Alouette lifts her head slowly. The force of the explosion had her thrown to the floor, and her back hurts. Red spots are swimming in her vision, and she blinks them away as she pushes herself up into a sitting position. The silence after the boom is so uncanny and heavy she can hear her quickened heartbeat mix with the ring in her ears.

What happened?

She grips the edge of the wall as she stands. Her upper back aches in protest, but nothing's broken. Her legs feel weak, about to collapse, but after a quick inspection she determines it must be the shock. It takes a moment for her vision to come back, and she spends it clinging to the wall to fight back the spinning in her head. When she finally looks out into the scene beyond, she lets out a shocked gasp.

One of the skyscrapers nearest to the Palace has all but collapsed into the one next to it, rubbles on the ground, cars thrown astray around it. Its screens have caught fire, and it's already circling the nearing building. Alouette's head swims. Warmth drips under her nose; she brushes it away, and her fingers come away red.

Some moments pass by, and people step out of the cars and stream into the street. It can't have been more than a couple of minutes since the initial blast, but it's felt like so long that she's shocked by the lack of firetrucks in the streets below. She watches the movement from up above, and she's so high up that it nearly doesn't feel real, the destroyed building, the people crowding the roads, the distant wails of sirens, the lights of Northfair that switch from blue to pink to green and yellow, like nothing has happened at all, like the city cannot feel the loss of part of itself.

People are moving quickly now down below, and Alouette knows they must be shouting, even though the night wind is strong enough to steal away their voices. The sirens are getting louder, and she can see a stream of trucks rush towards the collapse, and the cars around it are moving away the best they can to allow them to reach it.

Alouette can't get herself to move. She knows, distantly, she should get back down, see what's going on, try to make sense of what she's just witnessed, but she can't move. She can hardly breathe. In her mind, the explosion tangles with the ones of Dacran, with the ones within the Shade. She can feel all of them, again and again, back and forth, like her brain is replaying those moments again and again and again to try to understand them, like there's something she missed and if she just can catch what it is, maybe then it'll make sense, what's happening here.

But it doesn't.

And she's stuck, and her breath must be leaving her lungs because the night wind is in her throat, but she can't breathe. Blood is still dripping from her nose, she can taste its iron on her lips, but she can't move to wipe it away.

Down below, the trucks have reached the site. She can't tell what's going on—she's too high up and the lights of the city are too mockingly bright and ever-changing for her to be able to—but something must be, because the fire doesn't seem as large and all-consuming as before.

Hands touch her shoulders, and she jolts so badly that the person behind her has to hold on to her to keep her from falling.

"Careful," a voice says behind her, shaking her out of her trance, and she turns around and meets Brooks' sharp blue eyes.

She wrenches herself out of his grasp in a quick move. "Why are you here?"

"I was told you might still be here," he replies, without missing a beat. He doesn't need to specify who exactly told him that, because she already knows. From the look he gives her, he knows she knows too. A cold wind blows on the roof, and he shudders. "Can we go inside, now? If I get a cold it's your fault."

Sudden rage flows through Alouette, and she feels ready to bite his head off. Before she can say as much as a word, though, Brooks grabs her wrist and steers her towards the lift. She's so surprised by it that she forgets why she was mad at him at all.

As the doors of the lift close in front of them, Brooks glances down at her more intently. "You might want to..." He points in the general direction of her nose, and then checks his pockets. Alouette notices just now he's wearing a grey shirt with the words THE BEST JACKSON written in black marker across it. "I don't have anything on me," he ends up saying. "Unless you want a sock?" He lifts a foot to show her the edge of a purple sock poking out of the shoe he haphazardly threw on, shoelaces still undone. It's mismatched—the other sock is striped, green and blue.

Alouette curls up her nose in distaste and turns away, wiping her upper lip with her bare hand and accidentally painting a red stripe on it.

The doors of the lift open again and they step out. Despite the hour the corridor is full, and people send her half-shocked, half-puzzled glances as she walks past with Brooks at her side. She can't really blame them, this time around. There's no hiding the blood still dripping down her nose and smearing her hands.

When they enter Harry's office, the entirety of his personal guard is in it. Harry is walking past, but he lifts his gaze to them as soon as they come in. He takes her in for a short second and then looks at Brooks. Brooks shakes his head.

"Get her a doctor," he simply says, and she balks.

"I'm not just gonna let just anyone—"

"Get her doctor," Harry interrupts her without missing a beat, moving past them to reach Jackson in a corner of the room.

Jayden frowns at his order. "But sir, that's—"

"I don't wish to repeat myself," Harry bites back, shutting him up with a single glance.

Jayden nods and flees the room.

Alouette looks around. Brooks has left her side, and Grey and the others are talking quietly yet animatedly in small groups, sending quick glances Harry's way, like they all have their opinions on what's happening but want to hear his first.

"What was that?" she asks to the room, but they're either all to busy to hear her or don't know what to say, because she doesn't get a reply.

Unwillingly, her eyes find Harry, still in the corner of the room with Jackson. She immediately hates herself for it—for the way her instinct among all this chaos was to fall back to him, to seek his reassurance. He's marked her so deeply that even now, after all the pain and betrayal, he's the first person she looks for in her time of need, like a fool. She's not completely out of her mind, though, because she recognises that need for what it is—a ghost from the past, a black mark on the wall from the ashes of a fire long dead—and fights it, hard. She refuses to be his fool for any longer.

Still, she looks. She looks, and she sees things that she can't recognise—things that scare her. He's dressed roughly—his white dress shirt is half-untucked, the first buttons undone, like he was in the process of getting undressed when it happened and he didn't bother to fix his appearance before rushing here. Out of everything, that's the thing that terrifies Alouette more. She can't remember a single time Harry came to his office in such a state. To her, it's the ultimate proof that something terrible has happened—something that defies all sense and logic, even his.

The door behind her opens again, and a hand lands on her arm and turns her around. "Let me see." Hands lift her head to make her look up, and only then it hits her.

"Anthony?" she lets out in a shocked gasp.

"Can I have a tissue here?!" he calls out to the room, and then nods at her. The moment is so absurd that she doesn't even know what to say. Anthony is there, in Harry's office?

"What—"

He turns her head left and right. "There's no bruise," he comments. "Did you hit it?"

She shakes her head in shock. "I didn't, I—the roof, I was... But what—"

"You were on the roof when the explosion happened?" Anthony asks for confirmation, grabbing the tissue one of the guards hands him, and she nods, still unable to shape her surprise into a coherent thought. "It's likely alright," he says, putting the tissue under her nose. "Tilt your head forward and sit down, it should stop soon."

She lets him drag her to the leather couch on the side of Harry's office. "But why are you...?"

"Does anything else hurt?"

"No, but—" She lifts her chin to look up at him.

"Tilt your head down," he repeats. "I can't stay here long. If it doesn't stop bleeding in a few minutes have someone else look at it."

"What—"

As if on cue, Jayden comes up behind them. "Done?" he asks, and Anthony nods, standing as well. Jayden looks at him for a long moment. "You know, if you just..."

Anthony glares at him, hard. "I've already given you my reply. The Revolution looks after its own—only its own. I won't make the same mistake twice. Take me back to my cell."

Jayden sighs. "As you wish." He snaps a pair of handcuffs over Anthony's wrists and drags him away towards the door of the office.

Alouette watches him go in shock. What has just happened?

Around her, the guards are still talking in clusters, quickly yet quietly. From where she's sitting, she can only hear some phrases here and there.

... You think the Shade...

... the Revolution and...

... many people...

"Was it the Revolution? Was it Ezra?" she asks out loud to anyone that will be willing to answer, but no one does, again.

The door opens, and Evie and Kiara step inside and walk straight to Harry. They share some hurried words, and then Harry moves towards his desk with them all in tow. Both Kiara and Jackson seem to be talking at the same time. Harry runs his fingers through his hair and leans on his hands on the desk, lowering his head. The hint of silver of his bracelet slides free out of the unbuttoned sleeves of his dress shirt, catching the glinting lights of Northfair.

Kiara is still talking, and so is Evie, and Jackson, and Gray too, and Jayden, and the other guards around the room, and—

"Everyone out."

The order comes so suddenly that everyone falls deadly silent and turns to look at Harry, wondering if he's really said that, if they haven't misheard him instead.

Harry lifts his head. His curls fall in front of his eyes, dark and mussed, and the floor-to-ceiling window at his back reflects his image almost to perfection against the lights of Northfair, including the hectic state of his shirt, half out of his black trousers. "I said, out." His voice is so cold, so threatening, that his guards exchange worried glances before streaming out of the room one by one.

Evie tries to tell Harry something, but he sends her a glare so hard that she shuts up immediately and joins the others.

Alouette takes another tissue from where they were abandoned by the guard that assisted Anthony earlier, on the coffee table in front of the couch. Her nose isn't bleeding anymore, so she starts the process of cleaning the blood smeared on her hands quickly and hurriedly, getting ready to leave with the others. She notices the room is almost empty and makes to stand up, but pauses immediately when Harry's long legs step into her field of vision.

"Not you." His voice is low when he speaks, nearly intimate, so different from how he sounded just a moment before, but it sends chills down her spine all the same. She immediately sits back down.

They don't make a move as the office slowly clears, two statues among the chaos of bodies and words and emotions thundering around them. Once again, Alouette can hardly breathe. She didn't expect to see him so soon after their conversation—after her realisation. Just being in his presence makes her feel sick—but a different kind of sick. The kind of broken hearts and missed opportunities—the knowing, deep down, that something that deeply mattered is no longer there.

The office empties out, and suddenly they're alone. Again.

Harry sits at the other end of the leather couch, long legs folded elegantly in front of him. Alouette's heart is beating so hard in her chest, sensing danger, that she can physically feel it. She scoots away from him—as far away as the couch lets her.

He fixes her with a long look, something intrigued, sharp, forbidding. "I've been curious," he says suddenly, and Alouette knows immediately that whatever comes next has nothing to do with the explosion. "Will you indulge me?"

She should leave. She should get up and leave, because nothing good could possibly come from listening to anything he has to say. Nothing he says could possibly matter in this moment—in every moment, present and future. Her hand clenches around the reddened tissues. She doesn't reply, but she doesn't leave, either. He takes it as a yes.

"If you've always known the kind of person I was, why did you like me so much?"

Alouette's eyes widen. Here it is—the question she hoped he wouldn't ask, the one painfully hanging between them. The one she's asked herself again and again over the past months. The one that will forever destroy her.

That's the thing, she doesn't know. She doesn't know how nor why she let herself fall so hard for him—it's nonsensical. She's often told herself it was because she didn't really know about him, or because she thought it could be different, or a thousand other reasons, but that's not what really happened. The truth is, she was entranced by him. She'd spent so long in her birdcage that from the moment she first saw him—deeply, completely free, eternally in the sky, like he'd never known anything other than the sun and the moon and the stars and the wind pulling him higher—she felt irremediably tied to him. He had something she was desperately looking for, and the more she tried to discover what it was, the more it pulled her in.

And really, for a moment, there, he'd held her world in his hands.

The even more painful truth is that she didn't like him. She loved him—she loved him then, and she loves him now, still, even though the simple thought of it makes her physically sick.

"I didn't," she whispers out. She feels every bit the foolish flightless bird she now knows she is.

"That's a lie."

Yes. But what else could she say? I loved you so much that none of it mattered? That, maybe, I even loved you more for it?

No, she can't say that. She can't say any of it.

"You took everything away from me," she snaps, because it's so easy to resort to anger, now. Anger is safe—it holds none of the same strings of that complicated mix of heartache she's been trying her best not to fall to for the past week. "The Revolution was all I had."

"Do you truly think so?"

"Yes," she bites back. But the look he gives her is so cool, so calm, that something inside her stutters and she adds, "don't you?"

Harry stares at her for a long moment, seeming to evaluate the question, leaning his head on his hand. "No, I don't think so."

Her rage mounts. How dare he sit there, saying all this bullshit, after everything he's done? She opens her mouth, but he suddenly stands up.

"You know, I've always known about you," he says, and cold falls down her spine.

"What?"

"You've heard me." He sits down at his desk, turning his chair towards her. "I've known you couldn't be trusted since the start." He fiddles with a drawer behind his desk. "I've been watching you play me for months. I know how you lie, Alouette. I even know how you lie to yourself."

Alouette shoots to her feet, fists clenched at her sides. "What are you—"

He leans back on his chair and crosses his legs. Her body is tense, ready to attack, but his is relaxed, like he already knows that, no matter what he says, she won't do anything to him. "I know everything you did in the Palace, since the very first day you stepped foot in here. I know every single thing you've searched for. Everything that mattered to you then."

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asks through clenched teeth.

He stands and takes something out of the drawer before walking towards her. "Like this, for example." He throws a folder on the coffee table.

She looks down at it, still tense. "What is this?"

He gives her a one-shoulder shrug, so slight it's barely there. "Take it as a peace offering."

"Excuse me...?" she starts, but he looks down at the folder, and she can't help but do the same, and her words die in her throat. A name is inscribed on top of it, a name that freezes the blood in her veins.

Daniel Ivenhart.

Her father's name.

"What is—" Her head spins, and she has to sit down.

"This is what you wanted when you broke into the archive, isn't it?" Harry asks, but she can't even hear him properly anymore.

She opens the folder and scans the first page. She sees records of her father's full name, of his parents, his past job as a professor, his affiliation to the Revolution, the address to his house in Pans, his phone number.

She nearly throws up right on top of it. Her mind is a useless stream of what what what as she turns to look at Harry, that is still standing next to the couch. She opens her mouth, but no word comes out.

"Ask me," he says.

"What?"

"The question you've been wanting to ask me since you first heard me mention your father. Ask me."

"I—" she starts, but then she pauses. She knows which question he's talking about—the one born of her surprise in hearing him speak of her father like he knew so much more than he should. Thinking back to it now, she must've had it written on her face all this time. "How—" Her voice breaks, and she has to try again. "How did you know my father is dead?" Her words thin out towards the end, small and fragile. Even as she says them, she isn't sure she wants to hear the reply.

But it comes anyway, and it shocks her so much that she lets go of the folder and it crashes on the floor, paper flying everywhere.

"You're not the first Ivenhart to strike a deal with me, Alouette."

I hope you enjoyed this chapter x
Miki