Chapter 26
NIK
Nik stared at the ceiling, just as he’d done yesterday morning, a hand pressed to his cheek as if it might hold the warmth of Elara’s lips on his skin a little bit longer. That night in the garden had been so damn—
Foolish. A mistake.
Even if he came clean about … everything … he was sure even her kindness had limits.
Still, it was nice to close his eyes and recall the way her head felt on his shoulder, curls tickling his cheek.
No one had ever trusted him like that, and it was terrifying.
He’d hidden in his room with his sketch pad for the last two days to try and sort through his thoughts, which were a riot of half-baked ideas, incongruent lines, and shapes that defied physics. But they could work.
He could show them to her, prove he was on her side.
He forced himself into a fresh suit and went downstairs only to find Elara at the kitchen counter, back straight as Chantal interrogated her.
“How would you take Arts Culinaires in a different direction?” Chantal asked.
“Equality,” Elara replied. “I would focus money—”
“Funding.”
“I would focus on funding areas the Société hasn’t explored yet in order to … to … tap into a new market?”
Chantal nodded. “A little less robotic, but that works. Right, Nik?”
Heat burst through his cheeks at being caught, again, and it only burned hotter when Elara looked his way, a tinge of red blurring her freckles. The memory of her body in his grasp yesterday morning was still too fresh. The way she looked up at him and smiled, face open and trusting.
“I made tea,” she said lightly. “And there’s a fresh baguette with cinnamon butter.”
The hope in her voice would ruin him.
“Thank you,” he muttered. “I have an appointment.”
Coward. What a coward.
“Wait!”
Elara chased him into the hall, but when he turned, she shrank back.
Afraid?
No. Nervous.
“What is it?” he asked.
She chewed her bottom lip, an incredibly distracting coping mechanism.
“I … have one more secret,” she said, and his stomach dropped. “If I tell you, you have to promise not to get angry. I was a different person then, and … well, I think it might help you with Lafontaine.”
His brows perked. “What about him?”
“Promise me first.”
His nostrils flared against the unknown, but he nodded. “Promise.”
She removed a slip of paper from her pocket and pressed the crisp edges against her chest, smoothing them repeatedly. Whatever it was, she couldn’t meet his gaze.
“I was at the Exposé as a cover for my ex.”
His mind went blank. A canvas erased.
She rushed on. “The plan was for me to enter the contest under a fake identity and distract the Counseil long enough for him to steal something.”
The canvas filled with clouds of black, angry smudges and smears.
“I had no idea what he was after. I just wanted him out of my life.”
“What. Did. He. Take?” Nik punctuated every word.
Elara offered the paper. “This.”
He snatched it. His father was right. Perhaps his distraction had really led to letting a viper loose among them. Just not the one Lafontaine thought it was.
He stole a glance at the contents, which didn’t clarify his confusion or anger in the slightest. It was a chemical equation. Except it was wrong. All wrong. There were compounds that didn’t belong together. What could a thief want with this?
“He said it’s something terrible,” Elara said. “And I thought of what you said about Lafontaine not wanting peace. I … I’m not trying to put a wedge between you two, but I think you deserve to know the truth. Whatever it may be.”
Nik waited for fury to explode from him just as it had when he’d learned of Plouffe’s work with the rebels or when he figured out Elara’s true identity.
He peered over the paper, expecting to see a murderer and a thief and to feel nothing but disgust for her.
He should. By all rights, she’d admitted to stealing from his father right under their noses.
And yet … She was just Elara.
It was the thief who rankled him.
“I knew you should have it,” she said.
Nik folded it up. It was his father’s property, something he’d deemed Nik unworthy of seeing. Whatever the chemicals meant was none of his concern. But the thought of having a leg up on Lafontaine for once was enticing.
Elara stared at him expectantly. It was suffocating.
“I … have an appointment,” he repeated, then dashed upstairs to hide once more.
By midmorning, the paper had become no lighter in his pocket, and he’d narrowed his future down to two options:
1. Decipher the equation.
2. Do nothing and wait for the contest to end and this whole thing to be over.
Option two would only end in Lafontaine destroying Elara. He wouldn’t let her become a beacon of hope to the Restes, especially if she was brazen enough to defy him and cost him everything.
Nik was lost. When was the last time he’d been allowed to decide something for himself? For the last four years, his father had ordered him about: choosing his apprenticeships, using him to dig up dirt on colleagues, even selecting this house for Nik to live in.
The paper offered him a chance. To make a choice of his own. To be worthy of Elara.
Flustered, Nik found himself knocking on Blai’s door.
“Do you want to go for a walk with me?” he blurted when they appeared at the doorway.
“What?” Blai stared back at him.
“A walk.”
“Is the house on fire?”
Nik frowned. “No. Why?”
“Because that’s the only reason to ever exercise.” They folded their arms over a mustard-colored blouse with more ruffles than an opera curtain.
Shame burned his stomach. “Forget it.”
Heels clicked after him as Blai took his arm. “Such drama. Where to?”
Police were everywhere. Nik remembered the days after the bombing when the city guards had flooded the streets and forced people back into their homes. He’d watched from his apartment window as entire families were dragged out in manacles, checking each face for his mother.
As autumn had heaved a dying gasp into winter, Nik had been forced to live on those streets, dodging police as he found any hovel to sleep in for the night. It had been impossible to turn a corner without running into their black uniforms.
Nothing had changed.
Almost nothing … a peace he couldn’t quite name ebbed from every cobblestone.
They turned down an alley Nik barely remembered. Laundry stretched overhead, bleached skirts and trousers dancing in the sweltering summer breeze. A lullaby floated from a window nearby.
Nik had left the Restes with the intention of returning when he’d fixed the system that had caused it to break. Anything less, he’d once thought, was failure.
“Why did you risk everything to stand up to the Vasomar queen?” he asked.
Blai stopped, face coiled in pain.
“I’m sorry.” Nik raked a shaky hand through his hair. “I’m not thinking straight, and I—”
“There was so much promise in the air.” Blai turned to a window box overflowing with geraniums in every color. “Vasomar had just recovered from war, and the whole country was filled with music and art and joy. I got caught up in it. I wanted my plays to reflect the hope my people needed.”
As they stroked the petals, their face smoothed to a strained smile. “Every night was a standing ovation, and I figured if crowds would stand for me and my troupe, they would stand with us.”
“They didn’t,” Nik said.
“I wouldn’t be here if they did.” Blai plucked a crimson flower. “My troupe gave the performance of their lives.”
They turned and tucked it behind Nik’s ear. “Because of me, it was their last.”
Nik thought of Elara facing the Counseil, defending the Restes. He thought of an older rebellion destroyed because of a single person. A traitor.
“I’ll admit,” Blai continued. “It’s nice while you’re shouting, but it’s the silence afterward no one talks about. People agree and sympathize, but they don’t join in.”
“You’re talking about Elara,” Nik replied.
“I’m talking about anyone foolish enough to think people will listen. But, yes. Elara needs to stay focused tomorrow. She needs to say whatever the Counseil wants to hear or they’ll destroy her.”
Nik knew that, but the thought of telling her to be anything but herself made him sick.
He thought of himself and what might be perceived as his own complicit silence, but he was helping his father, who had the ideas and the power necessary to make people’s lives better.
It would take time and sacrifice, but people would understand soon enough.
Except that wasn’t true anymore.
The proof was in his pocket.
And in his father’s own beliefs.
Restes filth. Nothing could explain those words away. Lafontaine had no interest in helping the Restes Quarter. No interest in accepting Nik as his own son.
Nik turned into The Market, which was so packed the crowd swallowed Blai, who walked far ahead of him.
This was the difference he felt between the past and now. People were out, living their lives and coming together, seemingly without concern for the officers who glowered from their posts.
“Hey!” a small voice shouted above the chaos to his left.
“Shit!” A guard shuffled as the crowd made way for whatever had happened.
In the clearing, an officer was covered in paint. Bright red, it dripped from his hat down his front, slopping onto his once shiny shoes. And a child, no more than ten, stared up at him, her eyes bright with defiance, the bucket dripping at her side.
The guard swiped for her, followed by another. She dodged them expertly, using the bucket to knock them back as she ducked beneath their arms.
“Grab her!” the soiled officer snarled.
“Good luck!” she cheered as she led them in a chase down a narrow street.
The people laughed as soon as the officers fled, cheering her on. Even Nik couldn’t help but smile as her braids whipped out of sight.
His smile faded as the crowd parted for a lithe woman with black hair who climbed atop a stack of crates, fist raised in the air.
“Elara Rousseau reminded the Counseil that we exist,” she cried, “and now it’s our turn!”
Ah. The girl had been a clever distraction, and Nik had a sickening idea of what would happen next.
“For years the Counseil have made us the enemy of the city,” she continued. “But the only people who should fear us are those who oppress us. Are you tired of begging for scraps?”
At first, the people murmured, timid in their agreement.
“Tired of being crushed in the cogs of their machines?”
Then they shouted.
“Are you ready to take this neighborhood back? To remind this city who laid these very stones?”
Finally, they roared back, “Yes!”
“Rousseau is only the beginning, but we can’t let her do it alone. Follow me. Food and shelter for any who are ready to fight!”
“Unforgettable!” the crowd chanted. “Unforgettable! Unforgettable!”
Bodies pushed upon him, and Nik felt as if he would be sick. He had to claw his way through and out to where the crowd thinned near the river. Even there, Elara’s word chased him.
Unforgettable.
This was exactly what he and Lafontaine had feared. The riots, the real rebellion was at the city’s doorstep, which meant punishment … death … would follow swiftly. The rebels would strike again.
He had to get home. He had to …
His focus snared on a boy sitting alone by the river, his legs dangled into the water. In his lap, he folded a piece of paper at sharp, complicated angles, tucking corners and pressing the creases. A boat.
“That’s clever.” Nik crouched beside him.
“The last one sank,” the boy replied, inspecting it closely, “but I think I’ve figured out the proper weight this time.”
“How long have you been working on it?”
“Forever. Mom says it’s a waste of time, but I think it’s fun. Much better than sweeping floors.” The boy looked Nik up and down, taking in his Arts Humains coat and polished shoes. “Did you ever sweep floors?”
He looked to the factory towering in the next quarter. “Once.”
“Me too,” the boy said glumly. “What’s the point if it’s just going to get dirty again?”
Nik laughed. “A fresh start, I suppose.”
The boy shrugged. “Guess you’re right.”
Then he flipped over onto his belly and stretched his arms over the water. “Here goes.”
It was just a paper boat, but Nik’s anxiety spiked as he watched it settle upon the choppy waves. Any second, the water would seep into the paper and drown it.
But it sailed on, cresting each perilous wave. It coursed several meters away, and the boy sprang up. “Look at it go!”
Nik scrambled to catch up, uncaring of how foolish he might look. He dodged crates and barrels to follow the boat’s journey as it careened across the waves and caught a strong wind in its small sail.
The boy cheered, dipping around a barrel.
Nik laughed as he jumped it entirely.
“Brilliant!” he cried.
“That’s nothing!” the boy called back. “Watch!”
At the bend in the river, water splashed violently against the curb, sloshing back in a vortex that would swallow the boat whole. He winced, unable to watch the boy’s disappointment when he proved his mother right yet again.
Except it didn’t succumb to the waves.
The sails unfurled into great wings that beat the air. A breeze caught the spans of paper and carried it up, up, up and out of the water.
Magie.
Real magie from someone so young.
“YES!” The boy threw his fist in the air. “It worked! Can you believe it!”
He looked up at Nik with the biggest grin he’d ever seen.
This wasn’t a monster capable of wielding magie to hurt others. The boy was no murderer, nor was he a weapon sharpened to destroy the city.
This was an artist who managed to do something miraculous. He’d carved out time despite what his mother thought, and he’d made something special. Something Nik had never seen before, and he doubted anyone else in the world had either. A ship that could fly was just a dream.
Unless someone dared to make it.
With more clarity than he’d ever had before, Nik said farewell to the boy and found a shady corner away from the noise. There, he removed the paper and opened it before he could change his mind.
At first glance, the lines and letters blurred together.
He recognized the standard elements, but the patterns didn’t make any sense.
If this was what his father had intended to share with him, his confusion would’ve been another failure Lafontaine held against him.
He’d have to take this back to his study to research it carefully.
But first, he needed to attend to something else.
The boy had been so open with his passion. All he needed was a place he could practice, a place where he could learn something beyond sweeping floors or knocking bolts with a wrench. He needed someone to believe in him.
Someone like Elara.
Nik could help her.
With no sign of Blai, Nik found his way down a crooked alley to an abandoned shop with broken windows. It was time to make something new.