She grips the edges of the table. Her knuckles whiten. I quicken my strokes. I chip away at the pelvic bones, just a pinch on each side.
She cries out. “It’s much more painful than usual. I can’t tolerate it.”
“More Belle-rose tea should help.” I wave for Bree. She approaches with a cup and helps to sit Princess Sabine up. Her stomach and hips glow red in the subtle darkness. She lifts the facial mesh and gulps down the tea. “Why can’t the Royal Apothecary give us something stronger to withstand it?”
My brain is a fog of nerves and worries. “I . . . I—”
Ivy steps forward. “Princess Sabine. It’s me, Ivy.”
“Oh—Ivy.”
“Yes.” Ivy’s soft voice puts Princess Sabine at ease. “Anything stronger than Belle-rose numbs the blood, Your Highness. The arcana will not work.” She holds the base of Princess Sabine’s teacup, helping her take larger sips. “I put Belle-rose elixir in this pot. It’ll be a bit stronger for you.”
The princess’s eyelids droop, and her mouth softens. “Yes, I suppose that worked. I feel much better.” Bree helps her lie back down.
“Quickly now,” Ivy says to me. “You’re taking too long—hesitating and perfecting too much. They can’t tolerate the pain in long increments, and it isn’t good for you, either.”
“But she said she wanted it all at once.”
“They always want it all at once, but we have to guide them. We have to be wiser.”
I nod and look up at the hourglass. Almost time for my next appointment.
In my head the rest of her beauty requests arrange like a checklist: New nose
Smooth wrinkles
New eye color
Brighten skin color
New mouth shape
Freckles
Smaller waist
Lighten the hair
Soften the hair texture
Sweeten her disposition
Sweat drips down my brow. I promised Sabine I’d get it all done. My heart accelerates. My hands wobble. She clenches her teeth. The grinding is loud enough for me to hear.
I rush through the changes to her face. My eyesight is blurry from fatigue. I try to hold myself still, but my legs start to give. I drop a metal rod, the room swirls into a kaleidoscope of colors, and then—darkness.
“Camellia!”
“Camellia!”
“Camellia!”
My arms shake, and I open my eyes. Ivy stands above me. “You’ve done too much all at once.”
Princess Sabine is craning over the edge of the table, vomiting into a bucket. She screams and cries as she spews. Her skin is an angry red, like she’s just stepped out of a scalding bath. Two servants drape a lacy covering over her naked body. Another holds her new honey-colored hair up above her head. Bree tries to hold the bucket steady.
“I’m s-sorry.” My head feels like it might float off, like one of the beauty-lanterns.
“Princess Sabine, our apologies,” Ivy says.
Servants help Sabine back into the bathing chamber for an ice bath. Ivy reaches for me before my eyes close again.
25
The gentle warmth of a damp cloth wakes me. For a moment, I’m back at home. The bedcurtains fluttering across an open window. The bayou birds’ morning melody, floating through the room. Maman leaning over me. Her fingers sweeping back my curls. A kiss on my forehead. You’d kill yourself to be the best, she whispers in my ear. You always do too much.
I reach for her hand, but my arms feel pinned to my sides.
“Camellia, wake up. Can you hear me?” a voice calls out. “Camellia.”
Maman’s face fades away like dust. My eyes startle open. Ivy’s dark veil frightens me. I try to sit up, but needles are sticking out of my arms, and tubes snake through the blankets.
I panic and try to rip them out of my skin.
Ivy stops me. “Don’t! You’re getting fluids.”
“What happened?”
“Be quiet,” she whispers, then looks behind her. “I don’t want the nurses knowing you’re up yet.” She climbs onto the bed and closes the curtains. We’re bathed in darkness until she lights a morning-lantern and sets it afloat above us. It blinds me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I need you to pay attention.”
The beauty appointment with Princess Sabine floods back with a hot wave of embarrassment and shame.
“Is Princess Sabine—”
“She’s fine. In one of the recovery chambers. You pushed yourself, and the arcana, too hard when you tried to rush,” she says. “You can’t do those treatments all at once. You must learn to refuse. You should only do three at a time, especially when you have back-to-back appointments. Your arcana levels took a massive dip.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this when Sabine was making her demands?”
“I thought you knew better.”
“How low were my levels?”
“Three point five for Manner, three point two for Age, and two point four for Aura,” Ivy says, and it’s a punch to the stomach. “You’ve been asleep all day and night because of it. You missed your other two appointments.”
All day and night?
“I completed them for you.”
“Thank you,” I say. Edel’s face unexpectedly pops into my head. “And have you heard anything about my sister Edel?”
“It was just a rumor. She’s fine. I overheard Du Barry talking to Madam Alieas at the Fire Teahouse. She said it was pure fabrication.”
A sense of relief washes over me, but questions remain. Edel told me in secret she was going to run away, and then there was the headline about it. What are the chances of that? Perhaps someone overheard her saying she wanted to leave—and a newsie got wind of it? I hope she’ll be more careful.
I try to sit up again, but I’m weak and shaky.
“Don’t try to move. If you’re too loud, the other servants will alert the Beauty Minister immediately. We don’t get much time”— she leans in—“away from others.”
She’s close enough for me to see underneath her veil a little, and she lingers there, as if she wants me to. Tiny creases ring her eyes and mouth. Why would she have wrinkles? We don’t age the same as the Gris. Maman had very few, even up to her death.
“You must pace yourself. You haven’t been here a whole week yet,” she says.
I rest my head in my hands. “I wanted her to tell the court that I gave her everything she’d asked for,” I admit. “I wanted to prove that I should’ve been the favorite from the start.”
“You’ll burn out if you overexert yourself, and you’ll end up like Ambrosia.”
“What actually happened to her?”
Ivy hesitates, then lowers her voice to the quietest whisper. “Princess Sophia had—”
The bedcurtains snap open. The morning-lantern zips out. One of the Beauty Minister’s servants stares at us.
“Oh, you’re awake?” The Beauty Minister peers in. “And Ivy, what in the name of the gods are you doing in bed with the favorite? Now, what if this hit the tattlers? It’d be an incest scandal.”
Ivy slinks out. “Just checking on her, Madam Minister.”
“Well, go tend to something else. The nurses are here to look after her. She doesn’t need additional fawning.” She shoos Ivy off with a flick of her delicate wrist. “How are you feeling, darling?”
“A little tired, but better.”