Author's Note: Seeing two updates for the same fic in one month? It's more likely than you think.

Chapter Twenty

Mare couldn't sleep. Ever since she was a little girl back in France she couldn't sleep. Her mind is always abuzz; it feels as if she always has energy, never truly needing sleep. Usually, she'd sleep around four hours so she didn't feel tired though tonight isn't one of those nights.

Scrolling online, she sees an abundance of selected related content. From theories on who will win (like Tibby just because she got the first date or Annarae because she was photographed beside the prince during the welcoming ball; both of those jumping to conclusion) to articles claiming outrageous things about the selected (like Rosie is only here to further her father's political goals and Lucy is dead; both of those not being true).

Mare is a logical person. She like hard work, knowledge, and things of that nature. How else did she get where she is today? A valedictorian at Stanford and a scholarship to Harvard Law don't come without these things? Clickbait articles that have absurd claims and flimsy evidence are wastes of time to her.

Scrolling across a voting site, she clicks on it. It's half past five am and from her experience, nobody she wants to talk to is up already.

All remaining twenty-six selected are listed by likeliness to win. Each girl gets a timelapse of who is more likely to win. Tibby is the second highest, but she is the most constant with votes. Around the time of her date it spiked, but nonetheless, she's remained in the top five all selection. No doubt her status of a child star and having her father host the selection help with those votes.

The only one above her is Annarae, but that's because of the huge spike of votes less than forty-eight hours ago. Her date caused that for certain.

Mare is thirteenth on that list, not the lowest out of girls with dates and certainly not the lowest overall. She's at the halfway point. It's not a bad place to be per se, but a feeling in her gut wishes that she is higher up.

"Don't worry," she mutters, "This charity project will help me show Illéa that I'm worthy of their approval."

"Did you say something?" Her youngest maid can be heard entering Mare's room. Mare's eyes dart to the clock; it's not even six am yet.

She asks, "Why are you here so early?"

"You have been invited to a one-on-one breakfast with her highness in the parlor at seven am and I've been tasked by Daniela to make you look absolutely fantastic!"

"Just us two?" Mare asks, "Qu'est-ce que j'ai fait pour avoir ça? (What did I do to have that?)"

"Hurry up and shower!" Her maid nods, "Luckily we had a couple of dresses prepared in advance, but it is just me this early in the morning. Daniela has the Queen to prepare and Emilie is in the kitchens."

Without another word, Mare heads into the shower. Climbing out of her pajamas and climbing into the shower takes longer than she'd like. Her mind tells her over and over again to scrub harder. The first twenty times aren't enough, nor are the next ten. It isn't until she's done this almost forty times is Mare satisfied.

Getting out later than expected, Mare isn't ready when her maid wanted her to be. Luckily she has almost an hour before she's supposed to meet the Queen.

Her maid forces her in a sleeveless, black, high scoop neck dress with a black, sheer cape. She stands in black heels with small chains on the back of them before being pushed into the chair in front of her vanity.

Her maid tells Mare about how she wanted to join the selection and that she is incredibly lucky to be fighting for the Prince's hand in marriage. Mare brushes it off, not certain how to react to her hero worship of the royal family.

In all honesty, Mare doesn't see why Illéans treat their royals like gods. Sure, they are ruling over their citizens, but there is no need to deify them. Like everyone else, they are still people.

After finishing Mare's makeup, the maid heads off to do some other royal chore. Mare makes sure that she is out of the suite before dislodging her medicine from under a loose floorboard inside of her walk-in closet.

The translucent orange container is almost empty. Mare's down to her last couple days of medicine.

'Je vais devoir trouver un moyen pour obtenir mes médicaments. (I'll have to find a way to get my meds.)' Mare thinks to herself, 'Maybe the Queen can help me? No, I'll just go to the infirmary and see if I can do it through the doctor there.'

Taking her morning dose, Mare proceeds to head out of her room. She locks the door over and over again, making sure not to wake up the girls on either side of her room. It's never enough to lock it once. She has to lock it over and over again.

After she's satisfied with herself, she heads towards the parlor. The walk through the hallway is nothing short of empty. Nobody is up this early besides the staff and even then they aren't on the second floor. Most of them are probably running around the ground floor, trying to prepare breakfast for the royal family and then the selected.

It doesn't surprise her to see it empty, though, she'd rather be in a conversation than subconsciously counting the stairs. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Fourteen stairs, seven stairs per foot before she reaches the third floor. Taking a sharp left, she gets to the parlor.

It's 6:47, thirteen minutes until she's supposed to eat with the Queen.

The parlor isn't as big as she remembers it. The minibar takes up the entire back wall and couches take up a good area of the floor space.

"It always looks smaller emptier," the man at the minibar comments.

Mare asks, "How'd you know I was thinking about that?"

"Instinctual," he replies, "Can I get you anything to drink before Her Majesty comes in?"

"A sprite will be fine, sir," Mare replies, sitting back at the bar.

Taking a couple of drinks, she doesn't finish the drink. Her Majesty enters the room and Mare rises, waiting until she sits down to return to her seat.

"Sprite, a sensible choice, Lady Mare."

"Thank you," it comes out more as a question, but neither of them comments on it.

The man behind the minibar asks, "What do you want Your Majesty?"

"Well it's too early to have wine," Rosa laughs, keeping the conversation light, "I'll take orange juice."

While the bartender heads to the storage room adjacent to the parlor, Mare comments, "You ask to see me, Your Majesty."

"Call me Rosa," the queen replies, "but yes, I did ask to meet with you, Lady Mare."

"If I may ask," Mare comments, "What for?"

"To be frank," she says, "You were my choice in this selection. When we were going over forms of potential selected, you were my only option in round one of the submissions and the only choice Louis actually picked."

"Wait," Mare asks, "was the selection not random?"

"No; for security reasons we couldn't make it random."

Mare pauses. On one hand, it does make sense, they can't just let any random girl fight for the hand of the Crown Prince. On the other hand, it's outright lying to the public and sending millions of girls into a false hope that they're good enough to be picked for the selection.

"Oh," she takes a drink of her sprite, "that makes sense."

"I knew you'd see the bigger picture."

"Your─Rosa," Mare corrects herself, "why did you call me for breakfast?"

"Honestly, most of these girls aren't truly fit to be queen," Rosa notes, "Now, I know it's only been around two weeks, but none of them have the right mindset to be queen. You, on the other hand, are studious and dedicated, qualities every queen should hold in Illéa."

"So," Mare pauses, "you want me to win?"

The bartender comes back in with breakfast: huge, fluffy omelets are placed in front of them. Mare instinctually heads to separate her food, but most of it is encased in the light yellow eggs.

"Yes," Rosa answers, "I know my husband has his choice and Gwyneth probably has hers. You are my pick. I want to help you win."

"What do you mean by that?" Mare asks, trying to get as much information out of the queen.

Rosa chuckles, "While I want to help, I need to be a hidden backer or the public is going to claim favorites, which we don't want. So, if you have anything you want to do imagewise, I'll personally fund it."

"A couple of girls and I were brainstorming about charity projects featuring education."

"Tell me more."

Over the next hour, Mare and Rosa engage in a conversation debating what they truly should do to help Mare's image and the charity project she wants to start. They come to the conclusion to keep it general and let whatever pressing public issues decide on what is focused on.

"Tell the other Ladies you have decided to work with to meet with me on Thursday."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Queen Clemintina, I am terribly sorry that I have to make you leave empty-handed." King Jonathan grits his teeth. For the entirety of the Spanish Royal Family's visit, Princess Charlene hasn't shown her face. The Schreaves and the Dalí-Alonsos both knew that this visitation was truly about and Charlie has decided to vanish into thin air.

Queen Clementina smirks, "Oh I trust you have it under control Jonathan; just like you have the rebels under control."

The jab at his pride is a low blow, but he brushes it off, keeping a faint sense of diplomacy, "We have officers looking all over the West Coast looking for Charlie and she will be sent straight to you when she's been found."

"Send her stuff as well," she says, messing with a nail, "I want to have it already ready so that she can't give any excuses to delay a public courtship."

"Your son will have a wife soon, Clemintina."

"Not soon enough," she mutters. Changing her tone of voice, she continues, "Now, is there anything else to address?"

"Nothing else has been planned for this meeting, but what do you have on your mind?" A smirk forms, almost identical to the one Louis has.

"I'm hunting the head of a king."

King Jonathan quips, "Another one?"

"Not like that," she replies, "The King of Andorra owes both France and I a fair bit of money to pay off New Asia, but they've been groveling deep into debt. Now, I am just saying if I was to take France head on over control over Andorra, I'd like you to keep neutral for now."

"Officially or completely?"

"Completely, for now; he's not dead yet."

The King chuckles, "I don't doubt that you'll get over that rather quickly."

"You know me too well, Jonathan." Clementina replies, "Tell Rosalind I left early. I'm not going to wait around for your out of control daughter."

"Neither will I Queen Clementina," he replies, seeing her out, "neither will I."