Chapter 27 Zaria
ZARIA
Zaria once again found herself with Jules, Kane, and Fletcher in her bedroom. This time it wasn’t at all uncomfortable, though that likely had to do with the letter she currently held in shaking fingers.
“I don’t understand,” she said again. Jules, who had been reading over her shoulder, put a hand on her arm, but Zaria scarcely felt it. She stumbled, thrusting the letter back at Kane as if being further away from the words would make them less true. They couldn’t be true.
They know Itzal Mendoza was successful in creating a primateria source, and that he subsequently attempted to get rid of it.
Nobody said a word, and Zaria shook her head, feeling entirely unmoored. “Cecile must have made a mistake, or else was lying to Ward. My father never created a primateria source. He was only trying to find one, and he was never successful.”
As she spoke, however, she thought back to the day Itzal destroyed his work.
The frenzied voracity with which he’d shredded the parchment and tossed it into the fire, muttering curses to himself.
How he’d refused to answer a single one of her questions about the whole affair.
The way he’d seemed almost paranoid in the days following, always glancing toward the door as if expecting someone dangerous to materialize on the threshold.
Zaria hadn’t been able to understand it.
She’d put it down to his illness, which became increasingly serious in the days following.
He was losing control of his faculties—that was all.
Such a thing wasn’t unheard of when it came to alchemologists.
Now, though, she wondered. Flipped through each of her memories with a changed perspective.
Strange, really, that her father had gone from being so single-minded in his pursuit of a primateria source to abruptly destroying his research.
Confounding, the way he’d barred her from his workshop for hours at a time, despite claiming he wanted her to know everything there was to know about alchemology.
It had happened so fast: his change of heart, his odd behavior, his swift decline in health.
“Oh my God.” Zaria put a hand to the collar of her dress and yanked it away from her warm skin. She needed to breathe. She needed more room to think. She sidestepped Jules, ignoring his murmured questions, and sank onto the bed. “My father created a primateria source. He did it, and it killed him.”
“There’s no solid proof of that,” Jules said, but Zaria shook her head again. The pieces were beginning to fit together.
“I thought he was going mad,” she whispered, “but he must have realized what he’d done. That he would become a target.”
“Or maybe he realized it was too much power for any alchemologist to wield,” suggested Kane.
Zaria’s attention snapped to him; he appeared drained.
Unwell. There was a faraway look in his hazel eyes, and his shoulders were stiff.
He had to be in pain—on top of the incisions she’d made in his torso, an alchemological dart left a person uncomfortable until the chemicals exited their system.
Zaria returned her gaze to the letter and read the second half. “Oh.” The word came out of her in a whoosh as she glanced back up. “Kane—”
“Don’t,” he said sharply. “It doesn’t matter. That part isn’t relevant.”
“Isn’t relevant?”
Fletcher shot her a pointed look that urged caution, and Zaria let the subject drop. Kane almost never spoke of his parents, but it was clear from the way he held himself that he hadn’t known about their so-called betrayal.
“Okay,” said Jules, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen.
“So we know Cecile was still working for Ward. We also know the Scriniarii has—or had—a plan. One that involved the Magnum Opus. Call me a fool, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume the Curator is connected to the Scriniarii somehow.
Maybe he’s a member. Or a former one, at least.”
Zaria released the collar of her dress with an exhale. “If my father did create a primateria source, it means he was successful in re-creating the Magnum Opus. If the Scriniarii knew about this, then maybe they were the ones trying to find it.”
“And they did,” Kane said dryly. “If they’re still active, and the Curator is a member, then they have what they wanted. If we’re right about the Curator having a primateria source.”
Fletcher cracked his knuckles. “We’re relying on a lot of hypotheticals here.”
“Louisa said the Scriniarii’s goal was to make alchemology accessible to everyone,” Zaria murmured, mostly to herself. “If they could get their hands on a primateria source, they…” She trailed off as her brain began outpacing her mouth. Her limbs went numb. “Holy shit. Bring me a piece of paper.”
Jules snatched a stack of parchment from her desk, handing it to her alongside a pen. There was a deep furrow between his brows. “What’s wrong?”
Zaria didn’t reply. She was trying to hold too many thoughts in place, and feared that if she became distracted for even a heartbeat, they would all dissipate. Hands sweaty and heart pounding, she sketched out a rough map of the Crystal Palace.
“Is that supposed to be the Exhibition?” Kane demanded, recognizing the cross shape.
She shushed him. “You’d say the first device was about here, correct?”
He squinted at the tiny dot beside the square she’d labeled India. “Looks about right. Fletch?”
Fletcher leaned close, nodding.
“Okay,” Zaria said. “And the second device was on the other side of the corridor.” She made a second mark before holding the pen out to Kane. “The third one was in China, right?”
He took it, sliding the piece of paper closer to him. “Yeah. I’d put it right here.” He made a third and final mark before handing both items back to Zaria.
“There’s going to be one more device,” she whispered. “It’ll show up in Egypt’s display.”
Kane’s frown was dubious. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Look.” Zaria turned the paper clockwise about forty-five degrees. With a light hand, she drew a fourth dot in the place she’d indicated, then connected them to form a diamond shape. Finally, breaths shallow, she drew a circle in the middle and connected that, too.
The room was silent once more as Kane, Jules, and Fletcher studied the image. It was Kane who spoke first.
“That’s the symbol for the Magnum Opus.” The words were edged in disbelief.
“Each device sits at one of the four points. But what’s the circle in the middle supposed to be?
There’s nothing where the two aisles intersect other than—” He cut off, comprehension alighting his face.
“Christ. That’s where the crystal fountain is. ”
Zaria nodded. “The fountain has three tiers. I think that’s why the symbol on the business card—the symbol we found on Cecile’s wall—was depicted with three circles instead of just one.”
Fletcher let out a low whistle, but Jules lifted a hand. “Hold on a second. Are you saying someone is turning the Exhibition into a site where they’ll try to re-create the alchemological Magnum Opus? Why? That’s, like, the least subtle location they could have chosen.”
“If the Curator is a member of the Scriniarii—and a member of the commission, as we initially thought—then maybe the location was chosen simply to cause a scene,” Fletcher suggested. “To disturb the energy of the event, so to speak.”
“The energy,” Zaria repeated softly to herself, then gasped. “Fletcher, you’re a genius.”
“That’s demonstrably not true.”
She ignored him. Her mind was racing faster than ever. “Kane, you said Price spoke to an alchemologist who thought the devices were harnessing something. He was right—they’re harnessing energy.”
Three dumbfounded gazes met hers.
Jules cleared his throat. “Is that even possible?”
“In theory, yes. If the story about Hohenheim is true, and if I’m right about my father, then both of them died as a result of the energy required to create a primateria source.
They couldn’t survive giving up that much of their life force.
But what if you didn’t want to use your own energy?
What if you were okay with taking it from others?
And what if you happened to live in a city where the biggest event in the world drew thousands upon thousands of people each day, all of them packed into the same building? ”
“Then as long as you had a way to harness it,” Jules said in a hushed tone, “you’d never be wanting for energy. But why would anybody need that much to create one primateria source?”
Kane had pressed his lips together, a muscle feathering in the side of his neck as he said what Zaria was thinking.
“Because they don’t want to create just one.
The Scriniarii’s goal was to make magic accessible, right?
Create enough primateria sources, and suddenly it becomes far easier to make that happen.
Suddenly, any alchemologist can create without limits. ”
“It would be easier to learn,” Zaria put in.
“Easier to teach people. If Vaughan is involved, though, I don’t think they’re planning to do anything good with it.
” Horror coursed through her at the thought.
Alchemology was her life, but she had seen firsthand how dangerous it could be.
What kinds of weapons it could create. “Maybe they intend to revolutionize the dark market somehow. That’s what Vaughan wants most, right? To be kingpin of the dark market?”
“How long do you think we have until the fourth device appears?” Jules asked, swaying anxiously in place. “The time between each one seems to be getting shorter.”
“I don’t know. It can’t be long now, though.
The devices keep growing brighter, so they’ve already started working.
” It made Zaria uneasy, remembering how close she’d been to that glowing light.
With enough patrons in the vicinity, nobody was likely to notice their energy being siphoned, but the sheer idea of it was so… violating.