Chapter 37
ELARA
Elara rolled over and reached to find the bed cold and empty.
She sat up, staring blearily into the golden haze of morning spreading across the ravaged room. It looked worse than if looters had gone through, because thieves would’ve at least had a mind to steal some of the more expensive items Elara had broken.
Yesterday came back in hazy flashes.
Nik’s warm breath against her neck as she nestled in against the morning chill.
Lavender crushed beneath her boots.
And shame. Enough to last a lifetime and then some.
It made no sense.
How could Nik hold her so tenderly with the same hands that murdered her mother? She tried to imagine him slitting her throat as she begged for mercy. The image wouldn’t come.
Nik was vile for manipulating her. Weak for following his father without question. But a murderer? It didn’t match the boy who’d sat with her in the garden, letting her sleep on his shoulder. The boy who tended to her wounds with such care. The boy who learned to bake with her in secret.
Or was this just another trick?
Had his plan succeeded, with her as Souverain and his father under their control, they would’ve spent their evenings in the quiet kitchen of a chateau. He could’ve grown lavender and sketched to his heart’s delight. All while he had her mother’s blood on his hands.
It was a dangerous line of thinking, because somewhere, deep in her heart, she still loved him.
She flopped back onto the mattress.
No more lavender tea.
No more midnight meetings.
Just … no more.
For comfort, she reached for her mother’s recipe book beneath the pillow.
It was gone.
No. Not gone.
“No.” She shot up. “No. Nononono.”
She fell to the floor, knees crunching glass and debris as she scrambled to collect all the ripped pages.
“Please,” she begged. “Please. I’m sorry.”
A knock wrenched her to her feet. She dropped the papers and faced the door, unwilling to let anyone in this hell see her weak. Quickly, she removed the chair and peeked through a small gap to find a particularly nervous-looking servant.
“Come in.”
A woman in a sage apron carried a tray of café, bread, meats, and cheeses that she almost dropped. Her face paled as she took in the room, lingering longest on Elara, who must’ve looked every bit the rabid Restes mongrel everyone here believed her to be.
“Souverain Lafontaine suggested a good breakfast to start the day.” She tiptoed around the mess to drop the tray on the only surface left—the bed.
“He also said to give you this.” She produced a pad of paper and a fountain pen from her pocket. “He asks you to make a list of anything you require for this evening.”
“A knife to bury in his heart?” Elara muttered.
An officer shifted into the doorway as a warning.
Elara tossed the pad to the side. “I’ll think about it.”
As soon as the woman left, Elara dropped to her knees and continued collecting the papers, lumping them against her lap as she went. When she finally found the cover, she realized there was no undoing the damage.
She’d ruined the only thing left of her mother, and it wasn’t a mistake. She’d meant to do it. Delighted in every shrill rip of the past being shed.
Elara pressed the cover to her forehead. “I’m so sorry.”
It was then she felt the shift. The cover swelled between her fingers, the quiet shuffle of pages filling the silence.
The book was whole again. She turned it, feeling the edges of fresh papers untouched by time or use.
When she opened it, words inked themselves into the inside cover in a familiar, slanted scrawl:
THE RECIPE BOOK OF
Elara Rousseau
She laughed, tracing her mother’s lettering. When had she done this? How had she done this?
She flipped to the next page.
My dearest,
If you’re reading this, then you’ve come to the same place all great artists must: a crossroads. Or I wasted twenty soms on a magied book some dog shredded. If that’s the case, may the pages be delicious and filling.
I hope you know it’s okay to have made mistakes. Maybe tearing this book apart feels like one, but it’s not. This is what true art is all about. It’s creation and exploration. It’s taking the tools you are given, like a few recipes, and breaking them down to create something new.
This is my gift to you—space to make something all your own.
A recipe is more than just perfectly measured ingredients and accurate cook times.
It’s a way of connecting people. Of sharing truths with the world.
What will your truths be?
With all my heart.
Elara read the words a dozen times over before she trusted they wouldn’t disappear.
Creation and exploration.
Her mother had known she’d reach a point of frustration big enough to destroy the book because she too had been an artist. Magie was, after all, the intersection of powerful intentions and powerful emotions.
With that knowledge, her mother had given her freedom to let go of the past and move forward, to take only what she wanted into the future.
She kissed the words. “Thank you.”
Then she got up, snatched the fountain pen, and got to work.
First, she made her list of clothes for tonight.
Lafontaine would never own her soul. Even when the Counseil crowned her Souverain. Even when they named him Grand Souverain, he would never have as much sway in the Restes as she did. Elara didn’t deserve it, but she would try to be worthy of their support.
She’d start tonight, where she’d give the Restes more than a grand finale; she’d give them the strength to keep fighting.