It’s been three years since the muderous, erractic former Queen Sophia has been jailed in her own prison, and Queen Charlotte was rightfully returned to the throne, but the kingdom of Orléans is far from settled.

Beuaty work has been rationed in order to help the Belles be properly compensated and secured, but the rations and rules has only brought more aggression against the Belles for being wanted to treated humanly instead of never-ending workhorses. The rations has only strengthed the public’s addiction for beauty work, and several Belles have gone missing to the illegal underground beauty trafficking, drained of blood to satisfy the desires of the rich. The public is divided by those who want Sophia back on the throne, back their unrestrained excesses and those who don’t want the traitorous queen but want “normalcy” and clean streets again. Neither side has the conditions of the Belles in their minds.

It is in the forefront of Edal’s mind. Even though she’s on the queen’s council, she’s frustrated by how Charlotte’s measures are moderate, trying to please everyone which pleases no one. Even though she’s there to represent the Belles, it’s clear that the concerns of the exploited class are not a priority compared to the rich. Sadly true to life, but Edal has enough.

So when Charlotte proposes the ancient Beauty Trials will determine the next queen, Endal volunteers herself and becomes one of the annoited eight. Even though she’s skeptical of relying on fairytales, it’s clear that this fairytale is very real and more dangerous conspiracies abound.

Remember how I mentioned that I wanted Edal’s story? Well, here it is! While it doesn’t expand much of her time in the Fire House or in the prison, it’s clear all that she’s been through has hardened her. She doesn’t want the Belles to be abused and thinks if she got the highest seat of power, she’ll be able to protect them as no one was able to protect her, but the trials (and everyone else) has her questioning if this is even the best position for her to take. Not only will the trial kill the other seven contestants, but being queen requires diplomacy and consideration of all subjects that she’s not interested in, not just the Belles.

The problem is if she’s not fit to be queen who is? The other contestants have their own fractions they want to put in power, and several want to continue Sophia’s reign and beliefs that all the Belles are fit to be are as tools.

Clayton continues to wreastle with the black-grey moralities the protagonist wish the world had and force them to face the reality that the problems within Orleans don’t stem from one mad person like Sophia but have been present too long and encouraged by indifference of the crowd. Still, there’s hope when it comes to allies and trusting others.

The juxtoposition of beauty and decay, and beauty and death are illustrated with depth in each of the trials and will bring a chill to your spine. But the reality is much more darker as the trials always have a tint of supernatural surrealism while the scenes of Edal confronting the Belle-blood traffickers and Sophia’s execution are remiscent of real horrors.

Edal’s story is raw, she’s on survival mode almost the whole time but there are moments of softness, when she’s able to trust in people and she’s willing to help others that show that there is still some care under all the toughness. She also gets her own romance, but like Camellia, it suffers from development that happened off-page, preventing me from feeling fully invested as Edal spends most of the time apart from her significant other. The potential love triangle also muddies the waters, but highlights the outsider status that Edal has been labeled with even when she was with the Belles.

This was a strong conclusion even though I felt the epilogue was a bit of a rushed, estoric happy-ending. Perhaps other readers would have liked feeling in the blanks themselves but I’m not a fan. Still it’s a worthy trilogy to read, brimming with imagination, intrigue and serious themes to ponder about beauty, truth and lengths people would go to achieve the former at the expense of the latter.

4 stars.