“Yes. We mostly study them for shading, pigment work, and for Belle-products.”
“Flowers are so underrated.” She gazes up at the ceiling. “Only coveted for their beauty, when they can help solve so many problems.” She tugs me forward to a large table overflowing with piles of tattlers, beauty pamphlets, and scandal sheets. Torn-out pictures are pinned to boards. Eyes, legs, breasts, hair, body shapes, faces. Beauty caisses sit in rows, their contents on display.
Sophia leads me to a beauty board on an easel. Two identical women stare back—white-blond hair, pear-green eyes, dark brown skin, and sweetheart mouths. “These are my cousins—Anouk and Anastasia.” She runs her fingers over their faces. “They only allow themselves to have tiny differences between each other. You have to search for them.”
“They’re beautiful,” I say.
“Exactly the problem.”
I bristle.
“I’ve been watching them these last few days. Tracking their beauty work. They’ve just come from a vacation in the Silk Islands, and from seeing your sister Padma.”
“Tracking their beauty work?”
“Oh, I haven’t shown you my masterpiece.” She tugs a series of braided cords that dangle along the wall, and a tapestry lifts back, revealing a complete wall of rose-porcelain portraits set in a curling network of brass tubing. Every spot and corner is filled. Each one is labeled with a titled name and royal emblem.
The gentle whoosh of liquid snakes through the tubes. A few of the portraits change—hair grows shorter or longer, noses shrink, skin tones flush over with enhanced or brand-new colors, hair textures morph, mouths plump up.
I reach for one.
“Don’t touch,” Sophia warns. “They’re very sensitive.”
“What are they?”
“It’s how I see everybody.” She admires them. “How beautiful my court is.”
“But how?” My stomach clenches.
“It’s a secret.” She takes my hand and squeezes it. “Can I trust you?”
“Yes.” My heart gallops.
Sophia returns to the table and opens one of the beauty caisses. Velvet boxes hold ornate bracelets and teardrop earrings and necklaces dripping with gold and gems. “One of my royal inventors made these for me. Remember when you first came to my toilette ritual—on my birthday—and I handed out jewelry?”
I nod, recalling how her court ladies had clamored over the jewels.
“They draw the tiniest bits of blood. I only need a little. And when mixed with your blood, Belle blood, remarkable things happen.”
“My blood?”
“Yes. I have your leeches drained, and sometimes the ones from your sisters at the teahouses, too.”
I try to keep my disgust from showing on my face. “Why?”
“Oh, don’t let it bother you.” She pats my shoulder. “I discovered it long ago, when I was a child and my mother’s favorite, Arabella, used to change my hair and eye color in the playroom. She’s still my favorite Belle, too. Though you might be able to continue to win me over.” She bats her eyes at me. “I used to bite Arabella playfully, and tiny drops of her blood stained my little day dresses and pinafores. I’d have my nursemaid cut out pieces of the bloodstained fabric and save it. A strange keepsake, I know. But I was fascinated by what you all can do.”
I step back from her. I search her face and eyes, and wonder if she’s serious. She beams at me. Pride oozes out of every corner of her. Does she want me to be honored that she’s fascinated by Belles?
“That’s when I made the discovery. That’s when I began to understand the power of it. If Arabella’s blood touched my skin, it would restore the color momentarily. Imagine! I thought Belles had more power than queens. I wanted to be like that.” She runs her fingers over the jewelry, tracing her fingertip across the tiny places where needles poke out, and the hidden chambers tucked inside the crested jewels. “I sucked the fabric and sometimes stole Arabella’s leeches to eat. I thought if I ingested the blood, I’d become like you. Like Arabella. Like the Belles I saw in the teahouses. But it didn’t work. It just made me sick.”
Discomfort settles into my stomach.
She returns to her wall. “As I got older, my sister, cousins, and friends became prettier and prettier than me. My mother wouldn’t let me do deep body work. She started enacting laws and shying away from radical changes. I felt ordinary. Forgotten. Plain. My sister made it seem so easy to be beautiful. The colors she chose and her subtle changes made her look extraordinary—more lovely after each appointment with Arabella. I needed people to pay attention to me like that. I needed to be better than everyone. I needed to have the same style and beauty instincts.”
She leans close to one of the morphing portraits. “Look!” She pulls me forward. “Lady Christiana just had her hair color changed from brown to a plum purple. Hideous color. And at this hour. I wonder which teahouse she’s patronizing.”
We watch the image change. The nose transforms from a slender-tipped point to more of a cute button. Her cheekbones lift higher and her jawline smoothes out. Her skin darkens from ivory to honey brown. It’s like watching a télétrope reel of minute-byminute changes.
“Your powerful arcana connect them to my wall,” she says. “It’s more immediate with yours than your sisters’, or even Arabella’s. Even with only a few drops of their blood mixed with yours, I can see what they do.”
“I don’t understand.” And I don’t know if I want to.
“I change the jewelry every week to always have a fresh supply of their blood. And for some reason—it even evades my scientists—your blood allows me to watch them.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Be excited. You are strong.” She clasps my wrist. “And you will be the one to help me achieve my goals—finally. I want to be the most gorgeous woman in all of Orléans, and the world.”
“But you are already stunning.”
“You lie so easily, it makes me wonder what else you aren’t telling me.” The pitch of her voice sends a skitter of nerves through me. Her eyes burn into mine.
“I’m not ly—”
“I know that I’m not the most beautiful. I come here twice a day. And I’m reminded when I see pictures of my sister in the royal halls. When I see the looks your sisters create. When I see my mother. I know I’m average at best. I wasn’t blessed by the Goddess of Beauty with a superior natural template. I don’t have a good base to work with.”
She reminds me of myself—wanting to be the best, researching and plotting and planning to make sure I am ahead of everyone.
“But how can you tell who is more beautiful? They all look different,” I ask.
“Do you understand what I want?” She raises her voice.
I start to sweat. She steps closer to me. Her heavy breaths are coming out in pants.