The Everlasting Rose Page 4

  My heartbeat quickens with each accusation Edel lobs at Amber. I’m unable to defend her.

  A vendor stops to stare at us. “Care for a bourbon pie?”

  Edel runs her off.

  We step a little away from the Red Velvet Salon staircase.

  “We were both at fault. I should have refused,” I whisper to her.

  “She should’ve helped you both get out of that game. But Amber has always, always had to win above all else.” Edel balls her hands into fists. “The one with the best marks from Du Barry. The one who got the first pick of dresses and desserts. The one who had to go first with every group lesson given to us. I thought it was just a bad habit from when we were little. Her maman spoiled her. I thought she’d grow out of it—”

  “She—”

  “No excuses. The rest of our sisters don’t behave like that. You don’t do that.”

  “Sophia tortured her during her time as favorite. You can’t—”

  “I don’t trust her anymore.”

  Another blimp crests overhead, bathing us in a dark shadow.

  Rémy reappears at the top of the entrance stairs. Edel rushes up toward him, leaving me and our conversation behind.

  I climb the stairs and step through the door. The space reminds me of the candy houses we’d built as little girls to celebrate the new year and call sweetness from the God of the Ground. Red-and-gold-papered walls hug us inside a decadent living room that looks up to five wraparound floors. Blush-pink lanterns putter about, bathing each level in pale shades of light. Perfume blimps squirt rose water. Velvet chaises and tufted chairs hold glamorous powdered and primped women and men.

  We follow Rémy to a hall that smells like dried flowers and clove smoke, then up a flight of stairs and down another hall. My body is tense, my nerves coiled up like a spring. My argument with Edel replays over and over again in my head. Her words—“I don’t trust her anymore”—drumming through me like discordant music on a stringed misen.

  He opens a door and ushers us inside. Night-lanterns float through a pleasant bedroom. Two beds are pushed against opposite walls. A gold-striped couch and matching armchair sit beside the solitary window. Mirrors hang above a modest vanity.

  “I’m going to go buy the most recent papers and get a sense of where the guards are,” Rémy says as he leaves the room.

  I let the teacup dragons out of my pouch. They stretch their tiny wings, then hiss and tiptoe through the room, sniffing every object in their path. I call out the names Amber gave them—Feuille for the green, Poivre for the red, Or for the gold, Eau for the blue, and Fantôme for the white.

  Edel flits them away as they circle her, begging for attention. “We were tracked. Had to have been,” she mumbles angrily.

  “I think it’s my fault,” I say with a shrug. “I’ve been sneaking out.”

  “What? Where have you been going?” Edel demands.

  I drop my hand in my dress pocket, the raised glass grooves of the poison bottle finding my fingers. I almost show it to her, but a twinge in my stomach makes me bury the secret.

  “I couldn’t take being stuck in that tiny room all the time. I needed air—some space to think,” I lie. “Maybe I was followed?”

  “That’s too easy.” Edel brushes her hand along one of the bed frames, then sits. “They would’ve just arrested you on the spot. Why follow you to the boardinghouse? Why interrogate all the boarders and do a search?”

  The green teacup dragon, Feuille, climbs into my lap and curls into a tiny ball. “Maybe one of us was spotted while running errands, but they didn’t know which boardinghouse we’d returned to.”

  “Someone like Amber?” Edel asks, arching an eyebrow.

  I take a deep breath. “What do you think she did, exactly?”

  Edel snaps upright. “Look! I know you’ve always loved her more than you love the rest of us.”

  “I have not. You’re all my sisters.” I set Feuille on the floor and rush to sit at Edel’s side. I touch her, and she yanks away.

  “We all felt it. Hana, Valerie, Padma, and me. It was always the two of you....” She purses her lips. “You can’t see it. Or maybe you don’t want to see it. But she’s hiding something... I know it.”

  The door snaps open. Rémy returns with an armful of newspapers and the latest newsreel.

  Edel stands and turns to Rémy. “What are the papers saying?”

  “Find the room’s télétrope,” Rémy says.

  Edel riffles through the nearest bureau and retrieves a dusty télétrope. She opens the machine’s bottom compartment, fishes out a wobbly matchstick, and lights the tea candle in its base.

  I take one of the papers from Rémy’s stack. Poivre tries to nibble its edges, but I wrestle it from the teacup’s tiny fangs, his mouth warm with the promise of fire.

  I think of Amber. Edel’s words linger, sinking into my skin. A whisper echoes inside me: What does my and Amber’s closeness have to do with her not trusting Amber?

  A knot squeezes in my throat, thickening with regret and threatening to choke me.

  Edel takes the film from Rémy and inserts it into the télétrope. “Close the curtains, and blow out the night-lanterns.”

  Rémy extinguishes them. I bunch the curtains closed. The teacup dragons squeak and flutter about, protesting the dark until the newsreel projects on the wall. An image of Sophia appears. She’s seated on her throne surrounded by her teacup animals—her monkey, Singe, at her shoulder, her elephant, Zo, in her lap, and a small bunny on her scepter. Her grating voice drifts through the télétrope’s tiny voice-box. “The time of the Belles is over. Orléans has been at the mercy of their powers for too long. They’ve been able to lord it over us. But never again, now that I am queen.”

  Edel paces.

  My cheeks warm as if the arcana are waking up. “We’ve lorded it over them? No! They beg for our help. They work us until we’re sick. Du Barry was the one who profited—not us!”

  Sophia continues: “We will take back control. I will regulate the entire beauty system—it will cater to all our needs when we’re at the very heart of it. Those who don’t cooperate will meet a deadly fate. The Fugitive Belle Act has just passed without a single protest vote in my new cabinet. I’m going to round up all the runaway Belles. They will live in my prison, the Everlasting Rose. They will be raised and trained there, and prepared for their duties to our great country. They’re dangerous and aggressive, and need to be watched and controlled for their own benefit. My loyal subjects, the reward for bringing me Edel Beauregard has risen from eight hundred fifty thousand leas to one million leas.”

  Edel gasps.

  “And anyone who brings me Camille Beauregard, my disgraced favorite, the Belle who killed two of my most beloveds: Lady Claudine, Duchesse de Bissay, and”—her voice breaks in mock-upset—“and my best friend, my sister, Princess Charlotte...”

  “What?” I cry.

  Tears fall down her cheeks as the people in the crowd before her shout in agreement. My pulse is a throbbing drum, counting down the moments of this newsreel like racing sand in an hourglass.

  “Yes, it has been confirmed that she experimented on my sister’s weak body and stopped her heart,” Sophia says. “And she will be punished. Two million leas for anyone who brings her to me. And if she is delivered by the time of Princess Charlotte’s viewing and the coronation, I’ll give you your own small palace. My mother’s favorite summer one on the Isle of Minnate. You have seven days. An auspicious number revered by the Goddess of Love.” She smiles, showing the perfect sliver of teeth. “My dearly beloved mother was a passive queen. I will not be.”

  The newsreel ends. The sound of its tail flapping cuts through the silent room. I hear my own heartbeat thrumming and each of the deep breaths Edel and Rémy take. I let out a guttural scream. Rémy rushes to me, clamping his hand over my mouth.

  I snatch away from him. “Don’t.”

  “People can hear—”

  “I know... I know.
..”

  “There’s more.” Rémy reads from one of the papers. “After the Coronation and Ascension ceremony, no sitting queen can be deposed or challenged according to imperial law.”

  A tense bubble engulfs us, its edges charged, ready to smother all three of us.

  He opens another paper, the Orléansian Times. A two-page spread showcases a massive structure floating in the middle of the Royal Harbor.

  The headline reads: QUEEN SOPHIA’S NEWEST ENDEAVOR—THE EVERLASTING ROSE—HALF-COMPLETE.

  The animated portrait of a circular building flickers like a chandelier-lantern the size of Trianon’s Coliseum. The picture flashes and takes onlookers on a tour. Outer window bars twist in the shape of Belle-roses. Our older sister, Ivy, stands on an enclosed lattice balcony spanning the structure’s entire circumference. Half her face is masked; the other battered. Pale pink sill-lanterns bathe her cheeks in soft light. Her falling tears glow; she looks trapped in the gilded filigree of a jewelry box. The portrait pans out, showing a thorny garden growing around a great tower in the center where Sophia waves and blows kisses.

  “A cage for us. Like rabid animals,” Edel says.

  My eyes scan the article:

  The construction of the Everlasting Rose, affectionately named after the eternal “everlasting” roses that bloomed in the Goddess of Beauty’s garden, has been under way day and night, with labor teams toiling without pause. Located on the edge of the Isle of Chalmette, its glow can be spotted from the rooftops of Trianon’s limestone mansions. Newsboats sit in the Royal Harbor reporting on every moment of construction and every coming and going of visitors to the site. The newly titled Minister of Belles, Georgiana Fabry, said, “We’ll be opening the building soon. The citizens of Orléans will be able to enter the world of the Belles. No more secrecy. We’re starting new traditions.”

  The Rose, as it’s been nicknamed, will replace Maison Rouge as the locale where all Belles will be trained to serve Orléans. Tours of the building are slated to begin after the Coronation and Ascension of Queen Sophia. Tickets will go on sale during the auspicious festivities. Citizens will be able to reach the structure via special rose-coaches and lavish wire carriages currently being built.

  I shove the paper away. “This is where they’re going to take Amber. She’s going to be tortured. We have to help her.”

  “And risk all of us getting locked in that prison?” Edel snaps. “No, I won’t do it.”

  “Edel—”

  “Stop arguing,” Rémy says. “And look at this last paper.”

  It’s one I’ve never seen before. The pages are black as night and the ink white as clouds. The articles and headlines appear and disappear depending on where I touch it. The border contains webs holding beautiful seedlings, unfurling and blossoming into tiny teardrop leaves, curls of stems, and oval petals in soft lavenders and magentas and pinks. I remember these from the solarium at Maison Rouge.

  Cleome flowers. Maman’s favorite.

  I thumb the top.

  “What is it?” Edel peers down over my shoulder.

  “The Spider’s Web. An underground paper,” Rémy replies. “The publication the Minister of News doesn’t regulate because he doesn’t know it exists.”

  “How’d you get it?” Edel’s eyes grow big.

  “They circulate in this part of the city. I admit, I’ve never seen or read an issue before. I’ve only heard about it. I didn’t think they were real. The Minister of War taught us that people don’t resist.” Rémy removes the tea candle from the télétrope and waves it over the paper. “The newsie said to hold the light over it and the ink will settle and sharpen.”

  The letters rise on the black parchment like drizzles of cream in steaming hot coffee. The headlines sparkle and snap like whips.

  QUEEN SOPHIA IN TALKS TO START RANKING BEAUTY WORK KINGDOMWIDE, USING THE MEASURE TO ALLOCATE LAND, JOBS, TITLES, AND FAVOR WITH THE MONARCH

  DON’T BELIEVE THE MORBID DEATH LIES! PRINCESS CHARLOTTE IN HIDING DESPITE FALSE REPORTS FROM PALACE OFFICIALS

  DECEASED QUEEN’S PARTNER, LADY PELLETIER, SPOTTED IN VARIOUS APOTHECARIES. PERHAPS LOOKING FOR PRINCESS CHARLOTTE’S CURE?

  AFTER UNFORTUNATE CAPTURE OF FIRST FAVORITE AMBROSIA BEAUREGARD, QUEEN’S GUARD CONFOUNDED ABOUT LOCATION OF OTHER FUGITIVE BELLES

  IRON LADIES GATHER MORE NUMBERS AS THEY PLOT TO END QUEEN SOPHIA’S TYRANNICAL RULE

  “Who are the Iron Ladies?” I demand, anticipation rising inside my chest.

  “The Resistance,” Rémy replies.

  Each time I close my eyes and try to sleep, Sophia lures me into a nightmare. She’s always in a long white nightgown like a spirit that’s escaped the Goddess of Death’s caves, and she leads me down a twisting corridor with no end in sight. She glances back with a sly smile that reveals a hint of teeth; her pupils dilate so big her eyes are two gigantic black pools.

  The dream darkness fills with smoke and ash, the world burning around me like a rose set aflame, each petal shriveling and whitening, furious at being stripped of its color and perfume. The cameos of her courtiers appear along the walls, shifting and morphing within the angry fire. The frantic pulse that lives inside her ripples out like waves, crashing into me, while the screech of her laughter pierces the silence like a thunderclap.

  I wake up soaked every time.

  “Can’t sleep?” Rémy asks, his heavy whisper bouncing off the walls like a skipping stone across the bayou waters at home. He shifts in a high-backed chair beside the door and lights a small night-lantern, setting it adrift in the room. His rich brown skin glows when beads of light find him.

  “How can you?” I sit up and pull my sweat-soaked curls into a low bun before they start to frizz. Beside me, Edel turns over and sighs in her sleep.

  “I barely sleep. You know that,” he replies.

  I sigh. “Right.”

  I gaze out the window. The sky looks like it’s in mourning—the dark streaks of blue mirror tears and the gashes of purple bruises. Maybe the heavens are troubled by what’s happening below. “What time is it?”

  “The evening star rose about two hourglasses ago. Only a few more until dawn,” he says. “Want some tea? Maybe it’ll help.”

  “Yes,” I reply.

  I slide out of bed.

  Rémy quickly stands and turns his back to me. “Tell me you’re changing next time.” His shoulders tense.

  The cotton sleeping-gown hugs my edges. “Yes, all right,” I whisper, blushing. We’re still finding the rhythm of being in small spaces together.

  I slip on my traveling cloak. “I’m ready.”

  He inches open our door, so it doesn’t groan.

  We tiptoe into the hall. Shabby night-lanterns pockmarked with holes and covered in nets of dust struggle to reach the ceiling or to provide us with light.

  “The kitchens are empty right now,” he reports, leading me down a back set of stairs. Deep snores escape from behind nearby doors and mask the noise of our footsteps. The red sill-lanterns have been extinguished, and the ladies of the house have all gone to bed. We’ve only been here a few hours, but Rémy has started a detailed ledger of their movements.

  Thin walls allow the wind to find its way inside. Its icy, sharp fingers send a shiver through me.

  “Are you cold?” he says.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your teeth are chattering.”

  “Do you hear everything?”

  “I guess you could say that. My maman used to say I could even hear the smallest mouse pee.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” I laugh, then try to swallow it.

  His face lights up like the time I saw him talking to his sisters. He lets out a deep chuckle, full-throated and from the very bottom of his stomach. It vibrates across my skin. It’s the sort of laugh that makes you sit up and pay attention and wish you were always the one to laugh with him.

  I think about how long I spent hating him, and blush with regret.

  We arrive at the kitchen
. He motions for me to wait, then ducks inside, stalks around in the dark, and reappears tugging the strings of a night-lantern.

  “No creatures waiting to eat me?” I ask with a smile.

  “Looks fine,” he says. “And I’m shocked you stayed put.”

  “I guess I’ve learned to listen.”

  “Or to trust me.” He leads the way and sets the night-lantern afloat. A fire burns low in the hearth. A monstrous stone stove hulks in the corner like the fire-breathing bayou bird Maman used to tell me stories about as a child. Jars of bits and bobbles and thingamabobs clutter the shelves. Shoddy cabinets hold cracked glass panes. Dishes are stacked in perilous towers in a sink. Remnants of the cook’s stew sit in a pot on the long worktable, calling out to any critters looking for a meal. A stack of night-edition newspapers blinks their headlines.

  “You walk like you own the land beneath your feet.” His laughter fades, but he doesn’t stop smiling. “Like my sisters. I could always tell when one of them would enter the house. I knew them by the sound of their footsteps. Mirabelle, quick and light, always a little too excited. Adaliz, heavy and demanding, ready to order someone around. Odette, jumpy and timid, looking for something coming around every corner.” He sighs.

  “You miss them?”

  “Desperately,” he replies. “I’m used to being away on assignment or for training. But this feels—”

  “Different,” I say.

  He nods.

  “What do you think they’re doing?”

  “Getting prepared to celebrate the new year despite being worried about me,” he says. “They’re also anxiously checking the newspapers and watching the reels every day.”

  “I should’ve never dragged you into this,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “If I recall, I got myself into it by helping you escape.” He smiles.

  “You could be doing so many other things right now.”

  “Like what?” he says as I lean back against the kitchen counter.

  “Taking your sisters for a cold-season holiday in the mountains of the Gold Isles.”

  “Fine.”