The Everlasting Rose (The Belles, #2)(73)

“Why not? How did we grow?”

“From the goddess.”

“Is she even real?” Anger chokes in my voice.

“That story has some truth. The Goddess of Beauty used to send Belles down from the sky like rain, and they’d burrow into the ground as seeds and grow under the protection of the dark forest behind Maison Rouge. They were beautiful bulbs. When I was a little girl I’d go out there with my mother to tend to the Belles. I used to think the bulbs were diamonds—their outer shells glittered in the darkness. We’d make sure they were covered by the rich soil and pour the blood of the previous generation over the them for nourishment.”

My heart races alongside her story. It sounds like madness.

“Guardians were tasked to tend to that forest. Protect it. Keep it holy. Keep it hidden.”

“The one you forbade us to enter.”

“But the one you were always drawn to. You thought I didn’t know when you and your sisters would sneak out there.” She stares off into the fire. “Over many weeks, thick stems would push out from the soil, holding the babies in petal-like cases covered with thorns.”

I open and close my eyes. The images her words etch in my mind are like scenes plucked out of dreams and nightmares.

“Once you were born, we’d pair you with one of the Belles who returned from court. To help raise you and prepare you for your duties. Over the centuries, fewer Belles dropped from the sky, and the guardians had to adopt radical methods to keep up with the growth in Orléansian population.”

Du Barry purses her lips.

“What did you do? What did the guardians do?” I ask.

“I’m ashamed to tell you these guardian secrets. Saying them out loud solidifies just how wrong they’ve been all these years,” she says without looking up.

“I want to know. I deserve to know.” My anger is a teapot boiling over.

DuBarry takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, staring into the fire. “My great-great-great-grand-mère figured out a way to extract some of your blood, parts of your tissue, and replicate the growing process in controlled pods. But this created greed and more demand.” She reaches out to touch my shoulder. “To be honest, I don’t think she really knew what she was doing. She thought she was solving a problem, but she only created more.”

I clench my jaw and say nothing. What was there to say?

“What she discovered, over time, is that there is one Belle in each generation whose blood is stronger than the rest,” she continues.

“Me,” I say, and she blinks, surprised. “Arabella.”

“Yes. You are the aether, as the guardians call it. Or as I thought of it as a child, the everlasting rose.”

Sophia’s cruelty in naming her prison after us burns afresh. “That’s not how the story goes.”

“It never is.”

She pauses and leans closer to the crackling fire in the hearth. Her eyes gaze at the wild flames.

“This world doesn’t deserve Belles,” I yell, standing up and pacing around the room.

“You are right to be angry.”

She stands and reaches out a hand, but I avoid her touch.

“Angry? That word is too small to describe how I feel.” My muscles tense and my fists ball. I want to knock every hat from every perch and punch every post-balloon until they crash to the ground. “Sophia has Amber and Edel and Ivy and all the other Belles you lied to us about, like Delphine. And Valerie is dead.”

Du Barry flinches, clutching her heart and stumbling backward into her seat. “What?”

“You heard me. She’s gone. Sophia bled her to death, and she couldn’t handle it any longer.”

Du Barry holds her head in her hands. “I’m so very sorry.”

“I don’t understand why this all happened—how the world could treat us like this. How could you lie to us over and over again?”

“You need to understand the value of beauty and how it creates deficiencies in the world. Deficiency is weakness. Beauty is power. It creates need and desire and want. Not having it creates a market.” Du Barry looks up at me, her eyes watery and her cheeks tear-stained. “I can never be sorry enough.”

“I’ve heard too many sorrys and none of them change anything.”

An hourglass on the mantel flips. A long silence seeps between us. It seems there is nothing more to be said. Eventually, Du Barry clears her throat.

“Your imperial carriage will be back to get you and take you to her,” she says, all business. It is a tone I recognize. “It’s time to get ready.”

Time to face Sophia.





“This arrived moments before you did. Lady Arane had it made,” Du Barry says, holding a small box in one hand as I stand before a mirror. “I don’t know how they got it into this tiny thing. It’s not bigger than a hatbox.”

She hands it to me and I open it, removing a card on top of the soft paper wrapping. It reads: Pull the ribbon and wait for the dress to reveal itself.

“Where did the Lady order this from?” I ask.

“The shop next door—Lili’s Marchande de Modes. Very popular on this street.”

I peel back the paper covering to reveal a thick red velvet ribbon. I pull it. The box flattens and I jump back, startled.