“It was a mistake,” she pleaded.
“I warned you, but you didn’t listen. Youneverlisten. That’s how you ended up with Fernand. It’s how your mother ended up…”
Her nostrils flared. The ringing of screams echoed in her ears. A memory she couldn’t shove away.
“Say it,” she hissed. “Go on. Say it.”
“How she ended up dead.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Elara refused to let her voice crack.“Ever since she died four years ago, I’ve been trying to fix the mess she made.”
“You call this fixing?” Gaetan roared.
Elara recoiled.
In all their years together, he’d never yelled at her. Not once. Elara had come to expect people like Jeanine or the officers to turn against her, but never Gaetan. Not the man who first taught her how to make the perfect loaf when everyone else was too busy to remember she existed.
“I can do better tomorrow,” she said quietly. “I’ll just make bread.”
“You won’t be making anything.”
The world shifted.
“What?”
“You heard me.” He rubbed his face. “I’m not hiring you.”
“But… I need this job. Gaetan, the Société will kick me out. I’ll lose my apartment, income, everything.”
He turned his back. “You need to go.”
2NIK
It wasn’t Nik’s place to say whether the corpse on the gurney was hideous or not.
But it was.
Basset had, once again, butchered the application of rouge, and the undertones were more beige than yellow. The shade of lipstick was far too dark, and the more sculpted aspects were gloopy, not smooth. The old woman looked like she was melting more than sleeping.
Sleeping.
What a ridiculous concept created by the living in order to cope with the inevitable.
Anyone who’d seen death firsthand knew it wasn’t as simple as falling asleep. It was excruciating. Which was exactly what the family would think once they saw their dear grandmother at tomorrow’s funeral.
“My best yet,” Basset crooned. She dropped her makeup brush into the sink. Rouge smeared all over the surgical pan Nik had nearly gotten clean.
The other Aspirants gathered around the gurney, remarking on her handiwork, lying through their crooked smiles because they thought kissing Basset’s ass might mean they could ride her lab coat up the Société ladder.
If all Nik cared about was climbing his way from Aspirant to Directeur in Arts Humains, he would have been there too, cooing over every fumbled brushstroke. There was more to life than titles, and while Souverain Lafontaine might appreciate him quickly graduating from Aspirant tothe next level of Professionnelle, Nik knew he would despise him more than he already did if he got there by crawling on his belly like a worm.
For now, he would scrub every utensil in the processing room. He would polish every surface, organize every vial, and prep every syringe until heearnedthe title of Professionnelle.
He’d barely cleared two more plates when the double doors burst open. A new gurney shoved through, the body beneath covered with a sheet. Professionnelle Chambon fluttered behind it, his crimson coat stark against the clean white. Starker than the mottled maroons Nik and the other Aspirants were forced to wear.
“Aspirants!” he cheered. “Gather round. Quickly. Quickly.”
They all flooded forward, eyes wide with hope. Nik found his place in the back, able to peer over their shoulders at the slight form beneath the sheet. Tall. Long arms and legs. Lithe as a surgical thread.
