The Belles (The Belles #1)(21)
“Gracious, my lady,” she whispers.
“And the princess?”
“Gracious, my lady,” she says again, but her voice quivers. “Long live the queen and the princess.”
I repeat the blessing as well.
“It’s time, little dolls,” the Fashion Minister calls out.
We step out from behind the dressing screens. The Beauty Minister gasps and claps. She fawns over us, and the dresses, and our new looks. The Fashion Minister beams, and takes us one by one to parade around the room.
Padma wears a bright purple dress with an empire waist that falls in a clean line to the floor. The silk ripples out behind her in waves, and jewels crawl in a pattern up her arms like snakes. Edel’s dress spills over with layers of rubies and her edelweiss flowers. Her movements echo through the near-silent room. The cream strapless gown Valerie wears hugs tightly around her curves before blooming out in a fish’s tail. Hana’s silk gown boasts hand-painted images of our island and its cypress trees, and her sleeves swing low to the ground. Soft golden silk wraps around Amber’s lean frame, and her Belle-bun is bursting with yellow ribbons like sunbeams. She’s never looked more beautiful.
A mirror is brought out. My heart punches inside my chest. The reflection in the mirror looks like a stranger. My makeup is done up like a courtier in a beauty-scope—thickly lined eyes with gold accents, red jewels dotted along my eyebrows, a powdered face, bright lips. My Belle-bun spills over with Belle-roses, and the dress hugs me so closely I have a shape I’ve never seen on me before. The shape of my mother.
Du Barry goes down the line, kissing each of us on the cheek. When she gets to me, she whispers, “You look nice. Your mother would approve.” She touches the textured pattern of my gown. I picture my mother’s face, and I feel her proud and admiring smile deep inside.
“What do you think?” the Fashion Minister asks us.
“I love it,” I whisper as my sisters squeal.
“I figured I shouldn’t dress you traditionally. It’s time to modernize Belles, in my humble opinion. Du Barry has been so ancient in her preparations,” he says under his breath.
“What was that, Gustave?” Du Barry asks.
“Oh, nothing.” He winks at us.
The Beauty Minister taps his shoulder with a fan, then looks at me and my sisters. “It’s time to go learn your fates.”
10
A plush red carpet cuts through the middle of the Receiving Hall like a thick river of blood. On either side of the aisle sit high-backed chairs filled with undeniably elegant women dressed in colorful silks, taffetas, satins, and crepes. Men ring the perimeter, and a sea of top hats peeks above the women’s headdresses, fans, and tall hairstyles. People place eyescopes and spyglasses to their faces, squinting to see us. Over my head, a glass ceiling etched with the Orléansian royal emblem lets in light from the early evening stars.
“Eyes forward,” the Beauty Minister whispers before we take our first steps inside.
Imperial guards wear deep purple vestments. The queen’s divine color. I drown under the weight of the many stares. These people are the most important in the entire kingdom.
The Beauty Minister is silhouetted ahead, her pace slow and steady as we approach the pure gold chrysanthemum throne. My knees shake a little as I move closer. I try to steady them. I follow behind Padma. The lotus flowers in her hair open and close, winking at the onlookers.
A rustling of sound follows me. Women lean in to one another and mumble behind lace fans. They look at me like I’m a slice of spiced cake waiting to be eaten. Newsies sketch pictures of us, and black gossip post-balloons shift in and out of the crowd, their tails whipping in all directions, trying to catch a scandalous word here or there.
At the front of the room, a set of golden gazebos cluster to the left and right of the throne platform, each one covered with a canopy of flowers and garlands. A royal attendant helps me step into one marked with my name and camellia flowers. My sisters stand beside me in theirs.
A pyramid of stairs leads up to four thrones. They glimmer in the light of the dusk-lanterns, and hold the three most important people in the entire world: King Francis, Queen Celeste, and Princess Sophia. The second-to-last chair is left empty to represent the invalid Princess Charlotte. She hasn’t been seen for years. Newsies speculate she’s being kept alive so the monarchy doesn’t pass the crown to Princess Sophia. The papers say Princess Sophia will make a terrible queen. That she’s a spendthrift and loves to gamble and entertain with extravagant parties. But if the stories are true, I’m more than intrigued. She sounds impulsive, thrill-seeking, explosive, and above all, fascinating.
The queen descends from her throne. Guards fan out behind her like a cluster of shelled insects. Streaks of golden paint shimmer and twist into beautiful shapes on her skin. Sapphires decorate the slopes of her bright eyes. Her dark hair has a shock of gray in the front, like a vanilla swirl in a crème-cone. The tattlers say she leaves it there to pay homage to the roots of Orléans, the Gris.
The princess joins her. She matches her mother today. Same beautiful brown skin and soft oval face. Most families desire to be a matched set. Mothers determine the family features and manage their children’s outward appearance, especially the families from high houses. But Princess Sophia has always changed what she looks like, as if she were merely donning a different dress. A teacup monkey perches on her shoulder.