“Father.” Nik reached up.
He smacked his hand. “You are no son of mine.”
With that he slammed the door behind him.
The hallway was vast, the marble cold beneath his body. For a moment, he let his heated face rest against the cold marble like a beaten dog.
Nik’s mother had been a Reste, and his father had loved her. Why was Nik so different?
Maybe he was a reminder of Lafontaine’s mistake in loving suchfilth.
He tried, desperately, to see Elara as his father did. Tried to imagine handing her over to the Counseil, and all of Lafontaine’s demands for the future of the Restes.
He couldn’t.
There was a gaping hole in his chest, and she’d filled it with something warm and crackling the night they’d shared cake. No. Long before that. The night of the Exposé, when she’d looked up at him as if she’d found a kindred spirit.
Whatever he felt for her, there was no way he could see her destroyed by his father’s schemes.
He was still a terrified boy, but he had something—someone—worth fighting for.
Elara was scared too, maybe of the same things.
If he wanted to save her, he needed her to pick herself back up and keep going. To prove herself to the rest of the Counseil that she wasexactlywhat the city needed.
In time, his father might see that too.
Nik dug deep, like exploratory surgery, until he found the last remnants of the infection Lafontaine had tried to remove from him. All thelessons, beatings, and apprenticeships to remake Nik into the perfect aristocratic pawn.
His father could teach him etiquette, dress him in linen, and shove a scalpel in his hand, but he couldn’t erase the original blueprint. Nik was a Reste.
He latched on to that rage, swept the blood from his face, and headed for the ballroom.
22ELARA
Elara didn’t remember crawling into the corner. In fact, she hadn’t been aware of a lot of things while her mother’s ghost berated her for being a coward and a wretched daughter. For being a traitor to her only family and the place she called home. Elara hadn’t heard the fallout in the audience, nor had she seen when Lafontaine and Nik left the Counseil box.
She buried her head, awaiting the police who would come and drag her away just as they had Colin. At least she wouldn’t have to see Nik’s disappointment up close.
The clock ticked above the Counseil, who glowered down at her amid a small army of guards that had doubled during Elara’s panic. She heard boots all around her, thundering through the maze only to stop somewhere close.
Why?
Because she was entertainment. They wanted to play with their food first.
Chantal had tried to warn her.
Nik too, in his own way.
Elara hadn’t listened.
Worthless.
Coward.
Selfish.
She refused to play anymore. Burning the tattoo had been her only chance at even a sliver of hope for success, and it had failed miserably.
