Chapter 5
ELARA
It wasn’t until Elara stood face-to-face with one of the grumpiest-looking members of Anespérer’s official police that she realized this was a colossal mistake.
“Name?” the officer droned.
This was Elara’s first time seeing one of them across the river.
The woman was on guard, her uniform as crisp as her attention to detail.
Fernand swore the papers would work, that they were as legit as fraudulent documents could be, but what if it was another one of his boasts?
He wouldn’t hesitate to let her go to jail to save whatever inane mission he was on.
No one else had looked at her twice. All evening, she’d stood with the other Favored in the back gardens of Souverain Baptiste Lafontaine’s grand estate.
During the arduous process of waiting their turn, they were allowed to stroll the illuminated paths or sit near the fountains.
Elara had never seen this much grass in all her life.
The urge to flop down and roll had almost overtaken her.
She’d been good, though, and waited with the others near the kitchen door. Blending in like all the other chefs who belonged here.
“Favored Seventeen?” the woman droned again.
The collar tightened only when her mind wavered to memories belonging to Elara Rousseau—her mother’s face, the time she’d taught Elara how to roll dough, the early mornings when Elara sat on a stool to watch her work. If she so much as slipped tonight, she’d be dead.
The guard’s eyes narrowed. “Get her out—”
“Elouise Auclair.”
They both waited for her face to turn blue, but the golden thread of her new name glimmered, content.
Sweat collected in her collar as the woman glared, flipping the chart at an agonizingly slow pace.
“Elouise Auclair?”
Her stomach tightened. “Yes.”
“From the Restes?”
Her mouth dried. “Yes.”
The officer’s face twisted, shoulders somehow tightening even more in defense. Ah. It wasn’t about her name. It was where she was from that put the woman on alert.
“Your time in the kitchen begins now,” the officer recited.
“You have one hour to present a dish to the Counseil des Sept. You may only use the ingredients provided. Use of outside ingredients will result in your immediate arrest. Magie intended to destroy or harm the Counseil and their guests will result in your immediate arrest. Approaching the Counseil before being acknowledged will…”
“Result in my immediate arrest,” Elara intoned, forgetting herself.
The woman stepped closer, towering above her.
Elara nodded. “Yes, chef.”
They released her into Lafontaine’s home.
The contrast between the dark garden and the brilliant, sterile room was dizzying enough, but the size staggered her.
Gaetan’s whole shop could fit twice over.
Four ovens crackled with fire, two sinks burbled in constant use by washers with their heads down, and polished cabinets contained every utensil, pot, or pan a chef could ever want.
This was the kind of life Elouise Auclair could live.
Elara scurried to the empty station, where she found her reflection on the polished metal counter.
She’d washed her face raw, which had only made her swollen and red in places.
The kohl around her eyes had smudged with the summer heat, and the black curls she called hair might serve better as a nest.
Favored Fifteen and Sixteen wore tall, pleated toques, worked with specialty knives, and shuffled across the marble in shining shoes.
Unlike the bakers in the Restes, every move was intentional, and they were never idle.
Pots were stirred, pans flipped, herbs chopped.
And they tasted everything as they went.
The double doors that must have led to the dining hall swung open, and the waiter shouted, “Favored Fifteen on the pass!”
“Order ready!”
Elara snagged the waiter’s bright, clever eyes. Fernand dared to give her a wink as the chef finished his plates.
Favored Fifteen, a gray-haired man, removed a pair of tweezers from his pocket and began adding delicate peach-colored petals to seven individual cakes.
All it took was a final push, and the flowers came alive.
They blossomed and rippled in an unfelt wind, cascading up and down the small cakes like water.
Elara had never seen such art.
This was what an education across the Joyaux could get you.
The double doors burst open again, and Fernand’s reappearance reminded her of what this really was—a job.
No one across the Joyaux knew her or Fernand, and they were invisible in their costumes.
This time, he barely spared her a glance as he deposited a stack of dirty dishes into the sink before loading Chef Fifteen’s cakes onto his trolley.
Reality set in. It didn’t matter if her shoes were polished or if her bakes were beautiful.
If the board of Arts Culinaires Directeurs wouldn’t advance her, neither would the Counseil des Sept—even if she changed her name.
The Favored weren’t just vying for the Counseil’s approval, they were competing for a Patron to invest in them, and no one advanced without one.
Who would stoop so low as to host a girl from the Restes?
“Five minutes gone, Favored Seventeen,” Fernand called.
Fifty-five minutes to go.
She didn’t belong here, especially when she eyed the table laden with ingredients. The flour was weevil-less and the chocolate dark. There were also fruits and herbs she’d never seen before, staples the other chefs grabbed with wild abandon.
“Favored Seventeen!”
Her head snapped up, and Fernand’s eyes widened. Get to it.
“On it.”
When she turned back to the table, she tried to see this moment for what it really was: an opportunity. She might never get a chance to work with some of these ingredients again, and she was here to create a dish that told a story—her story.
Her attention lingered on a bowl of dark, shining cherries.
They would pair well with something rich like chocolate or warm like cinnamon.
Or … a particularly rare, expensive rum sitting forgotten in a crystalline decanter.
It was unused, as if it weren’t one of the most expensive liquids in all of Anespérer.
Most liquors were made by distilling between a range of temperatures, but for umber rum?
A single degree off could destroy an entire facility in a massive explosion.
It was powerful, yet here it sat, forgotten.
Because Souverain Baptiste Lafontaine, like all the other Souverains, could afford to leave rarities like this collecting dust.
Elara might not get to work with ingredients this fine again, but she would never return to the Restes, even if it meant sleeping on the streets. Even if it meant taking out the trash for a restaurant in Belleplace or Le C?ur. Elara would make something of herself.
Tonight would be a toast to her new future, wherever it took her.
She snatched the umber rum and the cherries.
She took sugar and cinnamon; she grabbed almonds and flour.
At her station, she meticulously picked through each ingredient, finding only the best. No more half-rotten fruit or spoiled milk.
She pitted and sliced the cherries, leaving them to soak in a bowl of umber rum. And, because the rules said nothing about feasting on her own product, Elara poured herself a glass.
It warmed her insides, burning molten hot all the way to her toes until she felt alive.
Crackling with energy that made her recipe blur by.
She sliced the almonds and put them in a pot with the cherry pits to boil in more umber rum.
It would help draw out the almond flavor, and a hint of cyanide that she could twist into a harmless magie.
Long after the umber rum wore off, Elara was still buzzing. She danced around, whisking and pouring, humming and tasting.
Gaetan’s bakery had been the familiarity she wanted, but this? This was freedom.
With more than half her time to go, she mixed the cherries with the custard and popped it into the oven. But why stop when everything was possible? What was clafoutis without chantilly cream? And why couldn’t that cream be salted caramel?
All her life, Elara had been limited. If it wasn’t money, it was time; if it wasn’t time, it was her rank; if it wasn’t her rank, it was her neighborhood.
Experimenting with recipes meant sacrificing a day’s wage for ingredients, which left little room for error.
A wasted cake was wasted money. Too often she’d been forced to stomach burnt cookies, and soggy pastries that roiled her belly for days after.
Here, Elara lost herself to the different flavors of cream: caramel, apricot, sage. She even swirled some together, finding a perfect marriage of caramel and sage. It was robust, herbaceous, with the perfect sweetness that made her laugh.
And laugh.
And laugh.
The Counseil wouldn’t remember her after tonight. She would fade away like the other rebels.
But tonight was for Elouise Auclair.
“Favored Seventeen on the pass!”
This time she answered with gusto. “Coming!”
Fernand met her at the double doors. His eyes narrowed on the large dish of custard, still bubbling cherry red, then drifted to the piping bag filled with swirled cream.
“This is it?” he asked.
“Simplicity can make a dish more powerful.” She stacked seven plates with seven spoons onto the cart.
“Of course, but”—he lowered his voice—“nothing is ever simple with you.”
“Don’t you forget that.” She winked.
It was enough to stall him for the moment she needed to snatch the cart and push it toward the door.
“I’ll take it from here.”