Baker Thief

by Claudie Arseneault

  “So what’s your plan?” Élise asked. “Rush in on the off chance your second informant isn’t already dead?”

  “No.” Koyani tapped the table repeatedly with her index fingers. She had leaned back, her gaze unfocusing as she considered their options. “Élise, get us reinforcements. I’ll head to the lab with Adèle and Sprinkle Paddlefish here to scout out the area. I’ll ask Yuri to stay in the office in case the rest of the team returns.”

  “Capitaine—”

  “Those are orders, Élise.” Her tone brooked no disagreement. Élise clenched her jaw, muttered a “yes, capitaine,” then strode out of the room. She didn’t slam the door this time, but Adèle had the distinct impression she would have loved to. Koyani stared after her, unimpressed, and sighed. “I’ll get motorcycles ready. Adèle, take a moment to gather yourself. Adrenaline can only carry you so far and you’ve been shot not even two days ago.”

  Koyani exited, and Adèle couldn’t help but feel she’d meant to leave them alone and offer them time to speak more with one another. Perhaps she suspected who this second informant was, although she gave no clue what she thought of it. Perhaps it didn’t matter as long as Claire’s life could be on the line. After that, however…

  “You realize I might have to arrest her,” Adèle said.

  Zita startled. “What? You can’t do that. She trusts you.”

  The words stabbed at Adèle. She didn’t want to betray that, especially knowing how little she’d done to earn it, but it wasn’t so simple. “So does my boss. How can I explain to Koyani that this informant we’re rescuing is none other than the thief I’m supposed to track down?”

  “She doesn’t need to know!” Zita threw her arms up with way more flair than necessary. “Destroy your hierarchy! Rebel and keep a secret, for once!”

  Adèle snorted, amused despite her best efforts to remain serious. Something about the tiny woman’s flair for the dramatic managed to ease her worries and make her smile. Judging from Zita’s pout, it was entirely unintentional. Adèle shook her head. “I’ll do my best, I swear. Let’s start by making sure she’s safe.”

  And alive, of which they had no guarantee. Adèle preferred not to acknowledge how large a hole the thought of Claire’s death cut into her. She had glimpsed a different person the other day, one who had always existed but whom Adèle had willfully ignored. She wished she could make up for it and help instead of hinder her, but she might never have the chance.

  -21-

  UN PEU DE CLÉMENCE

  Blinding lights greeted Claire when she came to. Her mind had turned into a thick fog through which only throbbing pain emerged. She could feel it radiate from the base of her skull, where Clémence had smashed it to the floor twice. Fabric stuck in the wound, and she realized belatedly she was still wearing her mask. Unexpected, that, though if Clémence already knew who she was, ol may not have bothered. As her consciousness slowly spread from her agonizing head to the rest of her battered body, Claire found a lot more to worry about.

  Cold metal dug into her wrists and ankles. She’d been tied to an inclined table, and when she squirmed, a tube brushed her arm. Panic jolted through her—were they draining her magic? Experimenting on her already? She flexed her muscles and a needle pinched through her skin. Claire struggled against the bonds, her breath shortening, bullets of sweat rolling down her neck. Her magic wouldn’t obey, locked away, denying her the super strength she sorely needed. If only she could see beyond that light!

  “Hey!”

  Her voice bounced on a nearby wall, all around her. Glass, she recognized, and it surrounded her. Claire knew what it meant, even as her mind fought to refuse it. The hot air turned stuffier and more difficult to breathe in.

  They had put her in a tank and hooked her into the factory.

  “Clémence!”

  Despair and anger had ripped the scream from her, and Claire startled when the blinding light vanished. She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the sudden darkness. Scratches marred the glass casing around her, but she could make out the shapes on the other side. Clémence stood before her, ols lips pinched in a thoughtful expression. As if ol was studying a specimen.

  “Relax,” ol said. “It’s for show.”

  “Relax? For show?” Claire choked on the words. She should retort with something wittier, but the shock stole her meagre sass. It left only anger behind. “There’s a needle up my arm, and I’m in this… this human capsule! You can shove ‘relax’ deep up your ass.”

  Woah. Bad words. Even plugged into their factory, horror and outrage and fear coiling inside, it had felt wrong. The saints were listening! Claire grimaced. Livia had always been more adept at vulgarities.

  “It’s not running,” Clémence explained. “You have friends who will come, yes?”

  Claire stared at Clémence. Did ol think she would answer that? “I’m bait, is what you’re saying.”

  “Yes, except it’s not a trap, and there would have been no need if you had listened silently without getting caught. You’re not a very good thief, are you?”

  “I’m—”

  “A baker, yes.” Clémence interrupted with a dismissive wave. “The one with the cutesy pun name. ‘Believe in yourself’. I wish it were that easy.”

  Claire froze, staring hard through the scratched glass at Clémence. Ols expression gave nothing away. How long had ol known about the Croissant-toi? Was ol mocking her or was the casual dropping of her identity a threat? Why would Clémence even waste time with that when ol had her trapped in a tank? Once again, Claire tried to work out the inconsistency, but it felt like the tank was closing in on her, stifling her breathing and chilling her bones. Her head pounded, refusing to think through everything in composed, logical steps. She needed time and calm to figure out what game Clémence was playing—because ol certainly was, one way or another—but how could she stall?

  “No one pretended it was simple,” she countered. “That’s why it’s the bakery’s name, so that the reminders are all around me. Every day as I work, I see the message and remember that I am who I say, when I say it. Even when it feels like my business will run into the ground, or like my mind can’t decide what it wants, or like I should be loving people, with a capital L. Even when I’m tied to an experimentation table giving life lessons to the very person trying to turn my sister into an exocore!”

  She pulled against the straps, on impulse, knowing full well that without her magic it would get her nowhere. Clémence remained stiff and silent, like a parent waiting for a child to calm down.

  “We won’t be transforming Livia,” ol said. “She’ll power the Pont des Lumières. The tower contains a secret chamber, behind the glasswork hall. Three witches will be wired into the electric circuit to lend their magic strength to the hundreds of lights across the Pont. I’ve capped how much energy I can transfer into gems and the process is too long, so we need to use these three directly.”

  Claire leaned her head back against the table, nauseated. She had not wanted to know the details. “Don’t discuss them like they’re nothing but measurable energy. They’re people, and you’re dragging their souls into gems and light bulbs. It’s disgusting.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Clémence’s tone hovered between bemusement and regret. As if ol was contemplating this from a distance, debating the ethics of what someone else had done, applying logic to a situation which should grip ols gut and twist it. “Emmanuelle’s solution would have been more elegant, but we’ve wasted years without achieving promising results. So they… wanted me to find another way. I shouldn’t have.”

  “No kidding.” Claire’s fear had receded. If Clémence had wanted her dead, the deed would be long done, and ol wouldn’t have told her about the Pont des Lumières or Livia’s location, or any of their plans. Which meant ol needed Claire alive, and she could afford to speak her mind and rough ol up. Ol sure deserved it. “You better not be expecting some late mercy or compassion from me. I’ve been collecting imprisoned souls and di
gging at your organization too long to have a shred of it left.”

  “You’ve been digging like I want you to.” Clémence leaned closer to the tank until ol could meet Claire’s gaze through the scratched glass. “I’m trapped here, but you… When you made the front page, I knew the city’s eyes would follow your story. I knew I would need to trigger something dramatic to confirm Nsia Kouna’s claims about Montrant Industries—how could they not investigate if a police officer died in one of their warehouses and a dozen witches were found beside her? You almost ruined it by showing up.”

  “I’m almost sorry I saved all these people, wow.” Claire squirmed against her bindings again, if only to pass her frustration. She hated this tank.

  “At least you came with Zita. Did you think I never noticed her following me? She’s not exactly the queen of discretion. I led her here, gave her ample time to snoop around then leave to spread the word.”

  “So, what’s the point of reviewing your entire plan?” Between the sharp pain at the base of her skull and the discomfort of a needle in her arm, Claire was out of patience, especially for a long explanation of Clémence’s actions. She didn’t care why and how. “Let’s not waste time reenacting the worst villain tropes. Just get to the point. The needle, tank, and table are cheesy enough already, and we both know you want something.”

  For the first time, Clémence lost control of olself. Ol slammed a palm against the tank’s glass and stalked away. “I’m not—This isn’t a game! I can’t—” Clémence stopped as ol reached a console of sorts, placed a hand on it, and inhaled deeply. “Zita will know where you are, and people will find this lab. Then you can interrupt the Pont’s grand opening. And maybe while you’re wrecking havoc…”

  Ol’s voice trailed off, anguish snipping the rest of the words. Clémence clung to the console, ols broad shoulders hunching forward, and, despite Claire’s determination to have neither mercy nor compassion, a twinge of both twisted her heart. Ol was Zita’s friend, or had been, and Montrant Industries had done something to ol. Reluctantly, more because Zita would want to understand than for herself, Claire asked.

  “Okay, so what do they have on you?”

  “A little brother.”

  “Oh.”

  Claire’s mind went straight to Livia and cold horror swept through her. Would she have worked against other witches if her twin’s life was on the line? She’d like to believe she’d know better—that she could force herself to prioritize hundreds of lives over a single person, but she’d pulled Adèle out of the fire instead of crates without a second thought. On impulse, perhaps, but was it that different?

  Clémence ran a hand over ols face with a sniffing sound, then tilted ols head back to inhale deeply. Was ol fighting tears? Claire gritted her teeth, trying to squash her growing sympathy. Hundreds of exocores, she reminded herself, to no avail.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “He’s dead the moment they realize I’m helping you. He turns five next month… if he’s lucky. We only have each other.”

  “Can’t Zita find him?”

  “Perhaps.” Clémence turned around and rubbed the back of ols neck. Ol wouldn’t even glance at Claire. “Zita alone would’ve gotten caught and killed, however. I couldn’t send her to her death like this. With help, though…” And now ol looked up, straight at Claire, and she couldn’t help but wonder how much of this was planned—how much of the guilt and fear had been acted out. Not all of it, surely, not when the prize was ols little brother’s life.

  “Zita will want to try. She likes you for some reason.”

  A brief smile shot across Clémence’s expression. “She would.”

  “So will I.” Not for free, however. And Claire suspected she could get more out of Clémence, and ruin Montrant Industries more thoroughly. “But only if you gather every scrap of proof you have of this happening—of the exocores and the people involved—no matter how anonymous or pointless they might seem, and you send them to Adèle.”

  “I can’t. Élise would know who they’re from. She heads Montrant’s operations in Val-de-mer.”

  Claire barely held back a “so what?” The name had rung a bell when she had listened in, but, when she hadn’t recognized the curly-haired woman, she had discarded her impression. Now, though… During how many morning conversations had Adèle talked about her wonderful colleagues and their teamwork? How they shared everything with one another? And about the police she shadowed for her first case—her investigation on Claire. “That was Élise Jefferson?”

  It cast half of the eavesdropped conversation in a new light. A dozen swearwords flew through Claire’s mind, but she kept them all in, apologizing to the saints even as she thought them. She trusted Adèle, but what if she showed her partner this information?

  “The journalist, then. Nsia Kouna? They’re onto you.”

  “Hm. They might live long enough to be useful.”

  Claire’s stomach twisted at the implications. How could anyone speak with such disinterest of others being murdered? Then again, Clémence had transformed hundreds of witches into exocores. What was one more person to ol?

  “Deal. You get Kouna what they need to dig the rest of your network out, and we’ll save your little brother.”

  Clémence stared at Claire for a long time, then agreed with a slight nod. “Gouverneure Lacroix will be at the bridge’s opening. She made sure no one would question the industry and ordered the investigation against you. Get her if you can.”

  “What about the mairesse? Did she know?” Claire couldn’t picture her parent’s old friend involved in this. She remembered family dinners with Denise Jalbert, or afternoons at the park when she babysat Livia and Claire. She’d ask Livia to cool her water when summer became too hot, as if the ice powers were no big deal. She’d let a younger Claire assault her with questions about aromanticism later on, helping her work her identity out. Claire needed to know for sure, however.

  “Not that I’m aware, but they don’t tell me everything.” Clémence stepped back from the tank again. “I have to go. You have all you need to finish what you started. Pray your rescue doesn’t take too long to come.”

  Ol tapped the glass once then moved to the console. Before Claire understood what ol meant to do, bright light filled the tank again, blinding her to the outside. She pushed down a pained cry of surprise and called after Clémence, only for her voice to bounce back on the tank’s wall. She snapped her eyes closed, anger roiling at the bottom of her stomach. The ties holding her to the table dug into her arms and ankles, her head still pounded, and her palms were slowly starting to throb from the burns. She tried to tell herself Zita was on her way, that at least now she knew exactly when and where to find Livia, that they would save her and everyone at once, but already pain was chipping away at her optimism. One thing was sure: she would indeed be praying for a quick rescue.

  -22-

  UN FEUILLETÉ DE COMPLICATIONS

  Adèle hit the brakes and almost jumped off her motorcycle, letting it crash as she advanced on the entrance. Beads of sweat ran down her neck, collecting in the collar of her uniform, and the machine’s constant rumbling had stirred the pain in her stomach again. Zita zoomed past her, stopping only when she reached the stairs leading up to the Centre de Recherche. She treated her motorbike with the same lack of delicacy Adèle had, and this time Koyani’s voice snapped them into order.

  “Everyone falls in line behind me,” she called. “And don’t let me catch you mistreating our property again. Motorcycles aren’t cheap.”

  Cheaper than Claire’s life, though. Adèle wanted to argue that every minute counted—Claire had proven that by barrelling into Clémence at the last possible moment, in the warehouse. Adèle reined in the temptation and waited for Koyani to stride past them, using the chance to cough out some of the mucus clogging her airways. Again she wished she had vivifiants to ease her breathing. The lack of fresh air didn’t help her stay calm, and rushing could also prompt fatal mistakes.
She couldn’t let panic grab a hold of her. Though the crushing sense of urgency threatened to obliterate rational and methodical approaches, she’d promised Zita her best.

  Koyani shoved the front doors open, and the guard at the entrance desk leaped to his feet. The protest died on his lips at the sight of the uniforms, and he fumbled his way to a calmer question. “Can I help?”

  “We’re going into the basement,” Zita declared, and then she proceeded to ignore him and turned to the left.

  “The elevator’s broken!”

  “If it’s broken, then I’m the tallest lesbian in Val-de-mer!” Her voice echoed down the corridor, and they hurried after her. Zita needed a few turns before she reached the infamous elevator—an old apparatus blocked by a metal mesh and clearly marked as out of order. She pulled the lever beside it and the noisy clank of a mechanism dragging the cabin upward answered her. Zita turned to them, hands on her hips, a triumphant grin illuminating her face. It creaked to a stop behind the fence, and she spread her arms in victory. “Today is not the day I rise above five-foot-tall, I’m afraid.”

  “Was there no subtler entrance?” Koyani asked.

  “You wanted one? I thought your types always barged in through the front door, yelling.”

  Adèle choked, suppressing her urge to laugh. “We try to cover all exits. So that would be ‘barge in from everywhere, yelling’.”

  Koyani’s gaze went from one to the other, and Adèle couldn’t tell if she was holding back a smile or a sigh. With the calm of someone used to schooling their emotion and expression, Koyani strode into the elevator. “Let’s move. Stay sharp; this is no game. If anyone’s waiting for us, they know we’re coming. Paddlefish, I cannot guarantee your safety. You should—”

  “I am not staying upstairs,” Zita interrupted. “I’m tired of everyone wanting to leave me behind! Let me help. Please.”

  Koyani huffed, then motioned for everyone to join her without another word of protest. Zita grinned as she shuffled inside, but Adèle clenched her revolver, tense.