“I couldn’t—”
“You will.” I lead her to my vanity and force her into the seat. Her mouth fights away a grin. She sinks into the high-backed chair. I grab a pot of Belle-rose tea from the tearoom and bring her a cup. She sips and smiles.
“Close your eyes.” I open my beauty caisse, remove a bei-powder bundle, and find a skin-pot color that matches hers. I cover her face with the skin paste. I slip my mirror from inside my dress. I quickly push the pin into my finger and wipe the blood on the base of my mirror. I watch it climb, willing it to go faster. The rose turns red and twists into its message—BLOOD FOR TRUTH.
I examine her. The glass fogs, then it reveals her smiling face bathed in a halo. Her loyalty reflects in the glass like a warm sun. The confirmation surges through me.
I restore her skin color, add more freckles to her nose and cheeks, and deepen the brown of her eyes. I touch the light stubble on her chin and cheeks.
“Do you mind. . .” she starts to ask.
I smile at her and touch her face, pulling the short hairs out and killing the roots of them.
“Those hairs won’t come back again,” I say.
“Thanks,” she whispers.
I add a small dimple—like mine—to her cheek as a bonus.
“Do you like the new dress?” Sophia asks as she flits around her boudoir in a sheer bathing gown. Her legs and hands twitch, and she fights to keep herself still. Wire-rimmed glasses sit on a wide nose, and her deep-set hazel eyes are two pools of sadness. She reminds me of a flower that’s lost all its petals. Her hair-tower is a frantic mess of tangles and jewels. Old makeup rings her eyes and lingers on her cheeks.
“It’s pretty,” I say.
“Spin for me.”
I do a careful turn. Unease fills me.
Sophia cannot be queen.
Sophia is unfit.
Sophia is temperamental.
The dress folds release a tiny melody each time I move.
“Isn’t it a lovely sound?” She leaps around to the beat of it. “I’m working with the Fashion Minister to make a line of dresses that sing. This is my first attempt.”
“Very clever.” I don’t tell her Rémy teased me on the entire walk to her chambers, calling me a pavilion bell.
“I need to make sure I take fashion to a new place, too. My mother is not a very fashionable queen. Her dresses are always rather dull. I will commission gowns the likes of which the world has never seen.” She digs into her vanity, throwing creams and puffs and tonics and perfume vials. Glass shatters.
I step back as some of the objects fly over my head like shooting stars. Servants rush to clean, but more hit the floor and splatter their contents before the servants can catch them. I shift my weight and try to find the right moment to interject.
“Will we be having lunch, Your Highness?” I ask tentatively.
She pauses. “I’ve planned a windy-season picnic. It’s partly a date with another one of my suitors.”
I wait for her to say Auguste’s name.
“Ethan Laurent from House Merania.”
I smile with strange, unexpected relief.
She returns to lobbing beauty products. “But I just can’t find . . .” She jerks upright. “Hmm, I can’t seem to remember what it is I was looking for.” She stares at the ceiling.
Servants duck and dart around her, trying to sweep up her mess.
Sophia steps in front of her vanity. “I look horrendous, favorite. I need you. I was up too late.” She reaches out her hand. I hesitate before taking it. “Fix me.”
“I must change into my work dress.”
“No, I want you as beautiful as possible while you work on me. Perhaps it’ll inspire you.”
We go to her treatment salon.
“Can we send for Bree? I need my beauty caisse.”
Sophia snaps a finger at a nearby servant. The woman ducks out of the room. I call out a thank you behind her.
“I will go bathe while you set up,” she says.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
I double-check the treatment room: adequate beauty-lanterns floating about, a servant setting Belle-rose tea on the table, pastilles melting on chafing dishes and filling the room with a lavender scent, another servant draping a large bed with pillows and linens, Belle-products sparkling on tiered trays. I trace my fingers over the fleur-de-lis Belle-emblems etched onto each item.
I remember the first time Amber and I sneaked into the Belle-product storeroom. After the house had gotten quiet, we stole night-lanterns and dragged them to the back of the house. The room’s wonders had unfolded to us for hours: perfume atomizers and color crème-cakes and rouge-sticks and powders and kohl pencils and golden vinaigrettes and pastilles and potpourri and oils and sachets. The room had smelled heady and sweet, and we’d fallen asleep there after powdering ourselves all night. Du Barry made us write fifty lines each as punishment.
I wish Amber was here now. What would she tell me to do?
Bree arrives with my beauty caisse. “I thought you were headed to a luncheon,” she whispers.
“So did I.”
Bree sets it up on a nearby cart and begins the process of unhooking its compartments. Servants usher Sophia back into the room. She guzzles a vial of her specially made Belle-rose elixir and climbs onto the bed.
I pace around, trying to figure out what look I’ll give her. An idea wells up.
“Facedown, please,” I say.
“Why?” Her eyebrows lift in surprise.
“I need to get a good look at your hair,” I lie. “I want to experiment.”
Sophia claps giddily. “You know how much I love to toy with things.” She turns over.
I stand at the top of the treatment table. Bree and I work to cover her with bei powder. The weight of my plan is like a solid-gold spintria block, heavy with risk. Doubt curls into my stomach, souring it with anxiety.
I brush her hair down her back. I lighten the strands to the color of snow and add streaks of silver and embed diamonds. I paint her in a new skin tone, the color of freshly laid eggs. The second arcana awakens. I freckle her body with beautiful beauty marks. Goddess-of-Beauty kisses.
She grunts, and sweat dots her skin.
“Are you all right, Your Highness?” I pretend to fuss with the metal rods used to shape the contours of the face and body.
“Yes, proceed,” she whispers.
I motion to Bree to lift her hair. Bree’s shaky hands gather the new strands. Sophia’s spine curves beneath her skin, visible on her skinny frame. The first arcana awakens inside me at the sight of it. I think of Maman’s entry about the queen. A poor manner can be leeched out of anyone.
I take a deep breath. I nudge my fingers lightly into the back of her neck. Her soft skin warms beneath my fingertips. I push out her temper, plucking it from inside her like a weed in a garden, and plant the virtues of patience and serenity.
Sophia screams out and leaps up. Her sudden movement knocks me to the floor.