Eventually, they exited through the eastern garden door, where the summer heat broke upon him like a wall. Three black carriages waited in the drive: one for each of the remaining Favored.
Nik offered his hand to help her up into their carriage but was grateful when Elouise hauled herself in.
He followed after and didn’t breathe until they were past the gates of Lafontaine’s estate.
“Well,” he said, opening his eyes. “That was—”
Something cold and sharp pressed against his throat. Elouise was leaning across the gap, a knife glinting in her closed fist.
“What the fuck do you want with me?”
9ELARA
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.
“Sequesteredis 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 loveyou.”
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.”
