The Belles: Chapters 20–28

I put on my mask; the sunbird feathers protrude over my hair like ram horns.

I meander through the passages, turning left and right, right and left.

The green trim of his jacket reveals he's from the mercantile House of Clothiers, and as such is ineligible to be her fiancé.

I think of Sophia's disheveled face, rouge-stick ringing her mouth and his; her hair, now a chaos of strands; of Gabrielle's angry expression.

Tall and stately, with wavy dark hair, his mask is feathered and makes me think of the swallow birds that sailors paint on their ships.

"Do you always like to give your unsolicited opinion?"

Du Barry and Elisabeth watch me cross the room as royal attendants ply the guests with wine and savory hors d'oeuvres.

Guests are coaxed into their seats.

"We're so elated that you could join us in celebrating the birthday of our beloved daughter."

"My darling girl," he says to Sophia, "dance tonight, for in the morning and the days to come, you will face more responsibilities as you take your place in this world. Your mother and I have also selected three suitors to vie for your heart. Marriage is on your horizon."

"Thank you for being apt suitors for our daughter."

Their faces blur, and their voices become one ambient hum like the noise of the bayou.

"He believes my gruff demeanor is the reason you disobeyed orders in the garden."

He skulks around in the darkness.

I think about the lists my sisters and I made in our playroom as little girls, noting all the things we wanted to see when we grew up and left home: the spinning looms in the dress markets, cinema-graphs and avenue boards of famed courtier socialites along Trianon's promenade, the pet shops with teacup elephants and teacup tigers lined up in the windows like treats for sale, the patisseries full of tarts, cakes, and cookies, the royal beach with its grains of pink sand and white-sailed ships.

Air-postmen glide about in open-top dirigibles with hooks and paddles to help guide the balloons along.

The tiered compartments fan open, exposing a medley of beauty instruments tucked into nooks and crannies.

I press it to my chest and wish that somehow I could bring her back, like she could be remade from parchment and sinew and ink and memory.

Bree ties my waist-sash on.
"Tighter," I whisper, wanting it to subdue the flutters inside my stomach.

Ivy sits at the edge of the room. She almost blends in with the room's trappings, like a flower arrangement.

She takes my hands and sweeps me into a hug. She smells of rose water.
"Your Highness." I pull back, then discreetly wipe my arms and face. Powder covers my hands.

She's wearing one of the Fashion Minister's new "vivant" day dresses that vary their color every few seconds. Hers changes from gossamer to quicksilver to a stormy blue.

I felt light-headed for a whole week. I had to be carried around in a palanquin.

I place a measuring lace on her face, and my hand shakes as I draw contour lines along the fabric onto the woman's nose and forehead and cheeks.

I use a flat blade from my beauty caisse to cut a slice from the ivory-white and sandy-beige blocks. I also take a wedge of the soft sable for the freckles.

She lifts the facial mesh and gulps down the tea. "Why can't the Royal Apothecary give us something stronger to withstand it?"

"Anything stronger than Belle-rose numbs the blood, Your Highness. The arcana will not work." She holds the base of Princess Sabine's teacup, helping her take larger sips. "I put Belle-rose elixir in this pot. It'll be a bit stronger for you."

The minister nibbles, and I eat ravenously.

"Patience, little love." She smiles indulgently. "Eat up. You have another beauty appointment this afternoon."

Princess Sophia rushes forward, wearing a sheer bathing gown.

I give her my mother's face—thin sloping nose, light brown freckles, a pink bow of a mouth. In my current state, my mother's visage is all that will come to me.

He wears a betrothal pin on his lapel—a reminder that he's one of the princess's suitors.

I am a tangle of giggles and distractions and delirium.

Newsies send their black gossip post-balloons and navy story post-balloons through the halls, hoping to catch a snippet of something for the newsreels and tattlers and scandal sheets.

A searing anger fills every part of me.

Thick black doors shine bright with the House of Inventors emblem—a chrysanthemum growing out of a stacked tower of cogs and gears.

Their surfaces are scattered with beakers, tubes, droppers, spoons, a set of mortars and pestles, and graters.

Their surfaces are scattered with beakers, tubes, droppers, spoons, a set of mortars and pestles, and graters.

The shelves are lined with apothecary bottles that twinkle like jewels, as well as clear jars and magnificent flasks containing resins, balms, waxes, and oils made from flowers, plant secretions, and extracts.

Sophia is peering into two flower terrariums, tapping her fingers against the glass.

One contains bloodroot, a flower with white petals and a yellow center. The other holds pale pink and white blooms in starry clusters—mountain laurel.

It's like watching a télétrope reel of minute-by-minute changes.

"You talk about her as if she's ill."
"She is unhinged."

He hums, the deep baritone of his voice rippling through the hallway, resonating inside me.

I talk to them about court, and their home in the Spice Isles, and how insufferable Rémy can be.