“One ofthe greatest, thank you.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Elara said. “They’ll figure out who I am, my cover will be blown, and you all will go down with me.”
“You’renotdropping out,” Chantal ordered.
Elara watched the timer tick away.
Six days, eight hours, twenty-six minutes.
“I could bake something to help me lie,” she suggested. “I could eat it beforehand.”
“The second round is historically the worst for exposing contestants and their weaknesses.” Chantal grimaced. “When people started to magie their way out, the Counseil put a stop to it. They’ll know to look for that.”
Elara tossed the envelope down. “Then I’d rather be dismissed than discovered.”
Chantal studied her for a long moment. “What if… you let it happen?”
“What?” Elara and Blai shot back.
“Let them reveal you,” she explained, as if it weren’t a death sentence. “Show them who youreallyare and why you’re in the contest.”
“Sure. Then we can all hold hands when they drag us to the dungeons,” Blai shot back.
Chantal looked confused. “Her mother blew up the Senate. Why wouldshebe punished?”
Chantal had been through so much it was sometimes hard to forget that she didn’t understand what it was like in the Restes.
“The Counseil won’t care,” Elara explained. “Once they realize who I am, they’ll call for blood. They always do.”
“She’s right,” Blai finally said, their gaze out the window and attention far away. “They say they only want justice, but no punishment is ever enough.”
“It’s why they guard the bridges so heavily. Why they arrest anyone for breathing the wrong way.” Elara slumped in a chair by the window. “Why everyone looks at me like I’m half-feral.”
“You kind of are,” Blai muttered.
“Then what do we do?” Chantal pressed.
There’d never been a situation Elara couldn’t claw herself out of. With her mother gone and her name ruined, she’d groveled before the board of Directeurs to be allowed into Arts Culinaires. She’d isolated herself from Fernand and the only family she’d ever known. Now she’d won the first round of the Objet d’Art all on her own.
It was her mother who plagued her.
Sometimes, she wished she could remove her entirely.
Which gave her an idea.
One she was almost too proud to make. Almost.
She pried open the top buttons of her blouse and pressed the tattoo with her cold fingertips.
“What are you doing?” Blai asked.
“Getting help.”
Fernand.
Nothing.
I know you can hear me.
