“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 onlybecause 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.
Youneverlisten.
“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.
33NIK
Nik stole through the night, Elara’s hand in his.
They ducked into the darkened crevices between sagging Restes buildings, pressed their bodies close to avoid the watch guard’s lamplight, and scrambled down empty streets after a fire brigade carriage raced past. If it weren’t for the threat of capture and the destruction of the Restes, Nik would’ve called it fun.
It was dangerous.
Wrong.
And so damn freeing.
