Belle settles very happily into her married life. There is no clear way for Beast to prove himself the missing marquis, so he doesn't bother; instead she studies and he translates foreign texts on magic for her and as the years go by she teaches herself enough Caelish and Suomish to read some of the non-Callian books without help and they eventually work through the entire library section on enchanting. By the time Belle is twenty-two she can invent spells on the fly, and can use mindreading to channel relatively simple spells through Beast while maintaining awareness of her own senses at the same time instead of dropping fully into meditation whenever she casts, and also to communicate subtly and nonverbally and silently in both directions with gentle tweaks to the castle that is her husband's mind. She has learned to read the writing on her rosepetals so all of her memories are forever preserved in their original clarity for her inspection, if she cares to look at them.

Using enough enchantment has wound up giving Belle a persistent aura. People stand aside for her if she walks down the street without deliberately suppressing it, sensing power without understanding it. She doesn't trip anymore; she's honestly not sure if she's incidentally cured her clumsiness or if the ground just adjusts to meet her steps and then ripples back into place after she's steady. Her hair and her skirts are continually stirred in a beautifully eerie way by a breeze that isn't there. Her voice carries as far as she likes, or as little as she prefers; she can whisper to one person across an oblivious crowded room. Sometimes she appears to be lit by an interior glow, when she's casting or using inlaid enchantments or just strongly emotional about something. Small injuries - she has tested no large ones - seal themselves with a faint hissing noise and a shine of sky-blue light, and she doesn't get ill anymore. Objects she reaches for move to meet her; plants bend to get out of her way if she strides through the forest, and some of them spontaneously bloom.

She is less likely to stride than to fly, though.

The books mention enchanter's auras, but not to quite the extent she's developed. It does, however, say that the aura is helped most by casting large spells through a willing vessel. Perhaps hers is just - more, because of her beloved Beast, because if she comes up with a way to fly or to cease to need sleep he's so eager to help.

She is just coming to the end of her last unread book on magic, wondering what is next, when there is a knock at the castle door.