Page 117 of The Deadliest Candidate

In a way, it worked out in her favour. With so few candidates remaining, Lautric would have a much smaller pool of candidates to wheedle help from or to spy on. Of all the finalists, he was the only one who would be incapable of besting Fern on the strength and merit of his academic work. In a way, with Lautric as a finalist, that only left Baudet and Essouadi for Fern to worry about.

“Fern.”

Fern had entered the Mage Tower to find Léo Lautric, as though summoned by the clamour of his name inher thought, standing in the atrium. His hands in his pockets, and he’d been gazing ruefully at the bust of one of Carthane’s great founders before looking up at Fern.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” he said.

His voice was a little sore, and the bandaging beneath his clothes went all the way up around his neck. Fern thought of the way he had protected her from Srivastav’s fire with his own body, the blade he had held at Srivastav’s throat, and she could not help but think of the time she had caught him looking at Srivastav’s notes.

She said, “Thank you,” and tried to go past him, but he stopped her by her wrist.

“That’s all?” he murmured. “You’re not going to congratulate me? It’s not been easy, Fern, getting this far.”

There was a lump in her throat when she thought of all the candidates who had failed to get to this point. Everyone who had died or been hurt or simply vanished. Everyone who had worked so hard, for so many years, and then harder still once they got to Carthane, all to no avail.

But nothim. Not the Lautric scion and his soft, deceitful smile.

“Congratulations, Mr Lautric, on making such good use of your name.”

She did not disguise the bleak displeasure in her tone. She had tried her best to be careful, to temper her distrust with professional courtesy. But too much had happened, and even if Lautric had saved her life, it did not change anything else he had done, or how little Fern believed he deserved to be a finalist.

Lautric’s reaction was muted. His smile was small and melancholy—was it not alwaysso?

“You don’t think I deserve to be here.”

You don’t, she thought, but she said, “I don’t think you’re here for the right reasons.”

He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly. “Then in that respect, if no other, you and I are of the same mind.”

Fern stepped forward, displeasure giving way to anger. “I came here to become Grand Archivist.”

“You came here, Fern, out of ambition.”

She bristled. “And what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing at all. You think I’m not here for the right reasons; I happen to think the same thing of you, that’s all.”

His words stung Fern more surely than if he had slashed at her face with a handful of nettles. Her entire being revolted, heat blistering underneath her skin, chest tight. She clenched her teeth and hesitated only for a fraction of a moment before sending out a retaliatory retort.

“Perhaps you would be in a position to judge me, Mr Lautric, had you notcheatedyour way through this candidacy.”

He did not deny it—a blow in itself—but nodded and said, “I did what I had to do to ensure we would both become finalists.”

Fern let out a burst of incredulous laughter from her too-tight chest. “You’re mad if you think you got me even a step further than I got myself.”

“I don’tthinkI helped you, Fern. IknowI did.” Lautric was very close, now, and Fern was no longer sure who had closed the space between them, him or her. All she knew was the limpid brown of his eyes, the slight crookof his lips as he spoke. “By saving you from Srivastav when I needed to, by interceding with Edmund and Emmeline when they were considering you as a threat to dispose of, by keeping your secret when the Sentinels hunted you for using a hermetic spell, by giving you Wild Magic when your own reserves were running low. And yes, I cheated too. I cheated when I put those symbols on your desk during the first assignment, and I would’ve cheated on the second and third assignments if I could have, because I needed to get to this point, and I needed you to do the same.”

For a moment, Fern could not even find enough air within her chest to breathe. When she finally spoke, she could muster only one whispered word.

“Why?”

Lautric reached up with his long fingers, cupping Fern’s chin so delicately his skin barely touched hers, and he spoke low and clear.

“Because, Fern, the truth you’re after, the truth you’ve been after all this time, is that Iamhere for the right reason. Iamwilling to do whatever it takes to achieve what I came here to do. And I am so much more than aname.”

His fingers dropped away from Fern’s face. He took her hand in his and pressed something cold in her palm. She looked down, and her heart lurched. Bone hilt inlaid with gold, a sun carved into the pommel, and a slim blade of refined steel.

Oscar’s dagger.

---