“Which is why I called upon Chantal and Blai to help you.”
Finally, Nikolas had joined them.
Whether it was the domestic setting or the morning light, it felt as if she were seeing him for the first time. His suit, while less fashionable than the previous one, was pressed with the top button fastened and the collar pinched around his slender neck. The linen material fit him… perfectly. He’d slicked his hair back again, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes as if he too hadn’t slept.
Elara found herself tracing the line of his body down to his polished shoes and back up until she realized what she was really looking at, thecolorshe was looking at: dark red, the sickly kind of old blood dried upon paper.
Elara shook off her anxiety. “I understand acting a part, but this is ridiculous.”
“You said you’d try.” He cast her a long look she couldn’t read as he passed the mounds of breakfast trays she’d made to fill the kettle with water.
“Try to win, not be some walking farce of a doll they can pity.”
“Who cares if they do?”
“Maybe that’s how you got here with this house and those clothes, but I refuse to be something I’m not.”
Blai snorted café.
Chantal’s brows shot up. “I like her already.”
Nikolas gave her a flat look. “Because she’s as tenacious and reckless as you?”
“I have to prove what I’m worth.” Elara offered him one of the trays. “What better way than through my magie?”
He didn’t take a single pastry.
The room fell into awkward silence.
“What?” she asked.
“The Counseil care about a Favored’s magie and skill with a whisk far less than what they can offer them,” Nik replied.
“Connections to Directeurs in other disciplines,” Chantal explained.
“A neighborhood they can further expand into,” Nikolas added.
“Another country they can trade with,” Blai finished.
Elara suddenly felt foolish holding a dozen useless turnovers. “I don’t have any of that.”
Nikolas took a step forward. “You have something else.”
“Nik…,” Chantal warned.
“It’s the only angle we have.”
“But it will ruin her start as Souverain.”
“What will?” Elara asked.
Nikolas ignored her. “She can make changesaftershe proves herself to the Counseil.”
It was standing in the dance hall with Fernand all over again. It was Gaetan telling her to tone down her magie, to conceal her ambitions, to play a game in the most cowardly way possible.
“You want me to be a naïve Reste girl they can manipulate,” she said darkly. “To be whatever they want, to vote however they want…”
“Only for the contest and a few years after you’ve won,” Nikolas explained. “Once you gain true power and followers, you can do whatever you like. Even save the Restes.”
