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’dcarved 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.
27ELARA
Anespérer tore herself apart… for the people.
That’s what the memorial suggested anyway.
A marble woman sat upon a bench facing guests entering the Senate’s grand lobby. Her fingers pried into her chest, splintering her ribs apart to reveal a riot of colorful paint and lush plant life. A hammer on one hip and a syringe at the other said all disciplines were welcome here. Thatanyonecould partake in these wonders of Anespérer.
Elara read the words beneath.
So that we remember art and magie belong to all.
An explosion cracked the sky, forcing her to duck into Nik’s side. Screams followed, horrifying, guttural death cries amid mass panic and the crumbling of stone.
No one else around her reacted.
The Senate walls didn’t fall.
It was all in her mind.
“Magie,” Nik murmured.
Elara faced the woman again, beautiful in contrast to the horrors of the bombing.
Elara straightened, making distance between herself and Nik once more.
She hadn’t seen him since giving him the note, and she had no way of knowing what he’d done with it. If he’d kept it or given it to Lafontaine. She had to believe he wouldn’t turn her in. Not after the garden. Not after everything.
Her first glimpse of him had been this morning as he crept up the stairs in yesterday’s clothes. Where had he been all night?
It didn’t matter. Her preoccupation with boys was what had gotten her in this mess in the first place. Spying for Fernand, playing the part for Nik.
She had to focus.
“Ready for today?” Nik asked.
“Ready as I can be.”
