel empty and practiced.

  “Why not just tell her, and marry who you want?”

  “As you are well aware, Camille, you don’t say no to Sophia.” The servant girl reappears. Claudine gives my hand one last squeeze, then gathers up the voluminous layers of her dress and leaves.

  I’m numb as Rémy and I walk back to the market entrance, where a rickshaw awaits.

  Once the curtain drops, Rémy whispers, “Be careful about carrying other people’s secrets at court.”

  37

  That night, light filters in through a slit in my bedcurtains.

  “My lady . . .” Bree’s voice slips in. “Are you still awake?”

  I set Maman’s book to the side.

  “Yes.”

  “A post-balloon just came for you.” She releases the canary-yellow balloon. It glows like a sun inside my dimly lit bed canopy, and knocks around the night-lantern.

  “Thank you,” I reply, and close the bedcurtains again.

  I tug the tail ribbons and open the back to retrieve the note.

  C,

  I’m safe.

  More soon.

  E

  I turn the page over, and the words SPICE and PRUZAN are spelled out in pastels. I’m not sure what these coded words mean, but at least she’s safe. I press the tiny paper close to my heart, and a rush of relief surges through me. I blow out the night-lantern and drift off to sleep.

  A rough shove awakens me. “Lady Camellia. Get up quickly.”

  Shouts and yells ring through the apartment. Feet tromp along the floor.

  I sit up and rub my eyes. The scent of burning feathers, parchment, and wood stings my nose. A pair of strong arms pulls me out. Flames rush up the left side of the bed. The curtains flap and hiss.

  Smoke fills the room.

  “Wait! My Belle-book.” I try to turn back.

  “The bed is burning,” Rémy yells.

  I snatch at the curtains. He grabs my arm, but I struggle away. “Don’t touch me.” I lunge at the bed again.

  He throws me over his shoulder like a satchel. I kick and punch at him. It makes no difference. “I’m supposed to protect you.”

  “I don’t need your help. Put me down.” He totes me into the main salon and puts me on a couch.

  Elisabeth paces in front of her office, her cheeks flushed, a hand in front of her mouth.

  “I have to get back in there. I have to get my Belle-book,” I cry out.

  She looks at me like I’ve just said I have wings and can fly. “I can have Mother send you another one.”

  “But—” I race forward and try to go back inside my bedroom. Servants block the doors. Rémy sighs.

  “It’s not safe, miss,” one says.

  “The fire will be out soon,” another assures me.

  I start to cough. More servants wheel in breakfast carts with carafes of snowmelon juice and water.

  Rémy hands me a glass. I reluctantly take it and gulp down the cool liquid.

  The bedroom doors snap open. A servant wipes soot streaks from her cheeks. “The fire’s out. The bed will be replaced.”

  “What caused it?” I ask.

  “The bed warmer, my lady. There was a book inside it.”

  Every muscle in my body clenches, and I rush forward into the room. No one stops me this time.

  Servants break down the burnt bed, carrying off bedposts scarred
by the fire. The sheets are charred black and eaten away. The metal bed warmer lies open like a pie without a crust. The remains of Maman’s Belle-book are inside it. How did it get in there? The scent of fire brings back Maman’s funeral and the flames that engulfed her body, smoldering the bed of Belle-roses, tearing first through her silk dresses, and then her skin and body. When I think too hard and my eyes get all blurry, I still see those tiny sparks flickering off the pyre like fireflies as Maman’s body disappeared, and my old life evaporated.

  The loss of her Belle-book feels like the last piece of her is gone. I sit at the edge of the burnt bed with my head in my hands until men come to tear down what’s left.

  I don’t move from the spot for hours. Not even when Elisabeth tells me I have beauty appointments. Not even when Bree brings me a cart of food. Not even when the men return to construct a new bed.

  I rest my head on my knees and listen to the thud of my heart.

  “Will you just stay there all day?” a voice says.

  I look up. Arabella stands over me. Her long veil dusts the floor and her crown glitters.

  “Get up,” she orders, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet.

  “What are you doing?” I yank away from her.

  “Checking for burns. Do you have any?”

  “No.”

  “In any pain?” She lifts my arms and inspects my hands, her touch rough.

  “No.”

  “Then you need to focus on helping Princess Charlotte before the queen’s Declaration. It’s in three days’ time. The palace grows more dangerous every day, and Sophia will only get worse. You weren’t hurt this time, but—”

  “Sophia had something to do with this?”

  Bree walks through the door holding newspapers.

  “Sophia is involved in everything, and the sooner you realize that, the better.” Arabella rushes away.

  Bree bows at Arabella as she passes. The doors close with a thud behind her.

  “Are you all right, miss?” she says.

  I can’t answer her question. My eyes fill with tears. My skin prickles with goose bumps. Rage thunders in me like a great storm. The heat of it warms my blood more than the arcana. The hairs on my arms lift as if lightning is near.

  Sophia took away the last thing I had of my mother.

  38

  I go to the Imperial Library to find out if there’s any record of Belles having an ability to heal. The space could fit all four wings of Maison Rouge de la Beauté and the surrounding forest and gardens. The shelves are mountains scaling the walls, tapering toward a sky of stained glass. Balconies split the room into levels. Ladders click along poles and hold servants squeezing books into nooks. Spiral staircases and tiny lifts connect to the very top. Maps of Orléans stretch along the walls, showing the kingdom’s growth over time. A wall of royal emblems illustrates the tiers of the high and middle houses. Velvet armchairs and puffy couches are scattered around small tables. Reading-lanterns are clustered near visiting patrons.

  This place has to contain an answer to my questions about the arcana. The things Du Barry never told us.

  Rémy waits for me at the door.

  “I’ll only be a few minutes. Maybe a full hourglass?”

  He nods.

  I walk through the aisles, letting my hands drift over the spines. I pull a book from the shelf and open the pages just to smell them. When I was little and in trouble with Du Barry, I’d hide in our library. Maman would find me curled up behind a shelf with a reading-lantern and a book of fairy tales. I’d make a little tent out of my traveling cloak. She’d hunker down with me and read one of the stories with tough words in it. I was much more interested in falling into stories than completing Du Barry’s assignments.

  The scent of oil lamps and old paper and leather circulates. It makes me miss the tenor of Maman’s voice and the perfume of her skin and how her arms made me feel like I’d never fall. The thought of Maman’s burnt Belle-book brings tears. She’d want me to help Charlotte. She’d want me to do what’s right.

  Glass cabinets line a wall, displaying newspapers from various years. I gaze into them. The headlines are sluggish, showing their age. I’m drawn to the ones about Princess Charlotte.

  PRINCESS CHARLOTTE HASN’T AWOKEN FOR A MONTH

  THE QUEEN ISSUES A PALACE LOCKDOWN

  AFTER THE PRINCESS FALLS ILL

  IMPERIAL SERVANTS PUT IN STARVATION BOXES

  AFTER THE PRINCESS REFUSES TO WAKE

  THE FALLEN PRINCESS RUMORED TO BE NEAR DEATH

  ROYAL POISONMASTERS BROUGHT TO THE PALACE

  TO TASTE THE BLOOD OF THE SLEEPING PRINCESS

  Her portrait is printed in the paper. Cameos sit side by side, showing what she looked like before—big hazel eyes, a freckled nose and round face, a small forehead like her father’s—and after the sleeping sickness. She’s still beautiful, even when asleep. Soft mouth, curls draped around her shoulders, a jeweled hair comb instead of a crown.

  Articles boast different theories: imperial doctors blame sleeping draughts and poppy illness, tattlers and scandal sheets speculate about love sickness because Princess Charlotte’s favored suitor, Ren Fournier, accidentally drowned days earlier, and many courtiers believe that someone tried to kill her because she was just too beautiful.

  “Interested in royal history, Lady Camellia?” a voice says. I turn, and a pair of piercing brown eyes stares back at me. Deep wrinkles rim her mouth and eyes. Her hair frizzes around her head in a lovely disc shape. “I’m the royal librarian. Can I help you with your selections?”

  “Actually, I’m interested in Belle history.”

  “Right this way.” She leads me through countless aisles, snaking left and right. Spines show titles like The History of Orléans and The Policies of Queen Marjorie II and Imperial Laws Throughout the Verdun Dynasty, and so on. There are art books and romance novels and children’s tales and thousands of rows I can’t see.

  She pulls back a gauzy curtain and ushers me into a small alcove. These shelves hold books bound with red leather. Tables hold maps of Maison Rouge de la Beauté, newspaper advertisements for the teahouses, and imperial beauty law ledgers. Display boxes feature first-edition beauty-scopes, framed pictures of gardiens, Belle-cards from past generations, and ancient beauty tools marred by age. Small beauty caisses, ranging in size and age, sit in the corners.

  “We should have everything you’re looking for. Otherwise it’s in the library at your home.” She lugs heavy tomes from the shelves and sets them on a nearby table. They have titles like A History of the Goddess of Beauty and the Belles, The Very First Belles, The Mythos of Belle Origins, Belle Beauty Trends, Queens and Belles—the Most Important Royal Relationship, and more. “Here are a few to get you started.”

  “Thank you.”

  I circle the alcove, admiring all the bits of Belle lore. I open gardien journals, scanning the text for any mention of the arcana and their healing powers.

  One is written by Du Barry’s fourteenth great-grand-mère:

  Day 12 of the Philippe Dynasty, the Year of the God of the Sky

  One of the little Belles doesn’t have a Manner arcana. Every time the girls are tested, she cannot soften a temperament or bestow talent. Instead, her subject’s skin warms and their spine begins to protrude from their back, as if it might actually push through their skin. She won’t be viable. I must reexamine how she became damaged.

  Another is from her sixth great-grand-mère:

  Day 274 of the Clothan Dynasty, the Year of the God of the Sea

  I have to keep one Belle from the latest generation home. She has a darker side to her arcana. Her gifts behave erratically. Almost backward. Instead of removing wrinkles, she creates them. Instead of softening one’s manner, she worsens it. Instead of making her clients beautiful, she distorts them. She killed a teacup house cat yesterday by slowing its heart. And the day before, she froze the blood of a bird.

  I will work with her to reverse this. Or to control the
manifestation of the dark side. But it troubles me. Something went wrong during her birth. I force her to pray to the Goddess of Beauty each night and leave candles at an altar. She’s been cursed.

  Maman’s arcana accidentally did the same thing. But a complete reversal of the arcana? I cup my wrist and trace the veins there, wondering if I can do the same. If the arcana can kill, surely they must be able to heal? But how?

  The librarian returns with open scrapbooks. “I thought you might find these interesting. Mostly reputable, but there are a few tattlers and scandal sheets in there, too. They often hint at the truth at times, but never tell anyone a librarian told you that,” she says, setting down three in front of me.

  “Thank you,” I call out as she leaves.

  The pages crackle like the ones in Maman’s Belle-book as I turn them. The pinch of the loss comes back again. Many of the headlines are so old they no longer flash on the page.

  GODDESS OF BEAUTY PUNISHES THIS GENERATION

  OF BELLES WITH FAULTY GIFTS

  BEAUTY CARNAVAL WILL LAST TWO MONTHS THIS YEAR

  WITH A WHOPPING 212 BELLES TO BE PRESENTED

  COURTIER STUCK IN PERMANENT GRAY

  STATE NO MATTER THE WORK OF THE BELLES

  BECAUSE OF CONTAMINATED BLOOD

  I shove the scrapbooks away. I’m no closer to finding what I’m looking for. The pieces to this puzzle seem too fuzzy and too out of reach.

  “Researching yourself? Isn’t that a bit narcissistic?”

  A smiling Auguste slips into the alcove. Each time I see him feels like it’s the very first time. His scent finds me from where he stands—salt, sand, and the seas: the comforting scents that waft inside my windows in the morning when I open them.

  “I’m looking for information to help the queen. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m looking up something for my father, if you must know,” he says.

  My heart hiccups as he approaches. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I thought we were done with your warnings.”

  “Are you following me?”

  “Yes, I saw you.” His eyes twinkle. “And I had to come bother you.”