Chapter 6 Zaria
ZARIA
What the hell do you mean, Vaughan knows where my mother is?”
Zaria couldn’t quite wrap her head around Pritchard’s assertion.
Even saying the word mother felt strange—she so rarely used it in association with herself.
Mothers were things that regular people had and she did not.
Her mother was nothing more than a story.
A short tale of a woman who’d delivered her, freshly born and squalling, to Itzal Mendoza after leaving him for another man.
Pritchard’s thin smile was knowing. “I really don’t know how I could’ve been more clear.”
“Then why should I care?” Zaria said fiercely, fighting to keep her voice even. “My mother left me. She didn’t want me—never once attempted to make contact. What good would knowing her location do me?”
Pritchard lifted a hand, urging silence. “Calm yourself, Miss Mendoza. Angry though you may be, it is normal for a child to yearn for their family. I cannot imagine you are any different.”
“I’m not a child,” she shot back, but an ache had risen within her, scratching beneath the surface of her skin.
“Perhaps not any longer. But that yearning tends to persist until it’s fulfilled. You start to look for it in other places.”
Despite herself, Zaria thought of Cecile.
The way she’d been desperate to find the woman after years of being apart, not only for information but for comfort.
The feeling of knowing there was at least one adult in her life who cared for her.
She was so accustomed to protecting herself, she sometimes forgot what it was to have someone like that.
She saw it with Jules and his father, but her own had never done a particularly good job.
She remembered, in the crypt beneath St. John’s church, that fleeting moment of optimism. For the span of a single conversation, she’d been so sure things were about to change. That she would have Cecile to rely on once again. The prospect had eased something in her chest.
And then, almost as quickly as she’d reappeared in Zaria’s life, the woman was gone again. For good this time.
“See?” Pritchard said, and she became aware that he was scrutinizing her closely.
His voice was softer than usual, almost like he was trying to imitate sympathy.
She didn’t trust it for a second. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?
Believe me, I understand. My own mother died in childbirth, and my father was a wealthy Welshman who never spared me a kind word.
I relied more on the staff, on my tutors, than I ever did on either of them. ”
Zaria blinked. Was he attempting to relate to her? If so, he’d lost her at the mention of staff. He’d grown up rich with a mother who hadn’t wanted to leave him. Their situations were not remotely alike. “Why does Vaughan know about my mother at all? What does she matter to him?”
Pritchard’s smile thinned further, now more hesitant than wry. “Isn’t it obvious, Miss Mendoza? She’s in his employ.”
“What?” It hadn’t been obvious to Zaria.
The possibility had never even crossed her mind.
The version of her mother that existed in her imagination was a woman of status.
Someone’s well-to-do wife who’d decided to pretend her relationship with a dark market alchemologist had never happened.
The idea that she might be working for a kingpin, that she might be involved with criminals, sent Zaria’s worldview careening off its axis.
When she had recollected herself she asked, “What does my mother do for Vaughan? Is she here, then, in Seven Dials?”
“She does whatever is required of her,” Pritchard replied shortly.
“What does that mean?” Zaria pressed, her frustration warring with a desperate need for more information. She didn’t miss that he’d ignored the second question. Surely if her mother had been nearby all along, Zaria would have known somehow.
Unless she didn’t want you to know, a snide voice in the back of her mind pointed out.
Pritchard shook his head, sitting up straight and adjusting his lapels.
When he spoke, his voice retained its brisk quality.
“It’s not my place to say any more. I’m simply here to outline the terms of the deal.
You bring Vaughan the ledger, he tells you where to find your mother.
You refuse, you learn nothing. And, of course, you’ll find yourself in prison. ”
Zaria stiffened, exhaling through her nose. “That’s not much of a choice at all.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t.”
“How can I be sure you’re not lying? For all I know, my mother could be long dead.”
“You can’t,” Pritchard said. “But consider this: Vaughan has no reason to offer you anything in return. Knowing what he knows, threats should have more than sufficed, but he believes in offering incentives.” Pritchard’s tone suggested he didn’t necessarily share that belief.
“If I wasn’t telling the truth, why would I mention your mother at all? ”
That was a valid point, Zaria conceded. “So Vaughan thinks he can win me over with this, does he?”
“Threats proved not to be enough last time. You still attempted to leave London, did you not? Vaughan can tell you’re not easily cowed, Miss Mendoza.
You’re driven by desire more than you are fear.
So he’s presenting you with something he believes you desire.
” Pritchard paused. “That, and he wants to be the type of kingpin who builds relationships. Who develops allies. If you can help each other, isn’t that the best way to do business? ”
Zaria didn’t particularly care what Vaughan wanted. What she did care about was information. It almost didn’t matter if Vaughan was lying about her mother—now that the possibility had been raised, Zaria needed to learn the truth. She was trapped, and Pritchard knew it.
“I’ll do what I can,” she said. Though she made her voice firm, she felt little confidence. All she wanted at this point was to be free of Pritchard’s smug face. “But I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to get anywhere near Kane.”
Pritchard stood. It was as good a dismissal as any. “See to it that you try. Let’s say we meet here again in, oh, a week’s time? You know what’s at stake.” A falsely polite clearing of this throat. “I do hope the rest of your evening is pleasant, Miss Mendoza.”
Without giving her time to answer, he donned his coat in a flourish and swept over to the exit.
Zaria was so preoccupied, she barely registered the walk back to Mirko’s—an inadvisable way of crossing the city late at night when you were a young woman. Pritchard had given her much to think about, but one part of the conversation rang more clearly in her mind than the rest.
It is normal for a child to yearn for their family. I cannot imagine you are any different.
Zaria had been conditioned not to need anyone.
She’d long ago decided that neither of her parents deserved forgiveness.
But though she resented it, Pritchard was right: She did yearn.
She was driven by desire. If the only way to find her mother was to force her way back into Kane’s life, then Zaria would do it.
Not because she possessed any childish ideals about family but because she had questions eighteen years in the making.
They’d lain dormant for longer than she could recall, but Pritchard’s words had brought them all bubbling to the surface, and now they refused to be pushed back down.
The last thing Zaria wanted was to be trapped in a power struggle between two murderous kingpins—and Jules would certainly try to talk her out of it—but what other choice was there? Revelations about her mother aside, it was the best chance she had of keeping them both safe.
Her chest seemed to tighten as she rounded the corner onto Mirko’s street, drawing up to his now-familiar house. She could tell even before entering it that something was wrong.
For one, light was visible through the window, though by now everyone ought to have been asleep.
George and Mirko rose with the dawn and were adamant that all candles be extinguished by ten o’clock.
If the older men and Jules were still awake at this hour, Zaria ought to have been able to hear them as she approached the door, but only silence met her ears.
Maybe it was her imagination, but she could almost feel tension emanating from within.
Her heart hammered frantically in the back of her throat.
The most likely explanation was that something had happened to George, and she desperately hoped that wasn’t the case.
If his father’s illness had worsened, the stress on Jules would be immense, especially after everything that had happened tonight.
Steeling herself with a deep breath, Zaria heaved the door open.
At first, she was merely confused. George and Mirko sat at the small table in silence, a candle burning down to a nub between them.
Neither reacted to her arrival; George was staring at the wall as if seeing something else entirely, while Mirko looked on with a helpless expression.
It was the latter who acknowledged Zaria first.
“You’re back late. It’s dangerous for a young woman to be out alone at such an hour.” Being a man of few words, it was one of the longest sentences Mirko had ever spoken to her. She might have taken his words as a general statement, but there was an air of genuine fear around the man.
“You’re up late,” Zaria returned, eyes narrowed. Foreboding continued its cold path down her back. “Where’s Jules?”
Mirko ventured a sidelong glance at George, evidently not wanting to answer. The sensation of foreboding morphed into nausea.
“Where is he, Mirko?”
Finally, George lifted his gaze. It was empty in a way Zaria had never seen before, and it sent panic surging through her veins, making her lightheaded. “He’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“The new kingpin took him.”
Her voice sounded strangled. “I don’t understand.”