Chapter 9
ELARA
By the time the carriage rounded the corner onto the main road, Elara knew two things about Nikolas Dupont:
He was a liar. A beautiful liar, but a liar nonetheless.
He wasn’t fazed by her violence.
A dangerous combination.
“Stop the carriage.” When he didn’t move, she banged her fist, the one not holding the knife, on the roof. “Stop!”
“There is no driver, and the horses have been trained to follow orders.”
Magie-trained horses. Of course the Souverains had access to such wonders.
Fine. She’d just jump.
Except there was no handle. No door.
The panel they’d come through was a solid wall with no seams and a full, darkened window. She pressed along the edges, even wedged her knife into where the door should’ve been.
“It’s magied shut,” he droned again. “We’re to be sequestered, remember? It’s not likely to open until we reach my home.”
He was annoyingly curt and sounded more bored by her antics than anything else.
She tightened her grip on the knife.
“Sequestered is a fancy way of saying imprisoned,” she shot back.
“It seems that we’re both trapped.”
“Then you have plenty of time to answer my question. What do you want?”
“I think I made my intentions clear.” He waved a hand toward the window as the brilliant mansions and greenery of Galerie passed by.
Light bloomed from the estates, windows illuminated in gold, gardens wreathed in strings of flickering bulbs, fountains shimmering as they shot high into the air.
Each lawn could hold the entire Restes Quarter twice over.
Elara had gawked at at it all on the less comfortable carriage ride Fernand had purchased for her way up.
“Remind me,” she spat.
“Aren’t you tired of being cast aside based on some arbitrary status?”
“A contest won’t change that. They’ll still hate the Restes when summer is over.”
“But they might love you.”
She snorted, leaning back into the cushion that was far too comfortable. “I don’t need their love.”
“But you’d like it.” With that tone, she expected a toothsome grin.
It was the coy tease of a flirt that heated her blood.
Except he was dead serious. “Don’t look so offended.
You can’t tell me you weren’t having fun back there.
Plus, the dining hall was buzzing with talk about Favored Seventeen who turned the kitchen into her own personal dance hall. ”
Elara’s cheeks flamed. That was meant for her and her alone, and she wasn’t supposed to be in a carriage explaining it to some smug Arts Humains boy.
He leaned in, pressing his elbows upon his knees. “It’s addicting, isn’t it?”
The truth didn’t dare leave her lips.
But there was no denying how it had felt to have untethered access to all those ingredients. To indulge in the freedom to create her mother’s recipes in their greatest forms with rich flavors and powerful magie.
Moreover, the Counseil had actually enjoyed her food. It didn’t matter if they only thought of her as entertainment; they’d seen something in her. Lafontaine had called her magie powerful.
No one had ever used that word for her before.
“That is why I offered to be your Patron,” Dupont added.
“Out of the goodness of your heart?” she shot back.
“Certainly not.” He crossed his long legs, tapping the envelope against his knee. “You’ve made it this far, so you know that no one does anything in this city for free.”
“Then what do you get?” she asked.
“Influence.” His fingers stroked the lettering on the envelope, long digits sticking to the curling font of his name, avoiding anything that crossed with hers. “I will win a place in Souverain Lafontaine’s inner circle. I will move from a lowly Aspirant to one of his most trusted.”
“Is that all the Patrons get? A seat at the dinner table with their Souverain?”
“And a seat at their chef’s table when they become Souverain.”
Elara smirked. “Ladder climbing at its finest.”
“Galerie knows nothing else.”
Elara laughed, and his expression melted like warm icing.
“I get it,” she said between gasps. “You’re delusional.”
A muscle in his jaw pulsed, a first glimpse at the truth of who Nikolas Dupont really was.
“There are a few flaws with your plan.” She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, motioning her rationale with the knife. “One, being elevated to some inner circle—whatever that means—doesn’t ensure Lafontaine will listen to you.”
Aha. There was the real crack she’d been looking for.
It began with the tightening of his brows and fled down to the grinding of his teeth.
Nikolas Dupont wasn’t just another bored aristocrat.
She’d seen how he hid his shaking hands with practiced motions.
And from the moment they’d entered the carriage, he’d been buzzy—jostling his legs, scratching the material of his trousers, fiddling with the envelope.
He was just another anxious Reste boy pretending to be something he wasn’t.
“And two,” she continued, “they’ll never let anyone like us win.”
It took him a second to breathe through whatever nerve she’d struck, but he managed to reply, “I’ll determine the worth of a new title on my own. As for your second issue, people from the Restes have won other Objet d’Arts before. If you look back a century—”
“A lot has happened in a century. I. Won’t. Win.”
“Strange,” he said, brow perking for once. “I didn’t take you as someone who sells herself short.”
“I don’t!”
The carriage jolted, sending her up and out of her seat.
Nikolas met her in the air, bodies colliding, foreheads cracking together.
She hissed and he cursed. Through it all, his hands at her sides were the only things keeping her from hitting the floor.
For being a slip of a boy, he was strong, and his hands were firmly clasped into the soft curves of her skin, fingers spread and pressing deep enough to make her heart flutter.
When he realized how close they were, he shoved her backward and flopped into his own seat. This time, he tucked his knees to the side of the carriage as if he were sharing the car with a wild animal.
Outside, Galerie’s theatres were releasing their audiences, who flocked to the cafés.
“I just don’t want to be played by a system that will never truly consider me,” she muttered as the brilliance of Galerie gave way to the subtle charm of Belleplace. “Besides, can you really see me as Souverain?”
He skimmed her form like an appraisal of an antique. She added “literal” to her information about Nikolas Dupont.
She heaved a sigh and turned to the window, shutting him out for a moment.
While Galerie was standard for luxury, Belleplace was what Elara dreamed a new life could be.
A humble living in one of the apartments or houses buttressed against the streets.
They were crammed together in long lines, their ancient stone browned from time.
An architect years ago had chiseled beautiful, living designs into the stonework archways above each door.
Flowers crawled up and down balconies, raining endless petals upon the streets below.
And there was life everywhere. From the cafés to the restaurants where people could sit down and experience real food? A haven. And what she wouldn’t give to be one of the people dancing down the streets too narrow for carriages, streets filled with music and market stalls.
“If you don’t want to be Souverain, why are you here?”
The dream faded behind a dark building, forcing her back to the carriage and the surly boy in front of her.
He didn’t deserve to know that. Not yet. Not ever.
“The same reason you joined Arts Humains, I suppose,” she said. “How did a boy from the Restes end up here?”
“The same way a girl from the Restes did, I suppose.”
She laughed. “Fair enough.”
The carriage twisted down another street, the horse’s pace slowing. Without the abundance of streetlights, her situation became alarmingly clear.
“I can’t back out, can I?”
“Would you really want to?”
They both knew her answer. Despite his discomfort at breathing the same air as her, he’d seen her tonight.
Really seen her. From the scars to her passion for a good meal, he’d noticed it all.
Maybe it was for his own gain, but it came at the cost of tying his name, however fake it was, to hers.
For the rest of the summer, all the city would talk about was Nikolas Dupont and Eloise Auclair, two Restes Aspirants daring to do the impossible.
And while Fernand had gotten her foot in the door, each burn of the tattoo and echo of his voice screaming in her head drove her further out of his clutches. Toward Nikolas.
Don’t! They’ll figure out who you are, and they’ll use you to get to me.
You won’t make it.
They don’t want someone like you!
“I don’t plan on winning,” she said.
The carriage halted before a nondescript Belleplace home.
“Try,” he said. “That’s all I ask.”
A small price to pay.
“Fine.” She waved the knife. “No more need for this, I guess.”
His brow perked. “You couldn’t do anything with it.”
“Because you don’t think I can fight?”
“Because it’s a butter knife.”
She smirked. “You should see what I can do with a spoon.”