Chapter 54 - Confessions
Evelyne read over the same passage in the papers before her for the fifth time in a row. She let out a low groan as she grabbed the sides of her head, leaning over her desk. She was barely getting any work at all done today. All her thoughts kept coming back to the same issue.
Yesterday had been a catastrophe.
After Scarlett's insane showing, in front of almost every single noble in the empire, Evelyne didn't know what to do. Watching her sister do something so presumptuous in front of the emperor had made Evelyne think she was going to faint. Standing there in the Chamber of Elysia for hours, knowing that dozens of people around her knew who she was and were giving her looks, had been one of the most stressful experiences in her life.
When the Elysian Ball had started, she had at least hoped she could salvage some of the situation. She had gone around and tried to talk with as many people as possible, trying to gloss over Scarlett's words and forge some connections, but so many just came up with cheap excuses to avoid speaking with her after she introduced herself. Even a couple of her old business partners had ignored her. One of the few who had seemed to have any interest at all in talking to her had been a baron who had been the dean of a mage tower. Introduced by Scarlett, of all people.
Because of course her sister didn't know that they had already made agreements with other towers about the materials found in the Zuverian ruins.
If it wouldn't have been so stupid in a situation like this, Evelyne would have thought Scarlett was intentionally trying to make everything as difficult as possible for her.
Scarlett's actions had caused the majority of noble society to freeze out their family in less than a day. Nobody wanted to be affiliated with a house that publicly offended all the duchies, and showcased such blatant arrogance.
Evelyne closed her eyes and put her head down on the desk. She was so tired. Yesterday had sucked all energy from her. She hadn't even had the spirit to question Scarlett about anything on the way back from the palace. The night before she had wanted to do nothing less than just go to sleep and hope it was all a bad dream. But then she had barely gotten any sleep at all because she couldn't stop thinking about things.
For a while, she had thought Scarlett was improving. She'd hoped it was true, even despite how much they had argued recently. But no. Whatever business it was that her sister had gotten herself involved in now had clearly gone to her head. Now she seemed to think she could do absolutely what she wanted, consequences be damned.
Did Scarlett even realize that she had stabbed both of them in the foot with this? Or did she seriously think this was going to bring her higher up the social ladder?
It was almost funny the lengths her sister was going to, to bring their house to ruin. They were already in a terrible situation financially, and now they were going to be crippled socially among the nobility as well.
Evelyne lay there with her head on the desk for a while, trying to calm down as she got her thoughts in order. Then she forced herself to return to the documents she had been going through, with only marginal success.