The Everlasting Rose (The Belles, #2)(46)

“All right, let’s try to take a step.” Edel hoists Valerie’s arm around her neck.

“There’s so much pain,” she cries. “My whole body hurts. It feels like my bones are shattered.”

Edel clears her throat and wipes away the tears brimming in her eyes before Valerie can see them. I’m not so quick, and a tear escapes my eye.

“Edel, Camille, I can’t.” Valerie squeezes my arm with all her strength. “I don’t have anything left.” Her gaze sears into mine, and her message crystallizes as her hand falls to the dagger at my waist. “Things will never be the same again.” She grabs the dagger from its sheath and stabs it into the side of her neck. Her body jerks like a bayou fish caught in a net. She exhales. Her mouth goes soft.

Edel screams.

Not a single drop of blood oozes from Valerie’s neck. The wound is dry.

She’s empty.

I stumble backward and off the bed, hitting the floor with a thud.

She’s gone.





“What happened here? I thought we’d embarked on a rescue mission?” the Fashion Minister says, marching into the room with Ada at his side.

“She... she...” The words won’t form.

“She killed herself,” Edel says with a sob.

The Fashion Minister perches over the bed. Valerie’s body stares up at us—her eyes foggy, glazed like glass marbles. Edel drops to her knees. Tears are a storm of fat raindrops down her red cheeks.

The minister covers his mouth briefly, then says, “We have to go, now.”

I can’t move. I’m a statue sitting vigil at her side.

“We can’t leave her like this!” Edel says.

“She’s not here anymore.”

“She needs a proper burial.” Edel’s eyes spill over. “So the Goddess of Beauty will receive her.”

The Fashion Minister drapes a blanket over Valerie’s face. Another sob escapes Edel’s mouth. I am too stunned to cry.

“Hush or we’ll all be caught. My head will be on a spike after an unpleasant tenure in a starvation box. It’s way too beautiful to meet such a fate; I take such excellent care of it. And the two of you will be carted off to Sophia’s prison to be milked for your blood—just like Valerie has been. My dandies will keep the body safe, transport it to Maison Rouge under the strictest of instructions. The corpse will be waiting for you to bury her. Now, we must go!”

“Don’t forget about me,” Ada pleads.

I turn to the Fashion Minister.

He sighs. “Another favor? I can see it all over your face.”

“Can you help get Ada and the other Belles out?” I ask.

“And take them where?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“More breaking of laws,” he says.

“You’ve always done it one way or another,” I remind him. “And when the Goddess of Death weighs your heart at the end of all things, she’ll see what you did for us.”

He leans forward and plants a kiss on my forehead. “If I keep my head long enough to get my husband back, I want to raise a child to have your spirit—and your looks.”

I smile up at him. The thunder of footsteps rises from below and shouts rattle the house.

We scramble.

“I’ll set her and her sisters free, but where they go is up to them,” Gustave says. “My private schooner is waiting for you. It’s not supposed to be out on the open waters, definitely more suited for short-distance travel and through canals and rivers, but we don’t have a choice. My boatman is discreet, having served me for many years and having been privy to all of my dalliances. Just stay inside the cabin. He’ll announce your arrival at the port, then he’ll leave for half an hourglass to give you enough time to disembark in Céline before he returns to me.”

“Thank you. I can’t tell you—”

Madam Renault and her guards march into the room, choking the space and blocking all ways out. “What is going on here?” She paces in a circle, her little heels clicking along the floor. “I had a bad feeling about your visit, Gustave, but to find the favorite and her sister here? That’s another thing entirely.”

My heart sinks.

She gazes at Valerie’s covered body. “What have you done to her?”

“What have you done to her?” Edel snaps, her rage loose and ready.

She laughs. “My duty. But, Gustave, it seems you’re caught in something you shouldn’t be. Something that might cause you to lose your pretty head.”

“You won’t touch him,” I shout, shaking with anger. The teacup dragons peek out of my waist-sash, irritated and hiccuping fire. “Feuille, Fant?me, Poivre, Ryra, and Eau,” I call out. “Burn everything.”

I make a whooshing sound, and they mimic me. They bolt out and above our heads. Their tiny blasts of fire quickly ignite the tapestries.

“Arrest them all,” Madam Renault orders. “And catch those little dragons.”

The guards rush forward.

I pull Rémy’s knife from Valerie’s neck. The tiniest freckles of her blood mar the silver. The last of her. I prepare to use the dagger, though I don’t know how. I think of Rémy. He’d say, They don’t know that you don’t know how to use it. I stab at the guards, pushing them back as the flames grow around us.