Chapter 8

The microphone screeched, a sound like a knife dragged across glass. I was on my feet before I knew what I was doing, the weight of the folded picture in my pocket burning against my thigh.

"Excuse me." My voice cracked through the hall's stunned silence. Two hundred heads turned. Élise, sitting three rows ahead, went rigid. Camille's perfectly painted mouth fell open.

Thầy Dubois lowered the paper in his hand. "Nathan, we are in the middle of—"

"I know who framed Élise Moreau."

The words hung in the air, heavy as smoke. I pulled out the photograph—the one where the timestamp had been clumsily altered—and held it up. Then I pressed play on my phone.

Camille's voice, tinny and unmistakable: *"Just change the time stamp. The headmaster won't look twice. She's just a scholarship kid. No one will believe her."*

The room erupted. Whispers became shouts. Camille shot to her feet, her chair screeching backwards.

"Liar!" Her voice was shrill. "That's not me! You're just trying to—"

"It's your voice, Camille." My chest ached like I'd been punched. "I recorded you. Last night. I needed to hear it from you before I could face what I already knew."

Her face crumpled. For the first time, I saw the little girl who cried when our parents compared her to perfect cousins I never met. But I couldn't look away.

The headmaster's face was stone. "Nathan Lefèvre, you will explain yourself in my office. Now."

I looked at Élise. She was crying, but she was smiling too—the first real one I'd ever seen.

Was it worth losing my sister? My family's name? I still don't know.

But the truth finally had a voice.