Chapter 32
ELARA
Elara only allowed herself to breathe once she and Chantal were back in the safety of Belleplace. The safety of the garden outside Nik’s home.
“Nicolette, the boy you were talking to,” Chantal said quietly, “those were rebels?”
Elara nodded.
Chantal touched her chin. “What did he say to you?”
Elara didn’t realize she’d been blinking back tears.
You don’t deserve anything.
I can’t sacrifice the hope of the resistance for one man.
Gaetan was rotting in prison right now, and it was all her fault. If Fernand refused to help, her hope rested entirely on Nik finding some way to save him. Blackmail, extortion, it didn’t matter. They had to get him out somehow, because she knew better than to believe in the justice system anymore.
Fernand had tried to make her see how broken it was for so long.
“Fernand.” Elara said his name out loud for the first time. “Fernand was a friend, more than a friend, who grew up with the previous generation as his idols. Unlike me, he’s never given up on hope for change. He’s been trying to spark something for years.”
Movement in the kitchen caught her eye.
With aching bones and hair reeking of cinders, she forced her tired body into the kitchen.
Nik was a mess. His coat was gone, shirt open with buttons missing as if he’d ripped it open. The curls of his hair were free, the pomade unable to hold its shape from his restlessness.
When he saw her, he froze.
Went impossibly still.
Eyes as dark as storm clouds.
“Where the hell were you?”
Chantal stepped forward. “It was my fault. We shouldn’t—”
“Stay out of this, Chantal.” He looked them up and down. “What are you wearing?”
“I can explain,” Elara began.
“Explain how you lied to me!” He slammed his palm against the counter.
“Nik,” Chantal warned.
Elara shook her head. “It’s okay.” Enough was enough. She needed to tell him the truth, the last secret she’d kept because it wasn’t hers to tell. Except now it was. If they wanted to save Gaetan, save Anespérer, there was no longer room for secrets between them.
“I’m fine,” she said, nodding for Chantal to go on.
She looked wearily between them before disappearing. When Elara heard the stairs creak, she tried with Nik again.
“I know I promised I would stay here, but I couldn’t wait.” She held out the black letter. “They’re hosting the final contest in the Restes, and I … I thought something was going to happen, so I went—”
His eyes widened with fury. “You went to the Restes? Tonight!”
“I know you’re angry.”
“Angry?” His lithe body was taut, lean muscles straining against the back of his shirt.
The veins in his arms twitched as he clenched the edge of the counter.
“Of course I’m angry. Before all this, my life ran on a schedule.
I knew what to expect and when to expect it.
Before all this, I knew exactly where I was headed. And then you showed up.”
She glowered. “That’s not fair.”
“Please.” He pushed away from the counter and stepped toward her. “Let me finish.”
Elara wasn’t sure if she wanted him to.
“Now I’m angry because when I think of a life without you, a life beyond the competition where you become a Souverain, and I have to return to the same old routine? I can’t imagine it anymore. It’s a blank canvas.”
It was a confession.
One she’d never expected.
Now that the words were out, she didn’t want them to stop. In all the chaos of tonight, she’d wanted a safe place to call her own. A place where someone understood her mistakes and didn’t berate her for them.
“And when I came back,” he continued, voice as soft as a prayer, “and you weren’t here? I wasn’t angry. I was terrified, Elara.”
He’d said her name before, but this time was decadent as cream. He said it as if she were a thing to be treasured, savored.
“I’m sorry.” Then he repeated it again and again until he was heaving, unable to breathe as he staggered backward into the counter. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’msorrysorrysorry.
She rushed forward, grabbing his hands and bringing them to her lips. He was cold. So cold. She kissed every freezing knuckle.
“I’m here,” she said against his skin. “I’m safe. We’re safe.”
Whatever she said shook him. He ripped away, face drawn in horror. At her?
After a moment, he softened, eyes holding a gentleness reserved only for sorrow.
“We’re not,” he said. “Elara, I … Gaetan.”
“Gaetan?” She straightened, a spark of hope returning. “You found him? Where was he? Is he here? Did you get him?”
“No.”
“Well, we can work on that. Right? We can prove he had nothing to do with the rebellion. If anyone can find the right information, it’s you.”
Because Nik had tracked down Gaetan in the first place, had discovered her secret long before she even thought to tell him. Everything would be okay.
She laughed. “He’s going to be so pissed they burned down half a Restes block for him.”
“Elara.”
“Did you appeal to Lafontaine? Faucher?”
“Elara.”
She hated the kindness, the pity, in his voice. She hated the way he looked at her like she was a rabid animal even more. His palms were up, half in surrender and half in an attempt to cage her.
“Where is he, Nik?” she asked evenly.
His mouth bobbed as it had in those earliest days in the carriage, when he sorted through lies to determine which half-truths would assuage her.
“He’s dead.”
Two words.
Spoken as if they wouldn’t shatter her heart.
The kitchen swayed. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
“You’re lying.” She pulled back. “Why are you lying?”
“I’m not.”
“Did Lafontaine put you up to this? The Counseil?”
“No!” He shuffled his curls with a frustrated snarl. “I swear, I never wanted this to happen. I tried to save him.”
“You watched?” she hissed.
He grimaced. Out of pain? Guilt? Or was it another trick to get her to play nicely?
“I found an operating room in Lafontaine’s office that only he can access. I tried to break the glass, but it was magied.”
“Or did Lafontaine tell you to watch?” Her heart hammered against her ribs. “And you obeyed because that’s all you do?”
Weeks of being manipulated. Weeks of lies. Weeks of Nik scraping to do whatever it took to make his precious Souverain happy.
“You’re just like everyone else in this wretched place! He’s your Souverain. You became a Patron to help him, you selected a pitiful girl to manipulate for him. Everything you’ve ever done is for him! Why should I believe you’d put anyone else first?”
“Because of you!” He spun on her, halting her every thought. “That night after the first competition, all I could think about was you. How brightly you burned for everything and everyone but me, and I … I wanted to feel that heat.”
The words were beautiful, but how could she trust them? “People are dying. We have to fix this.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do.” He scoffed, pulling his hair as if he wanted to rip every curl right out.
“All my life, I thought my f—Lafontaine was the key to saving the city, but I’ve learned the rebels aren’t the monsters.
He is. And I … I spent the last four years groveling at his feet for the tiniest scrap of acknowledgment. ”
He sucked down a deep breath. When his roving eyes settled, they were on her mother’s recipe book. Elara couldn’t remember the last time she’d opened it. At some point, it had become unimportant.
“I’ve done horrible things to please him,” Nik muttered.
She fell into the window chair.
Gaetan was gone.
During the first rebel meetings, he’d taught her how to bake not only because she’d wanted to learn, but because he wanted to save her from the violence. When she’d hooked up with Fernand, he’d told her to choose her path wisely.
I warned you, but you didn’t listen.
And now it had cost Gaetan his life.
You never listen.
“I’m the monster.” The floor tiles went fuzzy.
Nik wouldn’t have found Gaetan if Elara hadn’t agreed to actually participate in the Objet d’Art.
All the great ox had ever wanted was to live his days serving his people, and now he was …
he was … gone. Like her mother. Like the rebels that came before.
Like Nicolette and so many others might be now.
Nik dropped to his knees, forcing her to focus on him. His touch wrestled her mind back into her body, back into this nightmare.
“You are everything that is worth fighting for in this world,” he said. “Before you, I was so angry and lost. Now? I don’t want to watch the world burn.”
“What do you want?”
“You.” He pressed their knuckles to his forehead. “I would drown myself in the river if it would bring Gaetan back. If it would make you happy.”
He was telling the truth. Every scrap of his carefully constructed demeanor was undone … because of her, and it would be unfair to convince herself otherwise. Everything that had happened tonight was because of her.
And there was no time to fix it.
The finale was in less than two days.
Lafontaine had some plan with this drug.
Fernand would start a war.
Nik pulled her up, grabbed the recipe book, and led them to the kitchen door.
“Let me show you something. Please.”
If it meant forgetting, even for just a moment, she’d follow him anywhere.
Together, they headed back into the night.