The Everlasting Rose (The Belles, #2)(43)

The Fashion Minister flashes her a weak smile, then looks at us with distress in his eyes.

“The least you can do is give us privacy while we prepare,” the Fashion Minister states. “Go fetch us tea or something, and bring a food cart. I’m famished.”

The room empties, doors closing behind Renault and the others. Edel starts to speak, but the Fashion Minister shakes his head and points to the doors. We spot the shadows of feet just outside of it. Then he raises a finger up to the ceiling.

Confusion mars Ada’s face.

“Enigmatics,” he whispers. “Ada, if you’d please prepare.”

She nods and rushes around checking the details like Edel and I would: making sure adequate beauty-lanterns float about, setting out pots of Belle-rose tea on the table, adding pastilles to melt on chafing dishes to fill the room with a lavender scent, draping a large table with pillows and linens. As she works, I trace my fingers over the fleur-de-lis Belle-symbols etched onto each item in her sparkling beauty caisse and ponder how different our lives were only a month ago.

I remember the first time my sisters and I sneaked into the Belle-product storeroom. After the house had gotten quiet, we’d stolen night-lanterns and dragged them to the back of the house. The room’s wonders had unfolded to us for hours: perfume atomizers and color crème-cakes and rouge-sticks and powders and kohl pencils and golden vinaigrettes and pastilles and potpourri and oils and sachets. The room smelled heady and sweet, and we’d fallen asleep there after powdering ourselves all night. Du Barry made us write one hundred lines each as punishment.

I search Ada’s face for something, anything that resembles the connection I have with my sisters. Can we trust her? Will she be happy once we reveal ourselves? Or will she turn us in?

The risk churns in my stomach.

But we have no choice. We must tell her of our plan. But as the Fashion Minister has pointed out, Sophia could very well be listening. Why hadn’t we planned for this? I don’t even have a spare piece of parchment on which to scrawl out a message. Then I remember another treatment room, another moment I needed to communicate in silence.

“Undress,” I say to Edel. “I have an idea.”

I know there is confusion in Edel’s glare as she stares from behind her veil, but she obliges. I wave Ada closer.

“I want to show you a technique that we both enjoy and would like you to use,” I tell her.

Edel disrobes and climbs into the bed.

“Ready?” I ask.

“Just get on with it,” Edel mumbles, the frustration stewing just under her words.

I grab a bei-powder bundle, then sprinkle it over Edel’s back, coating it evenly with a makeup brush. My hand wobbles.

The door slides open and another servant slips in.

“We need hot towels,” the Fashion Minister orders. “Bring them now.”

The woman turns back around and scurries out.

I push my shoulders back and wave the brush in the air to get Ada’s attention. In the bei powder along Edel’s back, I write a message.

Where is Valerie?

I lift my veil and she sees my face.

Ada gasps and falls backward into a teacart. “The favorite,” she whispers.

That word cuts across my skin. The Fashion Minister reaches down and puts a hand over her mouths.

“They’re always listening,” he reminds her.

“Don’t say a word,” I whisper. “I promise we’re here to help. We need your assistance.”

Ada nods and the Fashion Minister eases his hand off her mouths. She quickly wipes away my message and writes, Near Madam.

I snatch a rose from a nearby vase, then write: Take us.

Her eyes fill with fear, her hands trembling at her sides, but she nods.





“I’ll stay here and distract the servants,” the Fashion Minister tells us. “But be quick.”

Edel throws her gown back on, and Ada leads us out through the servant entrance. The house is near silent. We tiptoe to a back staircase.

“This only goes to the sixth floor. The seventh is where she resides. We go up there when we’ve made a mistake and need a ‘talking to,’ as she calls it,” Ada whispers. “It’s Madam’s office.”

We follow behind her with our lightest footsteps. The upper floors are filled mostly with a maze of treatment salons and tearooms, but I spot a dining room and game parlor. Unlit lanterns litter the floors. I grip the rose stem so tightly the thorns push into my palm, but the pain is a tiny cut in comparison to the anger rushing through me.

“How old are you?” I ask Ada.

“I don’t know.”

“What happened to your face? Were you hurt?” Edel asks, examining the deep red flush that lingers beneath her skin, and the tiny mouth beneath her bottom lip.

“No. It has always been this way.”

I’ve lost track of which floor we’re on when suddenly Ada’s breathing quickens, and her pace slows. Ahead a man sits in front of a lift, head down reading a newspaper. We press our bodies against the walls, out of sight. His limbs are thin as the bayou reeds from our home island, and his pale skin mirrors the snow falling outside the windows. He whistles softly. The headlines jumble as he quickly turns the pages.

“Stay behind us,” I tell Ada, then turn to Edel. “Let’s trap him using this rose. We’ll turn it into a cage.”