I love my sisters, especially Amber. She’s always been the one I loved the most. We all deserve to be the favorite. We’ve worked so hard to learn the art of beauty. But I want it so much there’s no room inside me for anything else.
My eyes feel like they’ve been closed for an eternity before my carriage trudges forward again. Imperial attendants approach, and their gold uniform buttons catch the lantern light. They arrange themselves at four corners around me, unlatch the hitches, grip the levers jutting from the sides of my glass ball, and lift me off the wheeled bottom like I’m only a soap bubble. Thin and weightless.
I lock my legs in place and focus on my balance. The men march me to the center platform. I try not to be nervous. Du Barry re-created this entire set inside our home, complete with the gold cylinder where my platform will eventually come to rest. I’ve been preparing for this day since my thirteenth birthday; all of the lessons, the lectures, the practice. I know exactly what I’m supposed to do. It’s been rehearsed, yet I can’t stop my fingers from trembling and my body from quivering like there’s a tiny landquake inside my glass ball.
I whisper to myself: “I will have the best showcase. I will receive the loudest applause. I’ll be named the favorite, just like Maman. I will get to live at court. I will get to see the world. I won’t make any mistakes. I’ll make people beautiful.” I say it over and over again like a prayer until the rhythm of the words erases my fear.
The men turn a lever. Gears clink and clang and wheeze. The platform under me rises just above the crowd. Plush royal boxes sit on stilts high above. People lean out of them with eyescopes and spyglasses pressed to their faces, and ear-trumpets jutting out like elephants’ trunks. Faces look up in wonder and anticipation like I’m a star caught in a vase, ready to explode.
The platform stops. I turn a tiny lever on the carriage floor. The glass ceiling above me cracks open like an egg. The night’s warm air skates over my skin like soft fingers, and it tastes even sweeter up here. If I could bottle the tiny winds, they’d turn to sugar dust.
The stars twinkle. I feel close enough to grab one and stow it away in my beauty caisse.
The square grows so quiet, and the sounds of the ocean swell. The people of Orléans gaze up at me, the last Belle to demonstrate her talents. Du Barry didn’t prepare me for what it’s like to be stared at. There are so many pairs of eyes, all different shapes and colors. My heart leaps.
Du Barry winks at me, then taps her full lips—a reminder to smile. The crowd believes I was born knowing how to make them beautiful. They don’t know how hard I’ve worked to perfect the traditions and master the arcana. They don’t know how hard I’ve struggled to learn all the rules.
“Now, it is my pleasure to present our final Belle, Camellia Beauregard!”
She fills the syllables of my name with pride, triumph, and magic. I try to hold on to that, and use it to combat my worries.
Light shines everywhere: the lanterns and blimp screens and sky candles and a bright rising moon. I can almost taste it, soft and bubbly and sweet, like pink champagne on the tip of my tongue.
I face a semicircle of smaller platforms. Three to the left and two to the right. Seven-year-old girls stand on them like jewels on velvet cushions. They’re as different from one another as pearls and rubies and emeralds, showing how uniquely we can use our arcana to beautify.
I know my sisters’ work: Padma’s subject has limbs the rich color of honey bread; Edel shaved her girl’s head close to the scalp; the eyes of Valerie’s subject twinkle like amethyst stars; Hana’s girl has the body of a dancer, long legs and arms and a slender neck; Amber’s subject has a cheery round face just like her own.
The other Belles have created tiny masterpieces.
It’s my turn to transform a girl.
The king and queen nod at Du Barry. She waves her hand in the air, signaling for me to get ready.
I glance up to the heavens for strength and courage. Belles are the descendants of the Goddess of Beauty, blessed with the arcana to enhance the world and rescue the people of Orléans. Blimps crisscross above me and block the stars with their plump forms and silhouette banners.
The last platform lifts directly across from mine. It completes the set of six and creates a perfect half-moon curve. The girl wears a long shirt, which is an excuse for a dress; its frayed hem kisses the tops of her feet. Her hair and skin are as gray as a stormy sky, and wizened like a raisin. Red eyes stare back at me like embers burning in the dark.
I should be used to the way they look in their natural state. But the light exaggerates her features. She reminds me of a monster from the storybooks our nurses used to read to us.
She is a Gris. All the people in Orléans are born this way—skin pallid, gray, and shriveled, eyes cherry red, hair like straw—as if all the color was leeched out of them, leaving behind the shade of freshly picked bones and ash. But if they earn enough spintria, we can lift away the darkness, find the beauty underneath the gray, and maintain their transformation. We can save them from a life of unbearable sameness.
They ask us to reset their milk-white bones. They ask us to use our gilded tools to recast every curve of their faces. They ask us to smooth and shape and carve each slope of their bodies like warm, freshly dipped candles. They ask us to erase signs of living. They ask us to give them talents. Even if the pain crescendos in waves so high it pulls screams of anguish from their throats, or if the cost threatens to plummet them into ruin, the men and women of Orléans always want more. And I’m happy to provide. I’m happy to be needed.
The girl fidgets with the camellia flower in her hands. The pink petals shiver in her grip. I smile at her. She doesn’t return it. She shuffles to the platform edge and looks down, as if she’s going to jump. The other girls wave her back and the crowd shouts. I hold my breath. If she were to fall, she’d plummet at least forty paces to the ground. She scoots back to the center.
I exhale, and sweat dots my forehead. I hope she earns a few leas for the stress of participating in this exhibition. Enough for her to purchase a square of bread and a wedge of cheese for the month. I hope to make her beautiful enough to receive smiles from people instead of fearful whispers and frenzied glares. I don’t remember being that small, that vulnerable, that terrified.