The Everlasting Rose (The Belles, #2)(27)

“Sailor cakes straight from the hearth. Red bean, pork, and saltfish,” another offers.

I buy a cup of barley water for Edel. The purse of leas given to us by Arabella is about empty. Twenty coins left. We’ll run out of money by tomorrow. The Fashion Minister has to help us. We need a cushion. We can’t only rely on the hope of selling more Belle products.

Very few people walk along the ship’s promenade. We find a corner to stand in.

“Look,” Rémy points out. “You can see the lantern-houses along the coast.”

The tiny pinpricks of light glow like trapped stars in the distance.

“It’s beautiful,” he says.

“Nothing is beautiful anymore.”

“She wins if you let her take everything. Even momentary happiness.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be happy again. I don’t know if I want to be now that I know all these things.” I shiver as a gust of wind hits us.

He steps closer. Warmth radiates from him like a heat-lantern. “There are people in this kingdom who have had to live with worse.”

I scoff.

He leans closer; his voice drops an octave. “I’m not trying to be an ass, but think about what you read in the Spider’s Web. Many have dealt with the ugliness of this world for a long time.”

“You don’t understand.” A flare of anger erupts inside me.

“I will probably never fully understand, but I’m seeing new things, too. Parts of this kingdom that I never knew existed. I didn’t know what life was really like for you, for Belles. They taught us you were here to serve—like us—but always made it seem like you weren’t real. You were poppets and dolls to be used—not people. That we weren’t the same.”

I squeeze the nearest railing. The cold presses through my gloves.

“There are so many lies,” he says.

I don’t want to talk to him about this anymore. The teacup dragons stir in my pouch. “Maybe we should go back down to Edel. They seem cold,” I say, trying to still the movements, but they clamber out of the pouch.

Rémy helps me secure them; gently tucking their small heads back into the waist-sash. The feel of his strong hands makes me want to lean into him, want to kiss him, want to erase all the worries and responsibilities—only for a moment.

His eyes find mine, the connection a thread thickening between us.

The dragons squirm again. I break eye contact and glance down. “No flying right now,” I whisper hard.

Rémy tries to block me from the view of others on the ship’s promenade.

Poivre wrestles from my grip and bolts over my head.

“Oh no,” I say, trying to wave him back.

Rémy points up. “But look who it is.”

Fant?me circles one of the ship’s bows like a tiny cloud lost from the sky. Poivre chases her, a burst of red flame.

I whistle. Fant?me soars down to me and licks my face with her hot tongue. “Good girl. I’ve missed you, petite.” A silver ribbon is tied around her neck like it’s a bow and she’s the present.

Rémy catches Poivre and slips him back into my waist-sash. He squeaks, and a hiccup of fire escapes his mouth, catching Rémy’s finger. Rémy curses at him.

I attempt—unsuccessfully—to hold in a laugh.

Rémy’s scowl melts into a grin.

I undo the ribbon around Fant?me’s neck, and she dives into my waist-sash, reuniting with the rest of the teacup dragons, and the new one, Ryra. They nuzzle each other with recognition and start to tussle playfully.

I use some of Edel’s barley water and sprinkle the post-balloon, so it’s easier to see.

I rip open the back of it and fish out a note, a pair of half-dead sangsues, and a book.

A Belle-book.

It’s inscribed with arabella flowers.

I hand it to Rémy, then fumble with the scrolled note, struggling to open it.

He reads over my shoulder.

Camille and Edel,

I understand why you needed a confirmation.

The answer to your questions:

1. My miroir métaphysique.

2. I fed one of your old sangsues to Ryra.

Watch the headlines in the morning. The early bird newsies will break the story that Sophia has taken Padma, Valerie, Hana, and Amber to her prison. But they aren’t there. She brought them to the Royal Infirmary at the palace for a medical examination, but they were only here for five hourglasses’ worth of time before she had them scattered all over Orléans again, reopening the teahouses secretly. Valerie is in the Silk Isles, Padma is at Maison Rouge, Hana in the Fire Isles, and Amber is in the Glass Isles. I don’t know how long they’ll stay there. Or if she’ll continue to move them around like chess pieces.

She’s creating a cat-and-mouse game to lead you into the trap. The longer you run, the more she believes the kingdom will turn in her favor. She envisions you arriving at the palace, trying to break into the Everlasting Rose, only to find your sisters are not there. She plans to record the incident and distribute the newsreels kingdom-wide, thinking this embarrassment will break you and the momentum you’ve gathered.

She’s moving at a fevered pace—using my blood to create new Belles more quickly. But there’s only so much that she can use on a daily basis without nearly killing me, and that will never be an option for her. I am the aether. One Belle in every generation has the strongest blood—additional proteins that allow for her to help grow the next generation. Du Barry called us the everlasting roses.