Someone with ample knowledge of new, untraceable poisons.
Nik shoved his nerves down, hiding any shake of his hands by removing his glasses.
“You killed her.”
Lafontaine nodded. “Well done, my boy.”
The glow he’d been chasing rose above his disgust. Lafontaine was driven and ruthless, but those two words—well done—erased Nik’s trepidation. None of those fools at Pompes Funèbres would hear those words, because Lafontaine didn’t trust them as much as he did Nik.
He forced his tone into careful neutrality. “Why?”
“The poor dear put her nose where it didn’t belong.” He gave a regretful sigh, as if what had befallen her was simply an unfortunate accident. “She was a liability to our plans.”
Of course. Lafontaine didn’t kill without reason, and everything they’d worked for was more important than some snobbish Souverain poking around.
“What did she do?” he asked.
“She was a bacterium growing in the very heart of Anespérer.” Lafontaine’s tone darkened, and his thin lips twisted into a taut snarl. “Poor Lisette Plouffe didn’t like our plans to upheave the Counseil, so she turned her back on us entirely.”
Lafontaine stroked Lisette’s long white hair. He wasn’t thinking of her. He was thinking of the city. It needed their protection, but part of Nik yearned for such affection. To be gazed upon with the same parental love. Guarded rather than pushed to the breaking point.
But Lafontaine’s trust was not easily given, and for good reason.
Nik would earn it.
“She’s been helping the rebellion,” Lafontaine said.
Fury exploded in Nik’s belly like oil to a fire.
“Impossible,” he retorted. “The rebels are gone.”
“It seems we treated the symptom, not the disease.”
Nik shot a dark glare at the corpse growing stiffer by the second. Lisette, with all her finery and power, had been nothing more than a traitor. The rebels had been eliminated and the rebellion brought to heel when their first attack upon the Counseil ended in abysmal failure. Had someone else taken up the mantle?
“It’s in its infancy, but thanks to dear Lisette, it might have grown legs.” Lafontaine snarled the words, catching them like stones between his teeth. “She’s been siphoning money and information to someonein the Restes, and they’ve managed to infiltrate the Sociétés. For all we know, they could be Directeurs or even more of the Sept.”
“Then your plan is more important than ever,” Nik said. “We need to act quickly.”
Unrest would lead to violence, and violence would destroy the city, which had barely begun to heal from the last attempted uprising.
“Appointing a Grand Souverain was, and still is, the first step,” Lafontaine mused. “The city needs someone to take control. Thankfully, Plouffe’s death allows me the perfect opportunity to seize this moment. The Counseil will happily reshuffle power to a single leader if it means unifying us against a common enemy: rebels capable of killing Souverains.”
A smile tugged at the edges of Nik’s lips. “Pin this on them.”
“When the time is right,” Lafontaine mused.
Long ago, Nik sympathized with the previous generation of rebels who’d craved justice in a system clearly stacked against them. The Sociétés had made it possible for all citizens to earn a place in a guild, but it wasn’tprobableunless someone had time and money to commit to a skill. People of the Restes neighborhood were lucky if they ended up in a factory line assembling furniture or textiles. They’d never get close to creating something of their own, and without a basic understanding of an art, an artist couldn’t develop magie.
His sympathy had died when his mother was killed in their cross fire.
He’d let the Restes boy die in order to become something new, something better than those miserable roots.
With this new power, he craved revenge. He craved change. Supporting Lafontaine was about more than earning his place; it was about ensuring no other child, poor or rich, felt the same crushing loss he’d endured.
“But you needed Plouffe’s vote,” Nik said.
Hard to earn that when her treasonous blood was turning cold.
