The Belles (The Belles #1)(74)

“I need to talk to you. Get up, quickly.” Her whispers are panicked.

“What is it?” I rub my eyes. “What time is it?”

“Just after the midnight star. The staff have gone to bed.”

I sit up. Ivy hands me a fur-lined robe and points at satin slippers on the floor. She lights a heat-lantern and tugs its thick ribbons. My nightmare still hums through me.

“Come.”

“Where are we going?”

“Shh.” She takes my hand in hers. It trembles. I squeeze it tight to keep my own hand from quivering. We tiptoe down the hall. Dim night-lanterns float overhead, bathing our footsteps in light. The marble floor holds the cold, pushing it up through my slippers.

Ivy eases open the solarium door. A garden of Belle-roses reaches up toward a dark sky, their petals large and rich as sunshades, their thorns glistening like arrows. We step into the chilly garden crusted over with a layer of frost.

“Why—”

“Whisper, so your voice doesn’t carry.” She takes a deep breath. Rose vines push from their pots, curling and lengthening to create a thick and thorny arbor over our heads. Ivy is manipulating them. The Belle-rose petals bloom so big we’re now inside a pavilion of flowers, shielded from the solarium’s glass walls. The heat-lantern bobs between us. I warm my hands under its fiery belly.

“You can’t do what the queen asked. It’s too much,” she whispers.

“I didn’t say yes.”

“You have to say no.”

“I thought . . . maybe . . . I should try.” The queen’s desperate voice is a sharp memory alongside Maman’s dream advice.

“Do you understand how our arcana work?”

“Yes, of course. We study—”

“If you truly did, you would have said no immediately. This could warp your blood proteins. The arcana are meant to beautify. The Goddess of Beauty blessed us with them to help enhance people’s natural templates. The template she gave them, buried deep below the gray. They are not meant to heal like medicine.”

“What if I worked on her organs? Made them youthful again. Perhaps there’s some failing within her body that keeps Charlotte in this sleeping sickness.”

“You think Arabella hasn’t tried that already? The queen is looking for more from you.” Ivy starts to pace. “Your showing off made her think you’re a miracle worker. Made her think the arcana can be used in unintended ways. But only the God of Life can control sickness and death. Not us.”

I think of how Maman accidentally killed a woman. If we can bring about death, then why not life?

“But what if it can? The queen thinks Sophia will destroy the kingdom. Ruin lives. Is my life not worth the lives of so many others? Don’t you think we should find out?”

“No, I think you should leave.”

The word crashes through the garden like a bolt of lightning.

“Leave?” I stare at her, unsure if I understand exactly what she means.

“Yes.”

“I can’t leave. Where would I go? I worked so hard to get here. All I ever wanted was to be the favorite. I’m supposed to be here. I’m supposed to help.”

“I thought the same thing. It’s what Du Barry wants you to believe. It’s what the world tells us we should be.” She puts a finger to her lips and turns to the solarium door. “I hear something.”

My heart pumps hard, each beat fueled by panic.

When Ivy faces me again, she lifts her veil, and I take a step back, holding in a gasp. Her skin is a patchwork of colors—gray, white, beige—and wrinkled like a paper sack. Her lips resemble two leeches puffed up from gorging on blood. Her eyes have drifted toward the corners of her face, giving her the appearance of a fish. “Some days are better than others, and my arcana can repair it. But tonight is a bad one.”

“What happened . . . ?”

“Sophia,” she says, biting back tears. “I overused my arcana to please her. Now they are forever unbalanced. The proteins are unable to regenerate and keep me beautiful. Our arcana help us maintain ourselves, too. They keep us alive.”

I touch Ivy’s cheek. The skin feels like clotted cream. “Can I fix it?”

A tear escapes one of her eyes. “Not without damaging your own gifts.” She drops her veil. “But thank you. And it’s not always this bad. Only after I’ve used the arcana. My eyes will drift back into place after a few hourglasses.” She touches my shoulder. “You can’t let this happen to you. You have to get out of here.”

“Where would I go? Back home? And even if I did, the queen would just bring one of my sisters to court to try to help Charlotte. I have to find another way.”

Ivy clenches her fists. “You’re not listening.” She storms toward the garden door, shrinking the Belle-rose stems and returning the swollen petals to their original size.

“Ivy,” I call after her.

She doesn’t return. I linger in the garden alone. My thoughts are a tangle of Ivy’s words; the queen’s request; Sophia’s tinkling laughter and her worries about being beautiful; how the queen spoke about Sophia as selfish, jealous, and spiteful; and the ways in which Sophia and I are alike. The reasons line up next to each other like matching pairs of earrings—both of us want to please our mothers, both of us want to be the best, both of us want respect and adoration.