The Belles Read online

  My cheeks burn with embarrassment. At birth, Orléans citizens are marked with permanent imperial identification ink that not even Belles can cover up or erase. Even if you cut out the skin, the ink will rise again from the blood. Most wear their emblems on their clothing, near the spot where they’re marked.

  I watch him with newfound curiosity: the way he tucks the fallen strand of hair behind his ear, the few freckles he has on his nose, how he adjusts his jacket. “Where did you come from?”

  “The Lynx.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a place.”

  “They must not teach you much.”

  I scoff. “I’ve had an excellent education. Is it in the south?”

  “It’s in the harbor.” He grins. “My boat.”

  So he was trying to make me feel stupid.

  “You’re rude.” I start to walk away. The argument between Edel and Du Barry is dying down in the distance.

  “Wait! I just wanted to see if the newsies were right.” His eyes are a cedar brown, the color of the trees that grow out of the Rose Bayou waters at home. Navy emblems twinkle on his jacket like newly minted leas coins from the Imperial Bank.

  “Right about what?”

  “They say that you can create a person from clay with your arcana, like magic.”

  I laugh. “Like a court magician paid to entertain royal children with fireworks and tricks?” The newsies always call what we do magic, but Maman said the word is too simple an explanation for the arcana.

  “So, can you?” He fusses with his cravat until it loosens, and the silk tumbles down his chest like a spill of orange champagne.

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “How does it?” His eyes burn with questions as he takes another step forward.

  My heart hitches. “Don’t come any closer.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Are you going to murder me?”

  “There are laws,” I remind him. “And maybe I should.”

  “You follow those?”

  “Sometimes.” I fuss with the ruffles of my dress. “It’s forbidden for men to be alone with Belles outside the confines of beauty appointments, or to speak to them unless the conversation relates to beauty work.”

  “And what of women? They can be just as dangerous, if not more.”

  “The same applies. We’re not to fraternize with non-Belles.”

  “Why all the fuss? It seems silly, if you ask me.” He smiles like he already knows the answer.

  “Bad things have happened in the past.”

  “But they don’t always have to.” He rubs his chin as he studies me. “You don’t seem like a rule-follower.”

  A blush rises to my cheeks. “You have a keen eye.”

  “I’m a sailor. I have to—”

  “Camellia!” Du Barry calls out. “What are you doing back there?”

  I flinch at the sound of my name and pivot around. “Coming!” I shout.

  The guard returns.

  I turn back. “Who are you?”

  But the boy is gone. The guard gives me a pointed look, but I rush to the palace gates anyway and look left and right.

  Nothing.

  “Camellia!” Du Barry shouts again.

  I go to the opposite side of my carriage.

  Nothing.

  Already the memory of the boy feels like a dream you try to remember the very first moment you wake up. Fuzzy, wispy, and out of reach.

  5

  The Beauty Minister opens the southern gate, prancing forward in a body-length mink coat. She pets the fur with her red-tipped nails; peacock feathers are woven into her dark hair. She points up. A gold-and-white post-balloon dances over her head. The House of Orléans’s emblem blazes on its side. The queen’s personal post correspondence.

  “Welcome, my lovelies; I am Rose Bertain, House Orléans, and Royal Beauty Minister to our great kingdom. I have a message from Her Majesty.” She slices the back of the balloon with a hooked letter opener. Glowing sparks spray from its rear. She pulls out a tiny scroll boasting the queen’s wax seal.

  She breaks and unravels it, then reads:

  “My Dearest Belles,

  Welcome to my home and the capital of your beloved kingdom. Each one of you was so beautiful tonight. I think the Goddess of Beauty watched proudly from the heavens above. I look forward to determining the best placement for you. Thank you for your divine service to this land. May you always find beauty.

  – HRM Queen Celeste Elisabeth the Third, by the Grace of the Gods of the Kingdom of Orléans and Her Other Realms and Territories, Defender of Beauty and Borders.”

  I hold my breath until the Beauty Minister finishes reading the queen’s title.

  “Shall we go inside?” she says.

  “Yes,” Valerie blurts out a little too loudly. We all laugh. Her light brown skin turns pink.

  Du Barry and the Beauty Minister lead us forward onto the imperial grounds. Guards flank our sides. We walk down a sloping promenade and along curving pathways, headed for the palace.

  Night-lanterns wander overhead, leaving footprints of light in front of us. I pass by bright green lawns and ornate trees trimmed into shapes favored by the gods, flowerbeds that burst with scarlet Belle-roses and snowy lilies shimmering like blankets of red and white stardust. Royal beasts parade along the grass—cerulean peacocks, rosy teacup flamingos, and fire-red phoenixes.

  Amber looks back at me. I stick my tongue out and race up to her. “You did so well,” she whispers.

  I try to pluck a flying bug from the waist-sash around her sunset-orange gown. She sweeps it up and sets it free.

  “So did you.”

  Her pale nose scrunches. The angles of her face curve into a perfect heart shape. Her complexion is as smooth and delicate as a piece of the fine porcelain from the formal dining salon at home. The Belle-makeup she wears makes her skin look even whiter. A slight wind pulls her ginger hair out of place. Her high bun looks like a split peach on account of the color. “I messed up with the skin. It turned out too bright.” Her eyes shimmer with tears.

  “It was fine.” I trip over my dress skirts, but she catches me. I feel so light and so tired from using the arcana.

  “My nerves were a mess. I did everything Maman . . .” Her voice breaks in half.

  I lace my fingers through hers, and they look like twists of butterscotch and vanilla. Amber’s sadness is painted all over her. I bury my own. We both did what our mothers told us to do.

  “You did great. Your girl’s hair had perfect ringlets. Maman Iris would’ve been so proud.” At home, Amber lived next door to me on the seventh floor. Her maman would set up tea parties with sugar cakes and marzipan rose creams just for us. Despite the fact that we were thirteen, and a little too old for it, I loved them. I’ll always remember when Maman Iris taught us how to use the bei-powder bundles, and how the chalk-white sprinkles made her skin look like dried-out dirt.

  In our Belle-trunks, little stone mortuary tablets are packed alongside our dresses, in memory of our mothers.

  “Amber, you did wonderfully.”

  “Liar,” Amber says. “You didn’t even watch. I could see you. You had your eyes closed.” She elbows me.

  She’s always seen right through me.

  “I saw her after you were done.” I’ll sneak a newsreel and watch the whole thing later.

  My few childhood memories have Amber in them: tiptoeing into Du Barry’s chambers to see what size brassiere she wore, hiding out in the nursery where people brought infants for their first transformations, placing bei-powder in our playroom mistress’s tea just to see her spit it out, pushing all the lift buttons to get to the restricted floors, breaking into the Belle-product storeroom to test all the latest concoctions. We’ve shared our friendship for so long, I can’t pinpoint when it first started.

  “Look at the sky.” I wave above our heads. “It’s different here than at home.” No cypress trees blocking the stars. No hum of bayou crickets or the bleating of frogs.
No tiny curling bars on the house windows. No thick northern clouds; just a clear stretch out to the ends of the world.

  “The queen was supposed to stand up after my exhibition, Camille. So I would know. So everyone would know. Maman told me I had to be the favorite. There’s no point in being anything else.”

  My chest tightens. We were told the same thing. I feel selfish for wanting to be better than her, and all my sisters.

  “She didn’t stand up for me either,” I remind her. And myself. “I know you did well, even if I didn’t see it.”

  “Yes, but you were spectacular!” She throws up her hands. “I’ve never seen you perform like that.”

  “And you were just as good, so stop it.”

  “We all did what we were told to do. What was in our dossiers. Except you. Turning the little girl into your mirror image—so clever. And, I didn’t even think to use my ambrosia flower as a little cocoon. It really heightened everything. Made it such a reveal. None of that crossed my mind. Which is my problem. I don’t do the unexpected. You take the rules as suggestions, and go beyond.” She balls up her fists. “Just change their hair and skin color.” She parrots Du Barry’s nasal-toned voice. “Nothing more. Anything else is a waste. . . .” She covers her face with her hands. “It was a show, and you understood that.”

  “I made the cocoon so she’d stop squirming,” I say, not wanting her to know that I’d spent a lot of time thinking about how to be better than her, better than everyone. I reach to squeeze her hand, but she moves it to fuss with a flower that’s threatening to drop from her bun. I remind her how she never struggles with the arcana. She earns high marks on each challenge Du Barry assigns. Based on lesson grades, Amber’s the top of our generation, always getting perfect scores from Du Barry. If the decision were based on that, she’d be chosen easily.

  “If we could’ve shown the first arcana, I know they would’ve all seen more of your skills,” I say. Amber is exceptional at Manner. She’s able to soften even the voice of a teacup monkey, make the most oafish person charming, and give someone any talent they desire—cooking, dancing, playing the lute or a stringed misen—as easily as donning a different dress.

  “I was supposed to be the best. I was supposed to be named the favorite.”

  “We all want to be the favorite,” I say.

  Her eyes narrow. “Don’t you think I know that?”

  Her tone feels like a slap. She’s never spoken to me like this before.

  “Ambrosia! Camellia! You know the rules.” Du Barry hitches up an eyebrow. “You’re too old for reminders.”

  Amber moves two paces away, and that tiny space feels like the width of an ocean. We’re not supposed to show favoritism with one another. We’re all sisters. We’re all supposed to be equally close. But I’ve always loved Amber a little more than the others. And she, me.

  Amber flashes irritated eyes at me. I don’t understand her anger. We are, each of us, in the exact same place right now. Shouldn’t we support one another?

  Once Du Barry turns her back, I move close to her again and touch her hand, wanting to fix whatever just broke between us. She brushes away and cuts to the front of the group to stand near Du Barry. I deflate like a post-balloon that’s lost its air, but I don’t follow her.

  We cross a series of small golden bridges that crest over the Golden Palace River. Newsies lean out of charcoal-black newsboats with their light-boxes, trying to capture portraits of us. Their animated quills scratch against parchment pads at lightning speed. They shout our names and ask us who we think will be chosen as the favorite.

  “You’re a little late to place your bets, gentlemen. You’ll get no hints here,” the Beauty Minister calls out.

  We cross the final bridge and stand before the royal palace. The pink marble building stretches up with turrets so high that if you climbed one, you might be able to whisper to the God of the Sky. Sugary white and gold trim each layer. My sisters and I glance up, and it feels like we’re all holding our collective breath.

  I lift my skirts and trail the group up a massive staircase, losing count after one hundred steps. The click-clack of our feet pushes my heart to beat faster. At the top, the front door opens like a great mouth, and the grand entry hall swallows us. Jeweled chandelier-lanterns drop from the high ceiling, like spiders with bellies full of candlelight. The walls hold beautiful marble carvings of the stars. I want to run my fingers over them, to feel the grooves, but I can’t reach them through the row of guards at our sides.

  We enter a new hallway. The ceiling paintings change as we pass. Animated frescoes arrange and rearrange into different celestial scenes: the gods and goddesses, an everlasting rose, the kings and queens of old, the islands of Orléans, the heavens. I almost fall while trying to crane my neck to look up at them.

  “The Belle apartments are in the north wing,” Du Barry informs us.

  “Facing the Goddess of Beauty’s direction,” the Beauty Minister adds.

  We venture into the palace wing on gilded walkways that feel like massive bridges. I gaze over the railings and down onto the floors below. Royal chrysanthemum trees grow up toward the ceiling, but even their branches can’t reach us. A series of chariots drifts along a shiny lattice of cables, lifting well-dressed people from one balcony to the next.

  We move past an imperial guard checkpoint. They salute us. We stop before a grand set of doors carved with Belle-roses.

  I bite my bottom lip.

  Imperial servants line both sides of the entrance, heads bowed, hands resting in front of them; their faces are angular with peach lips, rosy cheeks, brown eyes, and milk-white skin. They are mandated by the Beauty Minister to look this way. She’s dressed them in colorful work-dresses pinched at the waist, and they sport servant emblems proudly around their necks.

  The Beauty Minister pushes the doors open.

  6

  My room at home used to be shared with Maman. Her four-poster bed and my smaller cot were tucked into a corner of our apartments on the seventh floor of Maison Rouge de la Beauté. Tattlers pilfered from the mail chest created secret mountains beneath my bed, and Belle-cards slipped from Du Barry’s office decorated the ivory screen separating my side of the room from Maman’s. Trinkets lined our shelves: dried petals, tiny bayou pebbles, and rainbow pearls sat like shrines to our adventures together, along with tomes of folklore and fairy tales about the God of Luck’s phoenix or the Goddess of Deception’s little silver fox. A vanity table held a washbasin, and a fireplace always roared with light. My heart flutters with the memory of it.

  But I don’t know how Maman ever left these Belle apartments to go back to it.

  I turn around in a thousand directions. Walls soar up in gold-lacquered stripes to a ceiling adorned with curling Belle-roses. Their petals wink and stretch as I move under them. The room holds claw-footed sofas clutching jeweled pillows; a gold-stitched tapestry of the great kingdom of Orléans swallows one whole wall; a large white desk is nestled into the far corner, boasting an abacus with pearly white beads and cast-iron spintria safes.

  Royal servants light night-lanterns and set them afloat. Their pale glow illuminates more of the room’s wonders. Glass cabinets contain beauty-scopes—tiny brass kaleidoscopes clustered by season and year—featuring images of the kingdom’s best and brightest courtiers, taken by the Orléans press corps. Padma holds the slender tip of a scope up toward the floating night-lanterns. The cylinder catches the light, projecting a group of elegant men and women on the wall like glittering, colorful beads. No amount of money can buy you entry into these collections. Not even the princess has a spot. Every man, woman, and child wants to be featured.

  Du Barry never allowed us to look at the beauty-scopes, or to read pamphlets, tattlers, or newspapers. We weren’t supposed to be tainted by the outside world.

  “Take it all in, girls,” the Beauty Minister coos.

  “Yes, enjoy the spoils,” Du Barry adds.

  Stacks of beauty pamphlets, including Du
lce, Mignon, Beauté, Sucré, and the Dame’s Journal de la Mode cover ornate side tables. Edel and Valerie flip through their pages, flashing them out at us. The pamphlets profile Belle-created looks, feature polls guesstimating which Belles could land someone in the beauty-scopes, and showcase each Belle in our generation and the depths of our rumored arcana, comparing us to the older generation now leaving court.

  Newspapers are fanned out on a series of coffee tables. The Trianon Tribune, the Chrysanthemum Chronicles, the Orléansian Times, and more from every corner of the kingdom. I run my fingers across them. Headlines cluster and flash across the parchment, announcing Princess Sophia’s upcoming engagement, and the latest imperial beauty laws to be passed by the queen and the Beauty Minister.

  ANY BONE RESTRUCTURING OR MANIPULATION

  MEANT TO DEEPLY ALTER THE SHAPE OF

  ONE’S BODY OR FACE IS PROHIBITED

  THE WAIST MUST NEVER FALL BELOW FIFTEEN

  INCHES IN CIRCUMFERENCE IN ORDER TO

  MAINTAIN THE HUMAN SHAPE OF THE BODY

  SKIN TONE GRADIENTS MUST STAY WITHIN

  THE NATURAL COLOR PIGMENTATION AS

  SPECIFIED IN ARTICLE IIA, SECTION IV

  NOSES SHALL NOT BE SO SLENDER AS TO IMPEDE

  THE NATURAL ACT OF BREATHING

  CITIZENS OLDER THAN SEVENTY YEARS OF AGE SHALL

  NOT HAVE TREATMENTS THAT ENABLE THEM TO

  LOOK BELOW SAID AGE, IN ORDER TO PRESERVE THE

  NATURAL PATH OF THE BODY’S DEVELOPMENT

  Amber looks over my shoulder, the heat of our earlier argument gone. “When I’m named the favorite, I’ll add more.”

  “Why? There are so many already. Or did you forget the endless lists of laws we memorized?” We repeat this same debate all the time. “I don’t want to get rid of all of them. Just a few.”

  “Like always.” She winks at me before sauntering off.