Chapter 36
NIK
Nik had been rendered unconscious many times in his life. Usually when his father went too far with his lessons. Whatever the reason, Nik always found his way to his feet and continued on. This time, he wanted to remain in the dark. Forever.
He would have if it wasn’t for the incessant shaking and shouting.
“Nik!”
“Watch his head!”
“Nik! What happened?”
Steps. Someone running.
“Here.”
The wretched burn of smelling salts dragged him back into a world of pain, and more than the physical kind.
“Elara!”
A hand pressed against his chest, awakening the bruises his father’s guard had gifted him. With a haggard wheeze, he collapsed back on the settee in his parlor.
Home. He was back home.
“Easy.” Chantal had a rag pressed to his forehead.
He shoved her off and stumbled to the door. “I have to get her.”
“You can’t.” Blai was behind him.
A splitting pain in his ribs caused him to topple.
Blai caught him and shoved him into a seat. “What happened?”
“Where is Elara?” Chantal asked.
“She’s gone,” he replied. “Lafontaine told her everything.”
Chantal’s eyes widened. “Everything?”
“And then some.”
Elara had been right. He would’ve told her about his father and his mother, but he would’ve taken the rest to his grave. In trying to manipulate her again, Nik had lost her because she now believed the worst of him.
Lafontaine lied.
Nik hadn’t killed the rebels.
It wasn’t his knife that had slit their throats … but it might as well have been.
If he could take it all back, he would.
He meant what he’d said to Elara last night; he would trade places with Gaetan’s corpse if it would make her happy.
“Where is she now?” Chantal pressed.
“She chose to work with him.”
She scoffed. “Nothing with him is a choice. What did he do?”
Nik relayed everything—almost everything. He didn’t tell them about the kisses or how Elara had felt in his arms. Those memories were his own form of punishment, a reminder of what he could’ve had if he hadn’t been such a coward.
He did explain the poison in the syringe his father carried, the same one used to kill Gaetan and Plouffe. After his father’s threat, Elara had chosen to keep them safe by offering her loyalty.
When he was finished, he slumped over, head in his hands. “I tried to change.”
Chantal shook her head. “I warned you this would happen.”
“I want to make it right.” He looked up at her. “How do I make it right?”
Blai leaned against the foyer doorframe. “You can’t. Elara made her decision, and we need to move on.”
“Again, not a choice. Lafontaine blackmailed her,” Chantal shot back.
“Technically, it’s coercion.”
Chantal jabbed them in the belly with her cane.
“Nik,” she said, “we need to—”
But he was already up and beating at the front door.
“It’s locked from the outside,” Blai said.
“And they magied all the windows and doors.”
“And there are guards everywhere, stationed like lawn ornaments.”
Nik rammed the door with his shoulder.
“I have to get her out.”
He tried breaking the window with his elbow only to feel something in it crunch. At least the rest of his body was in enough pain that he couldn’t feel it.
“I can’t let that bastard use her.”
With no other options, Nik returned to his roots. He started fighting.
He flung anything and everything he could get his hands on at the windows. Furniture, paintings he’d done in secret, vases, clocks. Wood chips and glass shattered like fireworks all around his foyer until he couldn’t see, breathe, or feel.
Out there, Elara was trapped.
Out there, Lafontaine would crush the Restes.
All because of Nik.
“Enough.”
Glass cut his cheek as a picture shattered.
“NIK!”
Blai slammed him to the ground. Nik rolled on instinct, pressing his hands around their throat until they threw their hands up in surrender.
“I can help,” Blai said.
“How?”
Slowly, they lifted the hem of their shirt to reveal a matchstick tattoo. Like Elara’s.
Nik pulled back. “What is this?”
Chantal released a bitter laugh. “I knew it! That’s why you were there helping. I thought you were done with rebellions.”
“I am, thank you.” Blai sat up. “I’m just not above having friends in all places, especially if those friends are charming and roguish.”
“You got this because of a crush?” Chantal asked flatly.
“Absolutely.” Blai stood, brushing themselves off.
Chantal smirked like she knew something. Blai avoided her gaze like it was true. And Nik was more confused than ever.
“What the hell is it?” he asked.
They exchanged another glance before Chantal sighed. “It’s a mark for the rebellion. It’s how they communicate. And before you get all indignant, Elara got it years ago out of rage for someone killing her mom. Sound familiar?”
He’d doted on the mark with kisses last night, barely a thought for what it meant.
“And Blai has abandoned their original plans for a cute face,” Chantal teased.
“It was too poetic to ignore!” they groaned.
“I traveled half a world to escape a rebellion, only to land myself in another. I had an opportunity to write a new story, one where I and my troupe lived happily ever after. That sharp-tongued, easy-eyed Travers made me realize how wrong I’d been.
My people lost because I hadn’t believed in the right word. ”
“What word?” Chantal asked.
“Revolution.” Their eyes sparked. “Rebellions are brief, violent, and often unsuccessful. They are bursts of energy and passion that cannot be sustained. But a revolution…” They pressed a hand against the tattoo and closed their eyes. “A revolution is when a rebellion lasts and changes everything.”
Those were beautiful words from a beautiful writer … a rebel. And Nik believed in them.
“Come on, hero.” They pressed the tattoo harder. “Answer me.”
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“If we want to win this,” they said, “we’re going to need help.”
An hour later, there was a quiet thud on his roof.
Nik led the slow crawl upstairs, a kitchen knife weighed in his palm. It made him think of Elara in the carriage, holding a butter knife to his throat. Her memory was everywhere, clouding his focus.
The rustling in his office grew louder.
He opened the door.
Two thieves who’d been rummaging through his things froze, pistols aimed to kill.
Blai lifted their hands. “Fernand Travers, my sultry crusader come to rescue me.”
“Where’s Lafontaine?” When no one answered, the one on the right removed the mask, revealing a man maybe a year older than Nik with ruffled, curly hair and an exasperated expression. “You don’t have him.”
“No, but we can maybe get you to him.” Blai nodded at Nik.
“You were Elara’s…” Nik couldn’t finish. Ex? Lover?
“And you’re Lafontaine’s errand boy,” Fernand shot back.
Blai waved them both off. “You can measure traumatic pasts later. Right now, Elara and this city need our help.”
“Elara?” Fernand perked up.
“What happened?” The woman with him ripped her mask off.
Chantal gasped. “Nicolette. You’re okay.”
They knew each other? What the hell had been happening under Nik’s very own roof?
“They’ve taken her,” Blai explained.
“And Lafontaine plans to use her in the finale for something awful,” Nik replied.
The girl pulled Fernand close so they could exchange heated whispers. In the end, the girl relented, throwing her hands up.
“Your funeral,” she muttered.
Fernand motioned to the window, which was, miraculously, open.
“Let’s go.”
Nik wasn’t sure who he’d become after all this was over, but he struck acrobat from the list. Rooftops were terrifying.
He was too tall and wiry to have any sort of balance.
Chantal, however, leapt over ridges and swirled around chimneys.
She used her cane when she needed it, and slid down the shingles to land with perfect poise in the Restes.
Blai made him feel better by scrambling down like a cat into a bath.
Once on precious, solid ground, they stole away through darkened alleys, dodging the influx of police patrolling the streets. They followed the river to a bakery that now haunted him.
Fernand shut the door while the girl—Nicolette—checked the other rooms. Gaetan’s bakery wasn’t just empty. It was abandoned. Boards had been nailed to the windows, and everything else inside had been left alone. Kept like a mausoleum.
Nik’s guilt doubled. They were protecting it in case he returned.
“Gaetan’s Boulangerie,” Nicolette sneered. “Another victim of yours rotting in a prison.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Nik snarled.
Fernand stepped between them, pistol flashing at his hip.
“This is my territory, and you will behave.”
Nik chewed his tongue as he stepped away.
Fernand was every bit the rogue hero. He moved with exhausted confidence and commanded attention even while leaning against the counter, arms and ankles crossed.
“I didn’t mean to have him arrested,” Nik said calmly this time. “Lafontaine did that. He also … he also killed him.”
Fernand stood straight. “Gaetan is dead?”
Nik nodded.
Fernand broke upon him. New pain melted atop the old as blood rushed down his chin. Fernand didn’t stop. He kept punching, the rhythm of knuckles cracking against his skin growing fevered until someone pulled him off.
“He didn’t kill him,” Chantal said.
“I don’t believe you,” Fernand spat. He was pacing like a caged lion, shoulders flexing with each heaved breath.
There were two of him. No, three. It took a few shakes of his head for the images to overlap and Nik’s vision to clear. Chantal helped him into a seat.
“Travers is right.” Blai shrugged. “You’re as much to blame for this mess as anyone else. Even if you didn’t kill Gaetan.”
Fernand didn’t look convinced.
“If we’re going to be at each other’s throats all night, we might as well gift Lafontaine the keys to the city.” Chantal pointed to the table near Nik. “What if we try a new concept—working together?”
Nicolette and Fernand exchanged glances before slumping into chairs. Chantal and Blai followed.
“Where do we start?” Fernand asked.
“Lisette Plouffe.” Nik nodded, despite his aching head, to an Objet d’Art flyer on the wall. “Lafontaine murdered her too. For working with you.”
Nicolette leaned back. “We figured.”