He did explain the poison in the syringe his father carried, the same one used to kill Gaetan and Plouffe. After his father’s threat, Elara had chosen to keep them safe by offering her loyalty.
When he was finished, he slumped over, head in his hands. “I tried to change.”
Chantal shook her head. “I warned you this would happen.”
“I want to make it right.” He looked up at her. “How do I make it right?”
Blai leaned against the foyer doorframe. “You can’t. Elara made her decision, and we need to move on.”
“Again, not a choice. Lafontaine blackmailed her,” Chantal shot back.
“Technically, it’s coercion.”
Chantal jabbed them in the belly with her cane.
“Nik,” she said, “we need to—”
But he was already up and beating at the front door.
“It’s locked from the outside,” Blai said.
“And they magied all the windows and doors.”
“And there are guards everywhere, stationed like lawn ornaments.”
Nik rammed the door with his shoulder.
“I have to get her out.”
He tried breaking the window with his elbow only to feel something in it crunch. At least the rest of his body was in enough pain that he couldn’t feel it.
“I can’t let that bastard use her.”
With no other options, Nik returned to his roots. He started fighting.
He flung anything and everything he could get his hands on at the windows. Furniture, paintings he’d done in secret, vases, clocks. Wood chips and glass shattered like fireworks all around his foyer until he couldn’t see, breathe, or feel.
Out there, Elara was trapped.
Out there, Lafontaine would crush the Restes.
All because of Nik.
“Enough.”
Glass cut his cheek as a picture shattered.
“NIK!”
Blai slammed him to the ground. Nik rolled on instinct, pressing his hands around their throat until they threw their hands up in surrender.
“I can help,” Blai said.
“How?”
Slowly, they lifted the hem of their shirt to reveal a matchstick tattoo. Like Elara’s.
Nik pulled back. “What is this?”
