Besides, Nik said Lafontaine wanted to help the Restes. Why would Plouffe turn to the rebels to act against him?
“Elara.” Fernand was softer this time. “I swear. Everything I’ve ever done is to build a better future.”
“No.” She sliced her hand through the air. “You’ve been looking for revenge. There’s a damn big difference between the two.”
“Why does it matter?” he snapped.
“One is in favor of people,” Blai said darkly, “the other is in favor of your ego.”
For the first time she’d ever known him, Fernand fell quiet. It was a seething sort of silence that made his fingers twitch. The two of themstared the other down, and Elara wasn’t sure if they would fight or… something else.
“You’re living with Dupont, right?” Fernand asked her.
“This isourbusiness. Leave him out of it.”
He snatched a single page from the folder and held it up. It was filled with scribbles, but the pattern of letters, lines, and numbers was another language.
“What is this?” she asked.
“A chemical equation. If Dupont is Lafontaine’s direct apprentice, he can decipher it.”
Elara wasn’t a fool. Nik might feel something toward her, but he would choose his Souverain over her every time. If she showed him this paper, he would recognize it as Lafontaine’s. He was smart. He would figure it out.
It would ruin everything.
“Get someone else.” She tossed the folder back at him.
For a second, he looked as if he might attack her.
He simply broke.
Head in his hands, fingers tugging his unruly curls, he heaved the sigh of a broken city.
“Please, Elara.”
“Nik is my Patron. I can’t.”
“He’s not who you think he is.”
She stiffened, tired of people underestimating Nik. Underestimating her. “He’s trying to help Lafontaine change the Sociétés for the better.”
Fernand’s head shot up. “That’s a lie.”
“It’s not. Maybe that’s what Lisette Plouffe was afraid of. She turned to you to cause chaos because she wanted to protect her own power. Lafontaine plans to give everyone a chance to enter a Société.” Shesnatched the strange paper. “I don’t know what this is, but I know I have a chance to really make a difference.”
“Let’s say you’re right,” he shot back. “Why not check the paper anyway? Be certain you’re getting in bed with the right people.”
Heat tinged her cheeks.
Fernand continued, “If he asks where you got it, tell him the truth. Tell him where to find me, and I’ll be waiting.”
The offer shocked her like lightning.
“Fernand,” she said gently.
“Things are bad. Worse than you can imagine.” He clenched his fists. “Please.”
If she wasn’t just as desperate to solve her own problem, she would’ve walked away. In the breadth of a few days, she’d begun to consider a life as Souverain, a life where she had power to make things betterwithoutbloodshed. If she had a chance to make it so what happened to Colin never happened to anyone else, she’d take it—even if it meant becoming the thing she hated.
