The Everlasting Rose (The Belles, #2)(30)

“But it’s closed, miss,” he replies with a crooked grin.

“Doesn’t matter. We have business there.”

He shuffles away as we find tufted seats.

The watercoach driver takes us to a nearby island where the Silk Teahouse sits. We climb out onto the pier. Rémy tells him to wait for us.

Marble spirals cover the exterior of the teahouse, mimicking the pattern of the silkworm’s cocoons. A sloped roof is crusted over with snow, and its pier is red like a tongue that’s tasted too many strawberries. White sill-lanterns sit in the windows, dull and vacant.

Guards stand at attention in front of the doorway and along the pier. Dozens of them.

My heart beats too fast. How will we get past them?

There is a Receiving House just ahead that’s a tiny replica of the teahouse and has a woman sitting inside it. A sign above her head reads SILK TEAHOUSE RECEPTION.

“I’ll stand here to not draw as much attention,” Rémy says. “But I’ll keep watch.”

“Ready?” I ask Edel.

I take a deep breath and make sure the glamour is strong. I grimace as the cold pain radiates inside me and my bones feel like they might just splinter into shards.

Edel nods. Rémy reaches out and gives my hand a squeeze before we go.

We approach the woman behind a glass pane. She thumbs through a gossip tattler and wears a simple lavender dress with a royal emblem around her neck. It bears a silkworm coiled around a chrysanthemum, identifying her as an important courtier from the merchant House of Silk. A fire-lantern bathes her white skin in reds and oranges. The circuit-phones swallow the walls behind her.

She doesn’t look up. Edel huffs, then taps the glass. The woman flinches in shock and the tattler drops from her lap, the fall shifting the portraits and animated ink across the parchment. Her eyes flutter over us and she is, apparently, unimpressed. She pins a CLOSED sign to the glass, rescues her tattler, and resumes flipping the pages.

“Excuse me?” I say.

“Don’t you see the sign?” she barks.

Edel punches the glass, which causes the soldiers nearest us to look up.

I cringe. “Edel.”

The woman yanks open the window. “You could’ve broken it, you know that? The fine would be at least three hundred leas.”

“You should’ve been courteous enough to open it,” Edel replies.

“We’re closed,” she snaps. “Who are you?”

“Courtiers from the House of Rare Reptilians, and in need of emergency beauty work,” I reply.

“Let me see your emblems.” She stretches out her hand, waiting for me to untie the ribbon and place the heavy crest made of coral and ivory and gold in her palm.

“What for?” Edel asks.

“Not that I need to explain myself, but there have been forgeries floating around. I need to inspect them.”

I gulp and remove the emblem. I hand it to her, hoping Arabella gave me a real one from the palace.

“Hmm...” She turns it around in her hand, gazes up at the dragon sitting on my shoulder, then takes out a set of scales and a monocle. She weighs it, then lifts the glass eyepiece. “This one passes inspection, but what about hers?” Her discerning gaze turns to Edel.

I almost sigh with relief, then say, “She’s my assistant. Now, when will the teahouse be taking clients again?”

“When Madam Kristina Renault reopens—”

The circuit-phone closest to her rings. The cone-shaped receiver shakes left and right on top of its slender base. She lifts it to her ear and says, “Silk Teahouse reception, Mira speaking, we are closed until further notice. May I please take your message or appointment request?”

A loud voice shouts: “Additional vats needed to the palace port before sunrise by order of the queen.”

The voice sends a jolt of lightning through me.

Elisabeth Du Barry.

Edel and I don’t dare look at each other. Elisabeth survived the palace dungeons and is still working for Sophia. That truth swirls around inside me. I want to strangle her through the phone lines.

“Ensure Valerie is prepped for transport afterward,” Elisabeth barks.

I squeeze Edel’s arm and look up at the teahouse’s windows. The sill-lanterns are unlit. No movement in or out. A space seemingly vacant. But my sister’s in there. Only twenty paces away.

We have to get into that teahouse.

“Will do,” the girl replies before cupping a hand over the receiver. “No one is at the teahouse. We’ve been sending people to Miel’s Makeup Galleria on the Imperial Mile because they have a limited supply of Belle-products. Best to try there. Good day to you both.” She slides the glass window shut again and points at the CLOSED sign.

The plan to get to Valerie bursts like a popped bubble.

We have to find another way in.





We settle into another shabby room in another boardinghouse to rest after using our glamours. We still have three hourglasses’ worth of time before the doors open for the Fashion Minister’s exhibition. Anxious flutters irritate my stomach, all the unknowns growing into a ball of nausea.

“How do we get to Valerie now?” I ask Edel.

She doesn’t answer, her face buried in Arabella’s letter, mumbling to herself about the aether and Sophia, trying to put the pieces together. Rémy stares out the window, his eyes surveying every passing body. The teacup dragons dance and play, chasing one another and the dusk-lanterns. Their scales glitter like beautiful gemstones. I watch them, thinking how nice it must be to be them, clueless, and without a worry. Their joyful movements remind me of how my sisters and I used to be as little girls.