The Everlasting Rose (The Belles, #2)(44)

Edel nods with a smile.

I close my eyes and the arcana wake inside me. My fingertips tingle. The rose blooms in my mind. I use the second arcana, Aura, to locate its life force; it’s weak from being cut and put in a jar of water. Both Edel and I work together to push the rose to grow—the stem splitting into two and slithering along the floor like a pair of thorny snakes. The petals swell to match the man’s size.

He shifts his paper down and jumps to his feet, but before he can move forward in our direction, the stem curls around his ankles and the petals swallow him in a red cocoon. His shouts are muffled and his attempts to run thwarted by the binding stems.

“How did you do that?” Ada asks.

“Just how you use the second arcana to grow a client’s hair or stretch their muscle tissue,” Edel replies.

Ada inspects the massive rose prison we’ve made as we file into the lift, clearly amazed. She jerks a lever forward. The gilded box sails upward.

“What do we do if she’s up here?” Ada’s eyes stretch with worry.

“The same thing we just did to him.”

She smiles. “I want to learn how to do that.”

“We will teach you,” I reply.

The set of apartments is empty and dark aside from a single day-lantern hooked to the wall. Edel unties it.

“Now, where did you say our sister was?” I ask.

“Whenever I came up here to be scolded she’d take me to her parlor room. That’s where I saw Valerie the first time. There’s a bedroom.” Ada leads us to a door crested with the Silk Isles’ emblem—the silkworm entangled with a royal chrysanthemum.

I push the door open slowly. It’s a cross between a tearoom and a small library. High ceilings hold glass windows that gaze down into the belly of the house, with each floor a decadent layer on an expensive cake. Tall ladders slide along mahogany shelves and sets of staircases spiral up to a balcony with more books. Velvet armchairs and tufted couches circle an enormous table littered with replicas of royal emblems sitting on a map of Orléans.

“What is this?” Edel asks Ada.

“She’s always plotting and planning and tracking which important people live where. Which courtiers or merchants frequent which teahouses. I’ve heard her on the circuit-phones. She wants to run all the teahouses. That’s her goal.”

Beneath the subtle light, the emblems are luminescent and show who has the power in this world. It is only a handful of people.

“This way.” Ada pushes through a plain, almost hidden door. Behind it, the room is small, its walls bare, and a bed consumes most of the space.

Its occupant is Valerie.

Edel and I rush to her side. Cerulean healing-lanterns leave strips of light over her face. Vases of flowers ring the bed. Her tawny-brown skin is tough and pruned.

“Valerie?” I whisper.

I touch the wrinkles along her skin. I want to smooth them for her, restore her face to what it once was. But I remember what Ivy said when I wanted to do the same for her—It will damage your arcana. I stare at the slope of her nose and the once rosebud shape of her lips and the chestnut of her hair. I can’t help but touch her chin.

“What happened to her? What did that woman do?” Edel asks, her voice filling with rage.

“Overuse of the arcana. Ivy’s skin looked like this, too,” I reply.

“Can we fix it?”

“It’s forbidden to work on other Belles,” Ada says.

“It’s forbidden to do a lot of things,” I reply.

Valerie startles awake. “Camille? Edel?” her voice croaks.

My knees buckle, all the worry sliding off me.

Edel and I climb into her bed. The size of it almost swallows us.

“How do you feel?” Edel asks.

Her sluggish eyes brighten a little. “Terrible.”

“We’ve come to take you with us,” I say.

“How did you get here?” she asks.

“With a little help,” Edel answers. “And we’re going to go get Charlotte next and put an end to all of this.”

“Where are our sisters?” she asks.

“They’ve been placed all over Orléans, according to the information I have. Padma is trapped at home, Hana is in the Fire Isles, and Amber is in the Glass Isles,” I report.

“Are they all right?”

“We don’t know,” Edel answers, trying to sit her up, but Valerie’s limbs flop every which way and she can barely hold her head straight. “Have you just done beauty work? Is that why you’re so tired?”

“I haven’t done anything.” She fights to keep her eyes open, her lids falling like heavy curtains. “No beauty work in days.”

“They’re bleeding her. I see the vats of blood being taken to the dock every morning,” Ada says.

“But why?” I ask. Valerie is not the aether, so her blood is not being used to grow other Belles.

“I don’t know,” Valerie says, almost out of breath.

More questions add to the storm brewing in my head. What is Sophia up to?

“We have to get you out of here, and get you well.” I push back her once thick hair.

We try to lift her, but she flops back on the bed. I perch over her, wanting my strength to drift into her limbs. The bones in her shoulder push into my leg. A tide of worry rises inside me each time she moans.