Note from the Author

Ahh, apologies for this chapter being late! I consistently have issues with SH freezing when trying to publish my chapters and I guess this chapter never even went through. Double-upload today. Groans.

~*~

Antoinette, Louis, Étienne, and I were all dragged into the drawing room to face the wrath of the Duke and Duchess Chapelle…and Cécile, who loitered at the edge of the room, taking notes on, apparently, how to deal with a variety pack of misbehaving heirs.

I’d thought that we’d be ordered to clean the paint off our faces and out of our hair before presenting ourselves, but maybe they didn’t let us so we’d feel especially foolish. If so, they had a smart strategy: I was unable to shake the feeling of being a little kid who drew on the walls with markers.

Antoinette, however, looked stoic and bored. Louis kept hiding a smirk behind the excuse of rubbing his mouth or biting his lip. And it seemed like we couldn’t totally get the square out of the prince, because he kept breaking his cool, respectful persona to chew on a hangnail.

Psh, Étienne! You’re not gonna get in trouble. Who would actually think they’re so important that they’d scold a prince?

“Lady Delphine, both of us agree that you are undoubtedly financially responsible for the artwork that you destroyed.”

See!

Of course, Étienne said, “If I may…I’ll happily handle the finances instead, Madame.”

Antoinette snorted. “I would have sent you half the bill anyhow.”

The Duke and Duchess’s eyes skimmed right over me. I was a total nobody to them, huh? I had no esteemed family they could bill, no job they could fire me from, and no…

The Duke said, “Your Highness, we could not ask for money. No, in fact, there are many other ways you and your family could repay us.”

…and no authority or connections they could manipulate.

I was anonymous.

I was also the girl Antoinette Delphine kissed last night so muahahaha!!

“What about Louis, maman?” Cécile asked. He shot her a glare like she’d tattled on him. “What is his punishment?”

The Duke and Duchess gave each other a glance. I was sure they’d plotted his fate all night. Though they both nodded in conclusion of their silent discussion, the Duchess was the one who announced it. “Louis, last night was merely the inevitable conclusion to your lifetime of obvious disdain for your family’s traditions. You clearly have no respect for the arts. We will be permanently closing your studio.”

Louis stopped smirking, mouth falling open. “What? You can’t–”

“It will be easy enough to give your equipment to your sisters and discard all of your little drawings.” As if his problem was merely logistical! “Your father and I will confer and then tell you where you will focus your training instead.”

“Destroying the paintings was my idea,” Antoinette said coolly, stepping forward.

“And as for the outrageous disrespect to which you all subjected our friends and colleagues?”

I insisted, “Louis wouldn’t have done any of it if we didn’t push him around!”

I looked at Étienne imploringly. He said nothing, squeezing his hands behind his back.

“Then perhaps,” the Duke said, “this will teach our son a lesson about refusing to think for himself and never treating anything in his life with respect.”

Antoinette and I kept trying to cajole them, but despite all our ranting about whose fault last night really was, the Duke and Duchess didn’t budge. Two smartly-dressed butlers practically pushed us out.

Antoinette huffed. She looked a butler right in the eye and knocked over a nearby vase. Unfortunately for her, it just bounced on the carpet and didn’t break.

She huffed again. “What’s the point of all this status if I can’t use it when it matters?”

“I’m sorry, Lou,” I groaned.

“No, it’s whatever.” Lou kicked at the carpet as we exited the hall, being distantly followed by the staff, like they were making sure we didn’t cause more property damage (valid, honestly). “I hated working here anyways.”

“But they said they were gonna get rid of your art…”

He shrugged a very “don’t wanna talk about it” shrug.

As we continued through the estate, it hit me that not only were the staff making sure we didn’t cause trouble, they were also corralling us to the door, keeping us away from Louis’ studio.

We passed through the room where we’d all hid under the table. A pair of maids were scrubbing at the glass over a huge landscape painting, sweat on their brows and sleeves rolled up. One of them caught my eye and shot me a glare that clearly said, Look at what we have to do because of you!

One of the butlers behind us said, sharp and simple, “Mind your manners, Anne.”

I’d earned that glare. In fact, it would have been just fine with me if we’d had to clean up our own mess–it wasn’t the cleaning staff’s fault! Instead, we got to walk out unscathed. Antoinette was the heiress to the biggest cooperation in the kingdom and Étienne was the literal prince. Asking them to pay back the monetary value of the art was like when a kajillionaire global mega-corp gets sued and they settle for the cost equivalent of an hour’s profits in one neighborhood.

My thoughts drifted as we continued our walk of shame. Antoinette’s ending was brought about because of the exposure of Aconitum and what her family was doing. She got caught in the tidal wave of corporate, white-collar crime that did some serious damage to Eavredor and the surrounding kingdoms. If I wanted to shut up the whistleblower, I’d have to keep a mega-corp’s secrets for them. That was kinda gross, especially now that I was living in this world, and things like its politics might one day affect me.

But if I let the whistleblower, uh, blow a whistle, then I’d be solely relying on my matchmaking, and–

My thoughts drifted once more, as they’d been doing all morning before we got our wrist-slapping, to the kiss.

It totally meant nothing. We were a little drunk–especially drunk on adrenaline, which is the craziest drunk of them all. I don’t know. Weird things happen when you’re all cuddled up with someone in a flower field and under a fur coat and there are streaks of paint and frosting on your skin in the shape of their touch.

Besides.

Marie couldn’t save her. What would I do, climb up on stage and demand Antoinette go free from prison because I liked her a lot? I was no prince, no heir, no duke. If the politics of the world didn’t let me, the game certainly wouldn’t.

That’s what mattered. That’s what mattered.

After picking up our jackets, we were hustled to the carriage that would take us back to the school. Antoinette suddenly stopped.

She told the driver, “I have to use the lavatory. This ride is two hours long.”

He let her go. She ran off, and within fifteen minutes, she returned, hugging her jacket tightly around her, as if she was caught in a hurricane. We all got into the cab.

Doors locked and curtains drawn, Antoinette opened her coat and handed Louis three of his sketchbooks and a satchel of tools.

“That’s all I could get before your idiot butlers came hunting for me,” she said. “Colette told me you were happy with these books in particular.”

Lou had been trying to act chill since his parents’ verdict. Now, he clutched the sketchbooks to his chest, shameless. “Thanks, Antoinette.”

She settled in next to me on the bench. Our fine fabrics were still spattered with paint and stiff with globs of frosting and flowers and grass stains. Étienne and Louis were noticing the same thing.

I snorted. “Rémi is gonna feel like he missed out.”

“Except for the payment part,” Louis said.

“I don’t regret it one bit,” Antoinette announced, arms folded, determinedly looking at us all–and fixing me with a serious almost-glower. “Not one bit of that night.”

~*~

“You guys did what?”

Rémi’s tone was all envy as we helped Louis mock up logo and tag designs in class. I was snipping lengths of ribbon in purple and blue and red and yellow (we were clearly indecisive when it came to our branding).

Louis’ front of grumpiness about the whole thing had died out last night. To Rémi he seemingly couldn’t help finding it funny again. “You should have seen the staff’s faces when they found us…You would’ve lost it.” He was using one of the very sketchbooks that Antoinette had rescued yesterday, drawing rows and rows of potential elements.

“And you’re actually telling me His Highness joined in.”

“You would’ve been very proud!” I laughed. Étienne was across the lab, failing miserably at removing his polite self from a conversation with a trio of girls, holding the flowers Louis asked him to fetch for art reference.

Sylvain yawned. “I’m glad I got out of there. Louis, scrap that filigree, it looks like a ladies’ cosmetics line.” He, meanwhile, was writing up an essay for some other class, hardly breaking pace even when giving Louis feedback.

Rémi kept pulling details out of Louis, especially the parts about us goofing around with the partygoers. My gaze drifted to Antoinette, who was helping a different group with their project. She was her usual ice queen archetype self, arms folded and mouth taut, arched eyebrow crawling higher and higher on her forehead as she listened to their explanations.

I hadn’t said anything about the kiss. It was making me doubt everything, feel like everything was tilted off-kilter. What if it was the-event-that-shall-not-be-named? What if it broke the plot into a million pieces? That event was Lou’s special route event and it had totally gotten messed up!

But if I was being honest…I knew the real reason I hadn’t said anything.

Maybe I had been Ben Drowned into a shovelware otome game, but I was still a human girl. I still had feelings for that woman. It was still soul-crushingly weird to say anything about it.

Like, okay, I wasn’t a junior high kid anymore. These kinds of things happened with adults. At parties, as a joke, between friends, whatever. Antoinette was programmed to be a heartbreaker to all the losers who tailed her. If I mentioned it, I’d probably end up sounding like an even bigger loser. Who knew. I was trying my best to not be naive about the whole thing, but whenever I thought about it, I felt like my brain was a pinball being thrown around for a high score.

Louis said, “Chloé?”

“...Hm?”

Rémi leaned forward, glancing pointedly at my hands. “Something on your mind?”

Oh, I’d been snipping the air, missing the ribbon by about a mile. “Nope. Nope, nothing at all.”

Sylvain took the scissors away from me.

Rémi folded his hands behind his head, putting new focus on Étienne across the lab. His green eyes glittered in a way I recognised from when he’d pulled me into that professor’s office. “Soooo. Think we could convince the prince to get into more trouble?”

I said, “He’s kinda hardheaded about it at first. Like he gets all embarrassed.”

“True, true… But I don’t know, he’s been getting more animated around me, you notice?”

“Maybe that’s just because you aggravate him?”

He lightly flicked the side of my head. “Y’know, you never told me if you wanted to come to that fashion show, firecracker. Maybe we could all make a date of it? Yes, Sylvain, including you.”

“What use do I have for a fashion show?”

“Ah, Sylvain, you’re so funny and charming all the time. Anyways, I know some stylists there who’d be over the moon at the chance to pierce the prince’s ears or something…”

I frowned. “Didn’t the show already pass? While we were at the Chapelle’s?”

“Nah. It’s definitely next Saturday.”

I furrowed my brow. I couldn’t remember exactly how he’d phrased the invitation, back when all the guys were asking me about their route events. Maybe he was right. It’s not like the passage of time really mattered in the game–we could have jumped a week to speed to Rémi’s event, for all I knew.

My thoughts were interrupted by Antoinette sauntering to our table, the saved Étienne in tow. He handed Louis the flowers–I was proud that I could recognise them now as a marigold, cosmos, and za…zen…zin…something–and Sylvain set them up on the table with my ribbon scraps so Louis could get a good sketch.

“I would ask what progress you’ve all made,” Antoinette said, perching on the tabletop beside Rémi, “but I know for a fact you’ve all been goofing off.”

“Hey,” Rémi said, “I lost a whole tournament in that time. I’ve done plenty.”

“Look at this.” Antoinette took Étienne’s hand and showed it to me. “He still has paint under his nails.”

Étienne brushed a petal off his cuff, blushing a little.

Zinnia! It was a zinnia flower. Ha-ha!

Sylvain gestured for her to look at Lou’s sketchbook. “We’ll be pivoting to product designs while the greenhouses are being prepared for the winter by the staff. It’s hardly a setback; I’ve long known what exact plants we needed, anyways. As soon as students are allowed in the greenhouses again, we’ll be back on track.”

To my surprise, Louis didn’t hesitate at all in showing Antoinette his work. “They’re logos, design elements, motifs, stuff like that… Also, we’re starting to think about what the bottle designs should be.”

Rémi said, “My family opened a factory last year that’s all set up for glass-making, since they’re expanding into perfumes. We can get custom bottles by the end of the year, no problem.”

“And I’m sure I can sneak around my parents and get our contacts for printing press companies and stuff…”

I hummed. “Doesn’t that feel a little weird, though? Like we’re cheating? Not everyone has the same connections we do.”

“Don’t feel bad.” Antoinette tilted her head to the group she’d been speaking to. “That group has a member whose cousin is married to a famous musician, one my father is a fan of. They're going to get him to model their product at the show and everything.”

Rémi clicked his tongue. “Surely you talked them down, right? You wouldn't want anyone to have an unfair advantage?” 

“Oh, of course not, Fontaine,” she said sweetly. “I hate unfairness.”

Rémi brought up the fashion show again, seeing if Antoinette and Étienne were into the idea (pointedly not bringing up his idea about piercings now that Étienne was around). I listened through one ear. I kept staring at Antoinette. I kept thinking about it. Under the light of day, it was all so ridiculous. She’d only just started to like me as a person, apparently.

Well, she was programmed to fall hard and fast.

No, no, don’t even think about that!

“Chloé?” she said.

I lurched, blinking. “Hm? What?”

She tilted her head at me. Her red hair tumbled off her shoulder–into Rémi’s face, who batted it away–and her blue eyes were keen on mine.

“I know what you’ve been wondering about,” she said. “Even if you haven’t said anything.”

“O-oh?” You’re not gonna say anything now, are you?! I thought of her total lack of discretion when it came to the guys and their secrets…

And then her total willingness to pretend nothing ever happened with the poisoning.

I said carefully, feeling the guys’ eyes bounce between us, “What about it…?”

She licked her lips. The tiniest moment of hesitation–I was getting good at recognising them and their rarity. Finally, she said, “Let me think over it, alright? You’ve always been good at giving me time to think, even when you’re being stubborn with me. Can you do that for me?”

My mouth went dry. I could only say, “Yeah. Absolutely.”

“Thank you.” She hopped off the desk lithely, then tapped her finger on one of Louis’ designs. “This one’s the most appealing.”

Sylvain said, “It’s a little mismatched.”

“So is your group. Keep working. I’ll see you later,” she said, then headed off to the next group.