Of Beauty and Beast

They’re mesmerizing, not just a part of him, but a window into him, confirming all the things I’ve thought I’ve heard in his voice. He’s worried about me. He cares about me. It scares him that he cares, but he cares anyway, enough to climb a tower to make sure I’m okay.

I would climb a tower for him, too. I would. I start to tell him so, but before I can speak, he says—

“Maybe she’s trying to tell you who’s been poisoning you.”

“Would the dead know something like that?” I’m chilled by the thought. I’m not convinced my ancestors are capable of sending dreams from the other side, but I’m not unconvinced, either.

“I’m not sure. I’m not a spirit talker.” Gem shrugs, his wide shoulders straining the seams of his dust- covered, formerly white shirt. I can tell he still feels uncomfortable in Smooth Skin clothing. He’d probably be more at home with his chest bare.

My eyes roam from his shoulder to the opening of his shirt, where he’s unbuttoned the first three buttons, revealing the hollow of his throat and a triangle of bare skin. Bare scales. They flicker orange and gold in the candlelight, making it look like Gem’s flesh is made of smoldering coals. But I know his scales are cool and smooth to the touch. I ran my fingers over them last night, let my hand creep beneath his shirt and feel the strength of him.

I lift my eyes to find him watching me stare, and look quickly away, pretending to study the fireplace screen, where a dancing peacock spreads blue and green feathers.

“It could be anyone,” I say, clearing my throat. “The poison was coming in my morning tea. It’s brought on a tray from the royal kitchen.

There are dozens of people working there, and anyone who wanted access would only have to walk in and walk out. There are no guards. The royal family has never had to worry about death by poisoning.”

“And why’s that?”

“Our kings and queens are too valuable to our city.”

He grunts his “Isra’s said something stupid” grunt. “So the kings and queens like to think.”

I turn back to him with a scowl. “You don’t know everything.”

“I know that whoever decided to poison you is someone who would benefit from a queen unable to perform her duties. And that that someone has been thinking very far ahead for a very long time.” He links his hands behind his head while his legs stretch forward, scooting the low table in front of the couch across the lush carpet. It’s a smug pose, but a sensual one, and I can’t stop appreciating the sensual long enough to be truly frustrated by the smug. “I would look to Junjie. Make sure his hands are clean before you bind yourself to his son.”

“Easier to get a blind girl to marry who you’d like her to marry,” I say, thinking aloud. “But why didn’t my father ever suspect poisoning? He was a smart man.”

“Did he love your mother?” Gem asks, surprising me with his question.

I stop to think a moment before saying, “He said he did. He never took another wife, so …”

“Maybe he was too miserable to wonder if there was another reason his daughter was blind,” Gem says, his voice heavier than before. “I would think there’s nothing worse than losing a woman you love.”

I stare at him and forget how to breathe. I want to ask him what that fiercely gentle look in his eyes means. I want to ask him if he’s ever been in love. I want to ask if he loved his baby’s mother. I want to ask if he thinks he could ever love … someone else.

I want to ask if he might … if last night was more than … I want to confess that it was for me, to tell him that I’ve never been in love, but I’m certain this is the closest I’ve ever been to it.

The closest you’ll ever be. You’ll be sealed in a loveless marriage before your eighteenth birthday.

I close my eyes and dig my fists into my stomach. “Yes, I imagine that would be … awful.” I’m beginning to feel squeezed in half. I can’t think about marriage or love or who’s been poisoning me since I was a girl. Not on an empty stomach.

Luckily, Needle reappears a moment later with a tray filled with tiny bowls of nuts; a plate of red cherries so stunning and lush I want to paint them; apples; water; and cold tea.

Talk of poisoning causes me to shy away from the tea—though Bo warned me only about my morning tea, not anything brewed in the tower—but I can’t get to the water fast enough. I misjudge the distance between my fingers and the glass and knock it over. Before I can try again, Needle has poured a glass and placed it in my hand.

“Thank you.” I take great gulps of the cool water with the lemon rinds floating at the top. Yellow seen through my own eyes is more glorious than I remember, bright and dense and cheery enough to make my teeth hurt.

Needle nods, and gestures out to the balcony before turning back to me with one eyebrow raised, communicating more with one look than in seven or eight of her hand gestures. I’m suddenly not surprised that my father seemed to understand Needle almost as well as I did, though we never told him of our secret language.

“Yes. Gem and I are fine,” I say, then remember what Needle will be cleaning, and wince. “I’m sorry. Leave it. I can clean it up later.”

Needle dismisses my protest with a wave of her hand and goes to fetch water and soap and towels from the washroom. I still feel terrible, but I suppose I shouldn’t. Queens don’t clean up their own messes. At least, they never have in the past.

I reach for the plate of cherries and one of the bowls of nuts and pull them into my lap, munching as I think. Now that I can see, I’ll be able to walk among my people and form my own opinions much more quickly.

Maybe I can right the wrongs of the past and repair the wreck I’ve made of my first months as ruler of this city.

But first, I have to clean up a different mess.

I start to call for Needle but shut my mouth with a sharp clack of teeth as I realize I don’t have to. I can see. I can pick out my own clothes to put on after my bath.

I stand, suddenly eager to get on with it, to tidy myself and confront the demon of my reflection and move on to more important battles. “I’m going to wash up and change,” I tell Gem, setting my plate down on the tray. “I’ll be quick.”

“Do you want Needle to take me back to my cell?” he asks, his voice strangely guarded as he sets a now- empty dish back on the tray and reaches for an apple.

“No, I want you to stay,” I say, suddenly feeling shy. “I’d rather not be alone.”

“You won’t be alone. Needle is here.”

If I couldn’t see him, I’d think he wanted to go. He sounds cold, disinterested, but his knee jiggles up and down, his fingers twist the stalk on the apple until it snaps. His elbows are on his knees, his shoulders hunched as if protecting himself from an anticipated attack. His long, thick braid hangs down his back like a weary pet in need of a brushing.

I step closer, and touch the top of his head ever so softly. He glances up, surprised, unguarded. “Please stay,” I whisper. “I want you to be here.”

He nods, rather unhappily I think, and turns back to his apple.

“There’s a washbasin and towels in the sitting room down the hall.

By the pantry,” I say. Though, aside from his dusty shirt, Gem doesn’t seem to be in nearly as bad a shape as I am. “If you want to freshen up, feel free.”

“All right,” he says, eyes still glued to the fruit in his hand.

“I won’t be long,” I say, hoping both of our moods will improve once this is done. I’ve felt my own face and my peeling flesh. I have a fairly good idea what I must look like. Strange, different, big-featured and rough- skinned, but not altogether hideous. The truth can’t be much worse than what I’ve imagined.

Or so I tell myself as I turn toward the washroom, half hoping Needle neglected to haul up the usual supply of water in my absence, and I’ll have a good excuse to fall into bed filthy and deal with facing my face in the morning.

17