“We have to,” Elara argued. It had to be up there for a reason. “Let me try again.”
This time, she sautéed a piece until it was tender and the edges crisp. The pain was just as bad as before, but something had changed. Beneath the sick roiling in her belly and the blisters blossoming across her tongue, something called to her.
A whispered promise.
She retched onto the gravel before she could latch on to the idea.
“Here.” Fiona knelt beside her, holding a mint-green liquid. “It’s scorpion root, and the burning won’t stop until you find a way to cool it.”
Elara took the glass with a whispered thanks and threw the liquid back.
As promised, it rushed like ice over the swollen contours of her mouth. She imagined steam coming from her ears and wondered if they could all hear the telltale hiss of ice in a pan. Eyes closed, she let the sensation take over.
Frost spread down, down, down into her belly and farther to her legsand her toes. It caused every nerve in her body to dance and spark like starlight in the winter sky.
“Better?” Fiona’s voice came from far away.
Elara giggled. “Perfect.”
The garden and the chefs came back to her, and they were dancing. They moved to a beautiful rhythm as they twisted around each other, dropping ingredients into pots and cutting with a beat Elara tried to mimic with her fingers on the table. One, two. One, two. One, two, two.
When Berina scowled over at her, the crispness of winter fell away. Berina was angry. All the chefs were. Dark circles cupped their eyes, and they snarled at her with fanged teeth.
Elara wrenched away only to face six fearsome gargoyles upon the dais. Their sharp wings spread as blood dripped from their talons. Their victims lay at their feet. Elara recognized all of them.
When she saw her mother in the last gargoyle’s mouth, she screamed.
“Elouise!”
She scrambled toward her, but someone caught her middle.
“Elouise!”
When she tried to scream again, something was shoved into her mouth, and pain like her mother must have felt the night she died ripped through her. Rusty blades cut her cheeks and tongue until she retched again.
The vision cleared.
She was on the ground, back against the cabinets, sweating profusely from more than the summer sun. Gaetan knelt beside her, one hand pressed against her forehead.
“Easy, Ellie. Easy.”
“What happened?” she croaked.
“That… that… trou du cul drugged you.”
Elara clawed her way up to glare at the chef who’d given her the damned root.
“That son of a—”
“Not him,” Gaetan said.
Fiona smirked, wriggling her fingers in a teasing wave.
“Berina’s right. Some of us want to win.” She tipped her knife to the dais, where the clock was ticking. “Better get a move on.”
Nearly half their time was gone. Wasted.
Nikolas, Blai, Chantal… They’d all been right. In the Restes, people did what it took to survive, but they weren’t cruel. Here, people would do anything if it meant getting ahead.
