The Everlasting Rose_The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

Author:Dhonielle Clayton [Clayton, Dhonielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2019-03-05T06:00:00+00:00

Soft beams of moonlight sweep along the ocean as the left eye of the God of the Sky rises. The Silk Isles’ teahouse burns in the distance like a dying star. The edges of the imperial island glare as we sail along its coast—lantern-houses and piers and sill-lanterns in mansions that overlook the waves. The color is so different from the water that surrounds our home. I think of the terrifying stories we were told about the octopus living in the Rose Bayou. But we were never taught what lurked out here, what creatures inhabited the God of the Seas’ vast domain.

“We won’t get there any faster with you watching,” Edel says. “And you’re letting in a draft. The dragons are getting fussy.”

“All the lighthouses are sending beams of light out. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“No,” she replies. “But it’s freezing.”

I close the drapes and turn back to the small but decadent cabin. The Fashion Minister’s lavish watercoach feels like a palace apartment set afloat. Plush chaises and couches circle a long table holding all the supplies we’ve amassed—Rémy’s maps, a few stolen Belle-products we haven’t had to sell, ink and parchment and a quill, food for the teacup dragons, my beauty caisse full of labeled sangsue bottles, the plump coin purses the Fashion Minister gave us. Fire-lanterns hover throughout, lending their heat to the chilly space. Cabinets boast all manner of treats—roasted nuts, cheese blocks, baskets of macarons, casks of wine and ale. But I have no appetite for any of it. We lost Valerie. We’ll never see her again. I can barely hold that truth in my head.

My throat burns, the taste of the fire still on my tongue. “What if all our sisters are in pain like Valerie?”

“We can’t lose another sister. We need to find a way to get to them,” she says.

“We lost Amber.” It stings saying her name.

Edel’s face is like stone. “I told you, she’s changed.”

My frustration, fueled by grief, bubbles over. “You weren’t at that dinner party with Claudine. You weren’t at the palace. You didn’t see what Sophia did to us. She turned everything into a game. She forced me to give a courtier a pig nose, she broke my hand, she poisoned my food. I didn’t get to talk to Amber about all the things she’d made her do. Sophia is a monster. She bends you into ugly shapes, and I regret every minute of her being able to do that to me.”

“I saw interviews with Amber bragging about being better than us. Better than her sisters. More deserving of the title of favorite.” Edel’s back stiffens, and her hands ball into fists as she readies herself for a fight. “You can’t convince me that she always loved us.”

“We all wanted to be the favorite. That means we had to be better than one another,” I remind her. “She just wasn’t nice about it.”

“I never wanted any of that. I never wanted this life.”

“Well, good for you for being above it all.

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