Chapter 23 Zaria
ZARIA
Zaria stared at the symbol painted on the wall of Cecile’s bedroom. It had obviously been done in haste: The white lines weren’t quite straight, and the paint had begun to drip before drying completely.
That wasn’t what made her stomach plummet, though. No—she was far more concerned with the familiarity of it. Not because it was the symbol for alchemology’s Magnum Opus, but because it wasn’t quite.
“Three circles,” she murmured, approaching the wall to touch the bull’s-eye shape, lingering on the chalky texture of the thickly applied paint. “Just like on the Curator’s business card.”
Kane hollowed his cheeks. “Why would Cecile have painted this here?”
“I don’t know.” The floor felt unsteady beneath her feet. Try as she might, Zaria couldn’t force it to make sense.
“Can we be certain it was Cecile?” Fletcher said. “I mean, unless she tore her own apartment apart, someone else has been here recently. Maybe whoever it was drew the symbol.”
The prospect gave Zaria a moment of relief, but Kane was already shaking his head.
“Whoever searched the place was in a rush,” he pointed out. “They weren’t worried about leaving a mess. If they’d done this, the supplies would have been left out, but I don’t see paint or brushes anywhere.”
“That’s true,” Fletcher admitted.
“What’s more, it isn’t easy to mix paint. You need to have the right components.”
“Linseed oil, turpentine, and pigment,” Zaria supplied, remembering the times she’d watched her father do just that.
“Right. It’s not something you take the time to mix when you’re ransacking a place. I think we can assume Cecile painted this herself. But why? Who was meant to see it?” Kane paused, gripping the back of his neck. “And how was she connected to the Curator?”
Zaria didn’t have an answer to that. The lump that had tightened her throat upon arriving here was back. Not only had Cecile been a walkable distance from the pawnshop for several silent years, but this was more proof Zaria hadn’t understood the woman as well as she’d thought.
“We need to keep searching her documents,” Kane said when no one offered a reply. “There must be something useful around here.”
With that, he and Fletcher made their way back to the sitting room.
Zaria remained in the bedroom, trying and failing to imagine Cecile occupying the space.
Nothing about it struck her as specifically Cecile.
The walls were devoid of any art or ornamentation, save of course the painted white symbol.
On the floor was a simple rug in a faded floral pattern.
The bed was a mess, the mattress shifted slightly off the frame on a diagonal, the sheets untucked as if someone had attempted to look beneath them.
Zaria sank onto the mattress as she picked up yet another stack of parchment, her gaze refusing to focus on the text. She felt disconnected from reality. Hollow in a way that scraped at her insides.
Why? she wanted to ask the room at large. Why did it have to be like this?
But she couldn’t bring herself to speak aloud. What good would it do? Cecile was dead, and whatever reasons she’d had for staying away from Zaria all these years had died with her.
The documents continued to provide little illumination, even those written in Cecile’s own hand.
Several referred to primateria in passing, which had Zaria’s heart lurching into her throat, but none mentioned the Curator, the Magnum Opus, or anything to explain what the woman had gotten wrapped up in.
Once, Kane called her into the sitting room to examine an excerpt from one of Cecile’s notebooks—he had a difficult time deciphering handwriting—but Zaria’s hope faded when it turned out to be nothing more than the procedure for activating aleuite.
An hour or so later, she picked up what appeared to be a folded piece of correspondence.
She’d managed to procure a candle from one of the cabinets in Cecile’s small kitchen, and she sat hunched on the floor beside the lambent flame, squinting at words that grew progressively more difficult to see.
Strangely, it appeared the letter had been written by Cecile herself, which could only mean she’d never delivered it.
It wasn’t formal by any stretch of the imagination.
Alexander, the letter began. I know you’re not particularly happy with me, so I’ll make this brief.
Whatever your plan is, it’s too late. The Scriniarii have already gotten it.
I don’t think it will take long for AV to figure out what she needs.
She’s smarter than I ever was. When that happens, I can guess at her next move.
I don’t want to explain in writing, but I will say this: Once I tell you my suspicions, you’ll want to break the promise you made.
A single word had been scrawled at the bottom of the page in lieu of a signature: Don’t.
Zaria read the letter again, then a third time.
Some foolish part of her hoped repetition might ignite a spark of understanding, but eventually she had to admit she couldn’t make head or tail of it.
Alexander must be referring to Ward, but Zaria couldn’t fathom why Cecile would have been writing to him.
Based on what she’d told Zaria, she’d left the kingpin’s employ the day she saw him destroy Kane’s family.
Furthermore, what connection did Cecile have to the Scriniarii, and who was AV?
Zaria’s immediate thought was of Vaughan, but the letter seemed to describe a woman.
What was AV planning to do, and what promise had been made?
Finally, since Cecile had obviously thought this information of great importance: Why hadn’t she ever sent it?
“I think I found something.” Zaria walked leadenly into the sitting room, her mind still spinning. Kane was sprawled on the ruined couch as if he hadn’t a care in the world, one of his legs slung over the arm. Fletcher sat on the floor nearby, knees drawn up to his chest.
“Show me,” Kane replied, rising to meet her. Zaria shoved the letter at him with enough force that the paper crinkled. He unfolded it, staring balefully at her before dipping his head to read. She watched his eyes flick back and forth.
“What does it say?” asked Fletcher.
Kane read it aloud. When he’d finished, he flipped the letter over just as Zaria had done. “It’s not signed.”
“It’s Cecile’s handwriting,” Zaria said. “She never sent it.”
“Strange. I wonder when it was written.”
“It must have been recent. Why would Cecile keep it otherwise? She probably just didn’t have the chance to throw it away before…” Before she was murdered were the words Zaria couldn’t bring herself to say.
“If this was intended for Ward,” Fletcher said, puncturing the silence, “it could be an old letter. Cecile might have brought it with her when she left.”
Kane made a face. “Why would she do that?”
“Cecile did say Ward was still sending her money,” Zaria said, abruptly recalling their conversation in the church.
“He was paying her to keep her mouth shut about… certain things.” Specifically Kane’s parents’ murder, which Zaria wasn’t about to bring up.
“She said it was because Ward liked having power over her more than he wanted to kill her, but what if that wasn’t the whole truth? ”
“It seems unlikely,” Kane mused, “but I’ll look through Ward’s things again when we return. Maybe he saved some of their correspondence as well. Personally, I’m more interested in who the letter is about. It’s a rather strange coincidence that Cecile mentions the Scriniarii. Was she one of them?”
Zaria gave a heavy shrug. “Not as far as I knew. But again, that doesn’t mean much.”
“Forget the Scriniarii,” Fletcher said. “Whoever AV is, it sounds like she’s planning to do something bad.”
“It could have already happened, though,” Zaria pointed out, not sure if that eventuality was better or worse.
Kane no longer appeared to be listening—he was occupied with checking the time. The next moment, he leapt to his feet. “It’s time we headed to the meeting location.”
Zaria shoved the letter into her pocket. Apprehension gripped her—not merely because of what she was about to do, but because of Kane’s demeanor. She had expected to see that familiar feral glint of excitement in his gaze. Instead, however, he seemed oddly agitated. Almost… afraid?
Fletcher had noticed it, too, his face contorting in a frown that Kane didn’t register.
“Are you sure about this?” Kane asked Zaria, his voice urgent.
She lifted her chin. “It was my idea.”
“I’m well aware. But you’ll be waiting there by yourself, remember.”
“It’s a little late to decide you don’t trust me with this, Kane.”
The slight curve of his mouth was rueful. “That’s not what bothers me,” he said. “That’s not it at all.”
Zaria waited at a crossroads, her heart in her throat.
She knew Kane and Fletcher were watching from around the corner, but executing this plan, she realized now, was a lot different from conceptualizing it.
She felt as though anyone in the vicinity might be able to hear her thunderous pulse.
She did her best to push the trepidation away; she might be the bait, but this was her trap.
Why, then, did she feel as if she were walking into one?
She pulled on the fraying sleeve of her coat, then reminded herself—again—not to fidget.
Despite everything, leaving Cecile’s had been harder than Zaria would’ve anticipated.
Now that she knew where the woman had lived, she couldn’t stop thinking about the destroyed rooms and the profound sense of emptiness within each one.
It hurt more, somehow, knowing the apartment now stood desecrated and vacant.
As if Cecile hadn’t mattered and was already forgotten.