Of Beauty and Beast

shoulder. “I need to tell you something.

I think … I wanted to ask …”

My pulse picks up. Have I been wrong about Junjie and Bo waiting until my mourning is over? What if Bo asks me to marry him right here, right now? What will I do? What will I say?

I will say yes, of course, but how? Should I say I hope we’ll be friends? That I hope our marriage will be a happy one? That I look forward to our wedding day—but not our wedding night, because I’ve heard he has a reputation with the ladies at court, and that petrifies me, because how will a girl whose entire experience consists of one wet kiss ever compare to all the girls, and women, he’s already been with?

No. I can’t say that. Of course I can’t.

I lick my lips, preparing to give him his answer and hoping it comes out right.

And then he asks, “Does your maid take breakfast with you?” and I feel like a fool.

“Excuse me?” My forehead wrinkles.

“Does Needle take food or drink from your tray?”

“No. Needle has her own tray.” I don’t understand what he’s getting at, but I don’t see any harm in telling the truth. “It’s brought before mine.

She wakes early.”

“That’s what I thought,” he says in his stone-plunking voice.

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t drink your morning tea.”

Plunkier still. “What?”

“Stop drinking your morning tea. Get rid of it,” he whispers, leaning close enough for me to smell the cabbage on his breath. “Pour it into the plants on your balcony or into your bed pot or someplace no one will think to look.”

The casual mention of my bed pot makes me cough awkwardly into the crook of my arm. I’m far from shy, but I’ve never discussed my bed pot with anyone. Ever. “And why should I do that?”

“So that no one will realize you’re not drinking it.”

My skin crawls beneath my shawl, but I refuse to scratch it. “Are you …” I swallow, shaking my head as I understand what he’s implying. “No.

No one would try to poison me. I’m the queen. I have no husband, no children. If I die now, the city—”

“Not all poisons kill, Isra.” He takes my hand, his thicker, fatter fingers cushioning my longer, thinner ones like ten little pillows. “I may be wrong, but please, indulge me. Pour out the tea for a week, maybe two.

That should be enough to know.”

“Know what?”

“I think you’ll see,” he says, a smile in his voice. “I hope so, anyway. I hope many things for you.”

“What kind of things?” I ask, a little breathless.

“You’ll see,” he repeats in that same cryptic tone.

“Bo, I …” I pull my hand from his. I want to believe Bo has my best interests at heart, but the idea that someone has been poisoning me … it’s too strange. I feel fine, the same as I always have. Mostly.

Except for the exhaustion. And the creeping certainty that winter will never end. And the troubling stretching of my bones, and the dresses with popped seams.

Could that be it? Could someone be slipping something into my tea to accelerate my mutation? Is that why I grew nearly three centimeters and put on ten catties in the past two months? Gem and I are planning to grow herbs and roots that will impede mutation. It makes sense that plants exist that would amplify the process.

I want to ask Bo if that’s what he believes is happening, and why someone might do such a thing, but I can’t. I can’t discuss my defects with any whole citizen of Yuan. I am the empress without clothes, and no one can speak of my nakedness, not even me.

“All right. I’ll do it,” I say, rising to my feet. “I’ll dispose of the tea.”

“Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you.” I try to smile but can’t. I’ve gone too sour.

I’m past parsnip, bittering to a turnip inside. “I should change for dinner,” I say, backing away.

“Let me escort you.”

“Thank you, but I can find my way. I’d rather go alone.” Or as alone as I ever am, considering that the guards at the edge of the field will be shadowing my every move. Since the night I slipped away from them at the coronation banquet, they’ve been careful not to lose track of me. “I’ll find you later. In the hall,” I say.

I turn and walk away, counting my steps to the edge of the field. I wouldn’t really rather go alone. I just don’t want to go with Bo. Or any other member of court, or any of the soft, silky, whole citizens of Yuan.

I’m filled with a sudden longing for Gem. Only with him is it safe to be the ugly thing I am. He’s the only one I can talk to, the only one who tells me anything close to the truth. And now I’ve made him hate me all over again.

But perhaps I can do something to make amends. Perhaps …

He craves a walk beyond the walls. Maybe I can give that to him. The state of the Banished camp isn’t the only thing I’ve learned from Bo. I’ve also learned the location of a hidden gate, the King’s Gate, created to provide an escape route for the royal family if the city were ever compromised.

Long ago, there were other domed cities close enough to be reached on horseback. There was a chance a refugee from Yuan might find sanctuary before falling prey to sun damage. With a little help from Needle, I might be able to sneak Gem through the King’s Gate, or perhaps … if I’m careful … and if Needle agrees to help …

I walk faster, eager to talk to my maid. She’s as excited about the healing garden as I am. Surely, if I explain my plan and beg and wheedle for an hour or two, she’ll see that what I propose is the only way.

I have to escape the tower and offer Gem a bargain he can’t refuse, one that will ensure his return from the desert and keep my Monstrous in Yuan, where I, for one, feel he belongs.

8 BO

I stand and watch her go, though I would rather be by her side. I like the feel of her hand looped through my arm, the rich tone of her voice when she speaks. Her voice is like music from a faraway city, unfamiliar, but seductive in its strangeness.

Isra is nothing like I imagined she’d be from listening to my baba’s stories of the temperamental princess hidden away in the tower. She’s nothing like any other girl I’ve ever met. She is strange and stubborn and graceless. Rough in speech and rougher of skin, and strangely resistant to my attempts to win her affection.

I should find her frustrating. I should pity her. Most everyone else does. The gentle members of court feel sorry for the mad queen’s blind, itchy, awkward daughter, and even sorrier for me. My bed has been warmer than usual these past two months. It seems there’s always a sympathetic woman—or two-lingering outside the door to my chamber when I quit the great hall for the night.

There’s been no official announcement, but every member of the court knows it’s only a matter of time. As soon as Isra’s mourning is over, she will take a husband. A childless queen cannot be allowed to remain unmarried. If something were to happen to Isra now, with no daughter to take her place and no husband to remarry and continue the royal line, the covenant would be broken. Yuan would have no royal blood to sustain the magic that keeps our land green and fruitful, and our city would fall like so many of the others.

Isra will marry, and soon, and there is little doubt who the man will be.

Junjie is the most powerful man in the city, and I am his son. It is only right that I should be king. It’s understood that Isra will take me as her husband and I will put aside any distaste I might feel for her peeling skin and odd ways, in the name of service to my city.

No one suspects that the distaste I feel isn’t for the girl.

As Isra disappears over the gentle swell of the hill with her guards close behind, a familiar tightness