Of Beauty and Beast

“What’s wrong?” I ask, coming to my knees on the floor in front of him.

He shakes his head. “I can’t …”

“Tell me.” I run my fingers down his cheeks, over the whiskers on his chin. They’re black, even blacker than his hair, and sharp enough to tickle the skin around my mouth when we kiss.

A kiss. It seems the thing to do. I lean in, pressing my lips to his forehead the way he pressed his to mine, offering comfort, but after only a moment he takes me by the shoulders and sets me gently away.

“I should go.” He rises from the floor in one effortless movement and starts toward the door.

“All right,” I say, trying not to be hurt by his eagerness to leave. He’s right. We’ve already been longer than the “moment” I promised Needle.

“I’ll send the guards at the usual time tomorrow.” I come to my feet much less gracefully, struggling with my skirts, and follow him down the hall to the music room. “We can talk more while we work in the garden.”

He casts a narrow look over his shoulder.

“I know what you said about the bulbs, but it will give us an excuse to meet.” I clear my throat, pushing down the sadness rising inside me as Needle hands Gem the rope and gathers her sweater.

It doesn’t matter that the garden is a lie. I’m not tainted, and Gem isn’t a monster. There might be no need for herbs to impede mutation. If the people in the Banished camp have scales or claws or other mutant characteristics, there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is the way the rest of the city treats them. I’ll find a way to convince the whole citizens that they have nothing to fear from those who look different.

“Tomorrow, then?” I ask, voice rising sharply as Needle hurries past me to the tower stair and Gem follows without saying a word.

What have I done? Why does he suddenly seem so cold?

“Gem?” My voice breaks in the middle of his name, betraying how much it hurts for him to leave this way.

He stops, his entire back rigid, before he turns and walks back down the hall toward me. He looks angry, furious, and for a moment I’m afraid of what he’ll say, but he doesn’t say a word. He pulls me into his arms, lifting me off my feet, silencing my breath of surprise with a kiss.

Kiss. The word is inadequate for urgent hands and bruised lips and his taste filling my mouth and his breath in my lungs and need strong enough to rattle my bones, shake me to the core until all I can do is dig my fingers into his shoulders and hope to survive being so close. It’s wonderful and awful and all I ever want. Forever. I don’t want it to stop. I never want him to leave.

He has to leave. I know that, but knowing doesn’t keep my chest from aching like it will split in two when Gem sets me back on my feet.

“Don’t go,” I whisper, my arms still tangled around his neck.

“Find the covenant,” he says. “If it’s written, you should be able to read it for yourself. There has to be some way.”

Some way to save me without destroying my city. Some way to spare his people without sacrificing the safety of mine.

“I’ll ask Junjie to bring it to me tomorrow,” I promise. “We can read it together.”

He smoothes my hair from my face. “But I’m still learning. I—”

“That’s all right. Needle can read. She can—” Needle. Oh, no. Oh. No …

The blood drains from my face as I peek around Gem’s wide body to find Needle standing at the door to the stairs, her eyes fixed on the carpet and the ghost of a smile on her lips. There’s no chance she missed that kiss, and still, she’s smiling.

I didn’t think it was possible to love her more, but I do. Instantly.

“Bring it to me, then,” Gem says, backing away. “If there are words I don’t know, Needle can help.”

I nod and warn them to be careful as they start down the stairs. As soon as they’re out of sight, I hurry to the balcony to search the moonlit world far below for soldiers, but there are none in sight. Not on the path that runs by the tower, not in the cabbage fields, not in the browning stalks that are all that’s left of the autumn sunflowers.

When the two shadows—one slight and swift, one tall and broad but no less swift—emerge from the tower, they cross the road unobserved.

Well, almost unobserved.

I observe them. I watch them with the miracle of my new eyes until they disappear into the field of dead flowers, bound for the orchard beyond and the royal garden beyond that, where the roses will see them race by, hurrying to get Gem back into his cell before he’s discovered.

I imagine the way the blooms will twist subtly on their thick stems, turning their unblinking eyes on my friend and the mutant who kissed me, and I shiver. What was it Gem said? Something darker … Something darker was at work.

It isn’t hard to imagine something darker at work in the earth beneath the roses, something greedy and so desperate for blood that it refuses to sustain life without taking life in return. Perhaps the covenant will shed some light on that dark thing’s identity. I will ask Junjie to bring me the document first thing, before the sun has a chance to rise or his son has a chance to come knocking at his door telling tales.

And then I will ask for a tour of my city and watch his face very carefully as he realizes the queen is no longer blind.

20 GEM

QUEENS. Only queens. Only Isra.

The words repeat over and over as I lie on the hard bed in my cell with my hands propped beneath my throbbing head. I watch the moonlight move across the ceiling, and remain sleepless even though my body aches with exhaustion.

The magic of Yuan might still save my people, but—

Queens. —if Isra’s right, then the magic doesn’t lie in the roses at all, it lies in—

Only queens. —the covenant, and the blood of the queen of Yuan. Once I read the covenant and learn the sacred words Isra spoke of, I could take her. I could take her and the roses—

Only Isra. —to be safe. We could marry according to the Smooth Skin tradition.

From what she’s said, it seems that would be enough to join me to the magic, allow me to carry on the covenant when she’s gone.

If she’s going to die to save a nation, why shouldn’t it be mine?

Haven’t my people suffered enough? Isn’t it time we had abundance, even at the cost of a life now and then? Better one life than many. And if she’s going to die …

If she’s going to die …

Only queens.

I don’t want her to die. By the ancestors, please …

Isra. —there has to be another way.

BO

“I’M sorry.” My voice is unnaturally loud in the silent room. Father hasn’t said a word for the past half hour. He simply sits there, turned in his chair, studying the moonlight shimmering on the lake outside his window, while I stand at attention before the fire until my shoulders cramp and sweat runs down the valley of my spine. “Baba, please—”

“You aren’t a child,” he snaps without bothering to look my way.