“This must be what he used to… what he…” He swallowed. “What Lafontaine injected into Gaetan.”
“Poison,” Elara snarled.
“I don’t think so.” He explained everything as completely and gently as he could—how his father had asked Gaetan questions between rounds of the chemical, held up papers as if testing his knowledge, then raged when her mentor had died.
Elara took it all in without flinching. “Then it serves a purpose. What?”
“I don’t know.”
She paced away, worrying that bottom lip of hers.
“Ask,” he insisted. “You’ve got an idea about something. Ask.”
“Is this how Lisette Plouffe died?”
The world tipped on him.
An injection in the neck. Death without noticeable signs of poison. Untraceable.Something entirely new, his father had declared.
“It had to be,” he replied quietly.
“How do you know?”
It was all or nothing. Well… Almost all. “Lafontaine had me perform an autopsy on her. One of his cruel tests. It’s untraceable and makes the victim look as if they fell asleep. What it does beyond that… I don’t know.”
Her brows furrowed. “Lafontaine killed her. Why?”
“He said she was working with the rebels, but that makes no sense. It must’ve been another one of his lies.”
Elara stared at her boots, stroking the smooth skin of her scarred hand.
“What?” he asked.
“A rebel gave me that paper.” She still didn’t meet his gaze. “He said he was working with Plouffe, but I didn’t believe him. It seemed so ridiculous at the time. A Souverain? And a Restes rebel?”
When he couldn’t find a response, she lowered her chin. “Please don’t hate me.”
Weeks ago, it would’ve been easy.
He knew too much now to ever hate her.
“I don’t.” He tapped his fingers against the parchment. “Lafontaine killed Plouffe and blamed it on the rebels. The question is why…” He snatched the formula up. “Lisette must’ve known what Lafontaine was doing with this.”
“Why her?” She frowned. “Why the Souverain of Arts Culinaires?”
“She must’ve been involved somehow.”
Without her or his father, they would never know.
“We’re back to the beginning,” Elara huffed. “What do we do now?”
“We can prove he killed Plouffe,” he heard himself saying. But could he really use this against his father? The man who pulled him from the gutter and gave him purpose? All he had to do was think of that horrendous room, the woman he’d hurt to make a point, the kind man he’d killed to further his own greed, and it was easy. “I’ll make copies of the formula, and we’ll take one to Lafontaine and manipulate him like he’s manipulated everyone else. For once, he’ll be in someone else’s pocket. Our pocket.”
“What if he doesn’t cave?” she asked.
“We give the people something to riot about.”
Thunder crashed outside. Rain pelted against the roof like bullets.
