It washerwords people were slashing upon the bricks and shouting at riots. She’d lived in fear of being doomed to her mother’s fate, and now, she was that same beacon of light in the darkness to the Restes. Maybe even brighter.
She’d lived most of her life a coward, but no longer.
Silence was where evil thrived.
But she couldn’t be a leader.
Could she?
“People are looking to me.” Her voice broke. “I don’t deserve that kind of power.”
Chantal shrugged. “Do you think I deserved anyone’s praise for breaking family norms to become a ballerina?”
“You worked hard to do that.”
“I’m not the only one. Hundreds before me dared to be different. I was simply the first they couldn’t ignore. The first they could use.” She offered a sad smile. “Like it or not, the Restes are looking to you now, and what you do next matters. Go along with the Counseil and sit in silence among them, be used by them. Or make a difference.”
There was no escaping this fate.
“I know someone in the rebellion.” Elara swallowed her pride with every word. “Someone who’s been leading it for a long time and has an annoying knack for getting in and out of places he shouldn’t. He can help.”
Chantal tossed her cane up and caught it with a snap. “All right.”
She selected a bleach-stained green dress from the racks.
Elara gaped. “What are you doing?”
“Picking out a costume. I need to fit in, don’t I?”
It was as if Elara had been living the last few weeks in a cloud of smoke, and now, it had cleared. Chantal tugged off her citrine gown and nestled the frock over her dainty shoulders, back straight as if readying for a performance.
“When I started pushing for reform in the theatre, they responded by making me prima ballerina. What better place to put a threat than beneath a spotlight? That’s what they do, Elara. Then, they lay on the pressure until you break, rendering you useless—no longer a threat.”
She snatched her cane. “I want to prove them wrong.”
The decision was made.
Arms linked, they crept out the kitchen door into the tenement garden, through an open window of a darkened house and out into the back streets. There were more police than ever tonight, and their numbers thickened the closer they came to the Joyaux.
Above the rank of garbage came an acrid smell.
Elara sniffed.
No. Please. No.
Not again.
“What is it?” Chantal asked.
They turned a corner, and Elara’s steps faltered.
The Restes was burning.
30NIK
“Lafontaine’s expecting me,” Nik told the guards at his father’s front door.
A lie.
