Her stomach tightened. “Yes.”
“From the Restes?”
Her mouth dried. “Yes.”
The officer’s face twisted, shoulders somehow tightening even more in defense. Ah. It wasn’t about her name. It was where she was from that put the woman on alert.
“Your time in the kitchen begins now,” the officer recited. “You have one hour to present a dish to the Counseil des Sept. You may only use the ingredients provided. Use of outside ingredients will result in your immediate arrest. Magie intended to destroy or harm the Counseil and their guests will result in your immediate arrest. Approaching the Counseil before being acknowledged will…”
“Result in my immediate arrest,” Elara intoned, forgetting herself.
The woman stepped closer, towering above her.
Elara nodded. “Yes, chef.”
They released her into Lafontaine’s home.
The contrast between the dark garden and the brilliant, sterile room was dizzying enough, but the size staggered her. Gaetan’s whole shop could fit twice over. Four ovens crackled with fire, two sinks burbled in constant use by washers with their heads down, and polished cabinets contained every utensil, pot, or pan a chef could ever want.
This was the kind of life ElouiseAuclaircould live.
Elara scurried to the empty station, where she found her reflection on the polished metal counter. She’d washed her face raw, which hadonly made her swollen and red in places. The kohl around her eyes had smudged with the summer heat, and the black curls she called hair might serve better as a nest.
Favored Fifteen and Sixteen wore tall, pleated toques, worked with specialty knives, and shuffled across the marble in shining shoes. Unlike the bakers in the Restes, every move was intentional, and they were never idle. Pots were stirred, pans flipped, herbs chopped. And they tastedeverythingas they went.
The double doors that must have led to the dining hall swung open, and the waiter shouted, “Favored Fifteen on the pass!”
“Order ready!”
Elara snagged the waiter’s bright, clever eyes. Fernand dared to give her a wink as the chef finished his plates.
Favored Fifteen, a gray-haired man, removed a pair of tweezers from his pocket and began adding delicate peach-colored petals to seven individual cakes. All it took was a final push, and the flowers came alive. They blossomed and rippled in an unfelt wind, cascading up and down the small cakes like water.
Elara had never seen such art.
This was what an education across the Joyaux could get you.
The double doors burst open again, and Fernand’s reappearance reminded her of what this really was—a job. No one across the Joyaux knew her or Fernand, and they were invisible in their costumes. This time, he barely spared her a glance as he deposited a stack of dirty dishes into the sink before loading Chef Fifteen’s cakes onto his trolley.
Reality set in. It didn’t matter if her shoes were polished or if her bakes were beautiful. If the board of Arts Culinaires Directeurs wouldn’t advance her, neither would the Counseil des Sept—even if she changed her name. The Favored weren’t just vying for the Counseil’s approval, they were competing for a Patron to invest in them, and noone advanced without one. Who would stoop so low as to host a girl from the Restes?
“Five minutes gone, Favored Seventeen,” Fernand called.
Fifty-five minutes to go.
She didn’t belong here, especially when she eyed the table laden with ingredients. The flour was weevil-less and the chocolate dark. There were also fruits and herbs she’d never seen before, staples the other chefs grabbed with wild abandon.
“Favored Seventeen!”
Her head snapped up, and Fernand’s eyes widened.Get to it.
“On it.”
When she turned back to the table, she tried to see this moment for what it really was: an opportunity. She might never get a chance to work with some of these ingredients again, and she was here to create a dish that told a story—herstory.
Her attention lingered on a bowl of dark, shining cherries. They would pair well with something rich like chocolate or warm like cinnamon. Or… a particularly rare, expensive rum sitting forgotten in a crystalline decanter. It was unused, as if it weren’t one of the most expensive liquids in all of Anespérer. Most liquors were made by distilling between a range of temperatures, but for umber rum? A single degree off could destroy an entire facility in a massive explosion.
It was powerful, yet here it sat, forgotten.
