20. Elara
ELARA
Two weeks ago, she’d thought agreeing to work with Nik had been the worst mistake of her life, but now her heart ached to see him disappear into the dark.
“Chefs.” Souverain Tremblay’s smoky voice called from everywhere. “You will have four hours to produce a savory dish for the Counseil. Only three of you will move on to the next round, meaning the two chefs who do not meet the Counseil’s standards will be eliminated.”
Elara craned her neck to find the Counseil gilded with light. If this was Tremblay’s attempt at re-creating the painting in the foyer, she’d missed the mark. The Counseil were not the golden lover or her shadowed prince.
They were the claws ripping them apart.
Those monsters had grinned as the chefs had brutalized each other in the last contest. They reveled in flaunting their power over a meaningless contest. Lafontaine wasn’t choosing her because he thought she would make a deserving Souverain. He needed her to help him.
She was a fool if she didn’t believe the others were the same.
The lights shifted from gold to crimson, flooding the entire room with bloodstained light. The darkness disappeared, revealing a mirrored hallway before her. The echo of reflections made her stomach flip.
“Proceed to your stations.”
Elara swallowed the urge to run.
Somewhere in this maze, Fiona was waiting, holding a wretched secret she wouldn’t hesitate to unleash should Elara succeed. It wasn’t the truth of her hidden identity that frightened her. It’s what Fiona had threatened.
When they realize you’re a liar and a sham, do you think they’ll get rid of just you?
Nikolas. Blai. Chantal.
They would all go down with her.
She had to hope that the tattoo magie would succeed, that Nik would find a way to silence Fiona.
The only way forward was through.
She moved into the hallway, dazed by her pale reflection multiplied in every direction.
With each step, the lights shut off behind her, ushering her forward at a faster and faster pace until she was running, cutting tight corners and nearly slamming into walls. Eventually she collided with a cooking station in the middle of a square, mirrored chamber.
A clock with sapphire hands appeared above the Counseil’s balcony.
“Your time begins now.”
That was it.
No further instructions. No warnings.
There was no way to tell what the other chefs were doing. How they were doing.
Elara took out the recipe book and turned a few pages. Futile. Fiona would get her wish because Elara had lied to Nik. She wasn’t fine.
The tattoo’s magie worked, but it worked too well. It took everything it was supposed to—and then some.
Without any memory of her mother, Elara couldn’t bake anymore.
For the last two days, she’d tried everything from basic breads to extravagant mille-feuille.
Nothing worked. Her custards burned, her pastries could crack teeth, and all her cakes sank.
It didn’t matter how carefully she followed the recipes, measuring ingredients to perfection; they always failed.
Anyone could follow a recipe, but only experience taught you how long to cream sugar with butter or how to test when a cake was perfectly baked.
Elara was nothing without the years of intuition her mother must have given her.
A tart, she’d decided, would be the easiest way to sneak through this round.
She measured. Flour. Butter. Water. Salt.
She worked. Knead. Fold. Repeat.
It failed. Forming a mess not worth saving.
Breathe, Nik had taught her. Just breathe.
The hands above ticked down. She didn’t have time.
She tossed the dough in the bin and started once more.
The second attempt made her curse.
The third made her eyes burn with tears.
Before she started again, a mechanical whirring silenced the room.
Up above, light glimmered off panels of glass being lowered like a lid upon the maze. Once they hissed into place, a few panels flickered to life like the flyers in the Restes. Except they didn’t reflect drawings.
They depicted the chefs below.
In one panel, Hector chopped vegetables and shoved them into a pot. In the corner, a shadow of a man lingered. Another pane of glass showed him in detail: dark-skinned and wearing an expensive Arts Manufacturier’s suit.
“You are a waste,” he snarled at Hector. “Of time. Energy. Money. I’ve given you the best tutors and the finest ingredients, and what do you do on your entrance performance? You choke!”
More screens illuminated, revealing Hector from all angles. Giving the audience a clear view into his pain.
“Say it,” the man pressed. “Admit what you are.”
“I’m worthless,” Hector muttered, but his magnified voice echoed around the chamber.
“Say it again. Correctly this time!”
“I am worthless, sir.”
The image changed to a woman this time, paired with Fiona, who looked near to tears.
“This is not about what you want. This is about your country.” The woman motioned to the table. “You’re not a real chef. You never will be.”
Perhaps Fiona wasn’t lying when she said all she wanted to do was bake. Maybe she thought becoming Souverain would allow her that chance.
The mirrors changed again, revealing more contestant nightmares.
Elara’s walls were empty. Was that good? Or was the tattoo preventing her own demons from surfacing? If so, the Counseil would notice, and she’d be caught anyway.
The clock overhead chimed. One hour gone. Three remaining and she had nothing. Not even a crust.
Maybe if she started easier, cutting vegetables, she could figure out the rest.
“Sloppy.”
“Tell me about it,” she mumbled, then jumped when she realized the voice was in her station.
Gaetan stared back at her. His ruddy face was too gnarled with cruelty to have been pulled from her memory. But the disappointment in his eyes? That was real.
“It’s not the recipe’s fault,” he continued. “You made this choice, Ellie. You keep making all the wrong choices.”
“Like I don’t know that,” she muttered, trying to make even medallions from the carrots.
“And who do you blame? Someone you can’t even remember. Someone who gave you everything, only to be forgotten. You’re nothing without her.”
“I can do this,” she shot back. “I’m made it this far, and I can finish it on my own.”
Gaetan’s large frame crowded her chamber from every single panel. “There’s the real Ellie. The one who charges ahead, thinking she knows best. Who thinks that her happiness is worth more than everyone else.”
Elara cut harder. Faster.
“That’s not true. I made a mistake.”
She moved on to the celery.
“You wanted this to happen.”
“I didn’t.”
“Was the price worth it?”
“Shut up!”
“We both know you’ll be back at my door, begging for scraps by tomorrow.”
“SHUT UP!”
The knife missed.
Pain burned up her finger from a deep cut. It wept ruby droplets across her station, then bloomed into her coat, where she stuffed it to stem the bleeding.
The mirrors were empty. Gaetan was gone.
No.
He’d never been here.
She patched up her finger and put a glove on before scraping the vegetables into a pan.
“He’s right, you know.”
The hair on her neck stood up at the new voice.
Ignore it. Giving in would only show the Counseil they were winning.
She started a flame on the stove and added butter to sauté the vegetables.
“You can’t even look at me. Pathetic.”
It was the perfect bait.
Fernand was leaning against the side of the mirrors, arms folded arrogantly over his chest. There was no hint of kindness in his exhausted eyes, not even a shadow of what he’d once felt for her.
“You can’t run from who you are,” he continued. “You’ve tried your whole life, and look at yourself. Look what you’ve done.”
“I made it here,” she whispered.
“With the likes of them?” Fernand sneered upward, toward the Counseil.
Elara winced as fevered whispers filled the arena.
“Stop,” she hissed. “I finally have a chance to fix things! For myself! For you! For the Restes!”
Fernand motioned around, to the chamber, to the ceiling, to the audience salivating over every flicker of pain the Counseil caused.
“This won’t fix anything.” He tipped his chin, casting shadows across his eyes. “They won’t fix a damn thing, and you sure as hell aren’t brave enough to do it without having someone else take the blame if it goes wrong.”
Gasps this time. He was going to screw her over again.
“Leave me alone.” She pressed her palms onto the counter, lowering her head. “Please.”
“I will. If you say her name.”
Desperate for relief, she dug for her mother’s name. Every time she came close to a hazy memory, it faded away. All she knew were strong hands teaching her how to work dough. A gentle press of lips to her dark curls. And tears. Enough to drown the city in.
“I can’t.”
“What a disappointment.”
He left anyway. When she looked up, she was alone with her reflection—still unfamiliar.
Elara touched the cold glass.
Gaetan was right.
This wasn’t a mistake.
She’d wanted to play the Counseil’s game despite knowing there was no way to win. Even before that, she’d taken the first opportunity to escape her old life, following Fernand’s scheme right into this hellhole. She’d always been running from her mother. Now it would cost her everything.
“Auclair.” Tremblay’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Do not burn my home down.”
Smoke singed her nostrils.
Fire crackled from the pan of vegetables.
Elara watched them burn, the medallions turning to char.
Her attention shifted upward to the Counseil box, but she didn’t give a shit about the Souverains. She found Nik leaning over the banister, eyes wide with … disappointment? No.
Worry. Fear.
For her.
You can always try again, she’d told him.
Why couldn’t she?
There was still time to make a different choice, even if it cost her everything.
Elara offered him a sad smile and hoped it would be enough of an apology.
Then she took the pan with her bare hand.
Elara had suffered burns before, but nothing like this. Raw pain licked like a blade across her fingers and palm. Sweat broke across her body despite her skin turning shockingly cold in response. A scream clawed its way from her throat, and her knees threatened to buckle.
She willed herself to hold on even as the ring turned hot.
Hotter.
Hotter.
The room filled with the sickly-sweet smell of burning flesh.
Flesh that had been marked by ink and magie.
Eventually, she let go, only to avoid passing out.
With her other hand, she ripped the ring off with a cry. It took the skin with it.
Instantly, the magie fell away like a shroud as she clutched her hand to her chest.
It was like being thrown into a burning lake. Memories flooded her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. They suffocated her equally with joy and sorrow. Smoke-filled restaurants, long mornings in the kitchen, her mother’s blood still warm in the cracks of the Market street.
When her vision cleared, she was backed against the mirror staring at her wreck of a station.
This was not how ratatouille was made. The heat was far too high and the uneven vegetables would never caramelize at the same rate.
What the hell had she been thinking?
Her mother would have been so disappointed.
“I am.”
Elara didn’t have to look to know who was there to haunt her now.
“Hello, Mother.”