Chapter 32 Zaria #2
All other emotion fled. In that moment, Zaria didn’t think she could have moved even if she’d been physically capable.
Anger froze her, the force of it tensing each one of her muscles.
She felt like a tempest yearning to wreak havoc.
If she’d had control of her arms, she would have channeled every ounce of effort into hitting Aurora as hard as she possibly could.
This was her mother. The woman who’d brought Zaria into the world only to immediately abandon her.
The woman who’d left Itzal without a word, leaving him a shell of his former self.
The woman who’d brought him a child he didn’t want because she didn’t want it, either.
Not once in eighteen years had she made an effort to contact her daughter or get to know her.
Not until now, when she’d chosen to introduce herself to Zaria by having her kidnapped.
“You’re sick,” Zaria said, her voice shaking with repressed fury.
“You got Pritchard to tell me that you worked for Vaughan. You knew I would’ve wanted to meet you, and you used it against me.
” Her eyes burned. “What the hell is wrong with you? Who does that? I could have gone my entire life without knowing you were still alive, and I would have been better for it. You’re not fit to be a mother. ”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Aurora rose from the sofa, something like frustration etching twin lines between her brows.
They had the same nose, Zaria noticed with a disturbed jolt.
The shape of their mouths, too, was similar.
“I didn’t want to be a mother. I didn’t then, and I don’t now.
I certainly didn’t want to be tied to Itzal Mendoza any longer.
So my new husband helped me get out of London long enough to conceal the pregnancy, then delivered you to your father.
It was best for everyone.” Aurora’s eyes turned shiny.
For a beat, Zaria wondered if she was experiencing a moment of regret despite her words, but then she added, “That was just how Gareth was. He didn’t care that I was pregnant with another man’s child.
He cared only for me, and he did whatever he could to make it work. ”
How silly that after years of accepting her mother didn’t love her, hearing it admitted aloud still felt like a knife through Zaria’s heart.
She didn’t want this horrible woman to love her, did she?
There was no world in which she would’ve wanted to cultivate a relationship with someone like Aurora.
So why did it feel as though someone had wrung the air from her lungs?
“How nice,” Zaria said acerbically, ignoring the ache in her chest. “What’s changed? Why do you suddenly need me now when you’ve never given a damn about me before?”
“Because at last I have everything I need,” Aurora said, “and you’re the final missing piece. I assume you know your father was successful in creating a primateria source?”
“Yes,” Zaria muttered, not adding that she’d only just found out this week.
“Well, after years and years of searching, I managed to get my hands on it.” Aurora’s lips curled up again, and Zaria vaguely wondered if she also looked that smug when she smiled.
“I suspect Itzal tried to destroy it but realized he was incapable of carrying out the process in reverse, or else couldn’t bring himself to do it.
So he pawned it, hoping it would change hands enough times to be impossible for me to find. ”
“He knew you wanted to find it?” Even then, her father had somehow known Aurora was still around.
“Oh, indeed. Making—or finding—a primateria source has been my goal since before you were born. Itzal should have known that getting rid of it wouldn’t be enough.
The source made it all the way to Ireland, where it was resold a final time to Waterhouse and Co.
Carmot is so easily mistaken for ruby, you see.
Of course, then Waterhouse went and set it in a necklace, which he in turn entered into the Great Exhibition. ”
Carmot, Zaria recalled, was the official name for the substance comprising a primateria source. “So you got Pritchard to take it,” she said dully. “He’s on the commission and would have had access to the displays ahead of time. He took the necklace and replaced it with a fake.”
“Indeed. Alexander Ward was onto me, you see. He wanted to get the necklace before I did, but he was always a few steps behind. Imagine my surprise when you got wrapped up in his schemes and stole the forgery!” Aurora’s blue eyes were alight with feverish amusement.
“I’d already been devising a plan to ensure you stayed in London until I had need of you, and you provided me with the perfect way.
Not to mention the opportunity to access—and then destroy—your kingpin friend in the process.
” She shrugged. “I suppose that didn’t quite work as I’d hoped, but c’est la vie, as dear Cecile used to say. ”
“Don’t talk about Cecile,” Zaria said through gritted teeth. “You didn’t even know her.”
“Oh, I knew Cecile Meurdrac very well. We ran in the same circles, so to speak.”
“Do you mean the Scriniarii?”
Aurora continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Of course, she was the one who betrayed me to Alexander Ward, despite claiming to have left his employ.”
“That’s why you sent someone to ransack her apartment” was Zaria’s fierce retort. “You wanted to make sure none of the evidence she uncovered about your plans remained.”
“Is that not reasonable? All we found, though, was that absurd painting. It makes one wonder if dear Cecile was losing her mind. Unfortunate—she was a talented alchemologist. But I can’t pretend to be surprised Ward had her killed in the end.”
That wasn’t exactly what had happened, although Zaria had no interest in recounting the story. “That’s why Vaughan and the Curator seemed to be connected,” she said instead. “They’re both you.”
Aurora feigned clapping, her palms never coming together.
“You really are a clever little thing. I suppose it only makes sense. I was worried, you know, when Evan said you’d gone to visit Louisa Hoffman.
I was in the early stages of trying to gain her allegiance.
” A theatrical sigh. “But then Evan went and killed her. She told him you’d come to her about primateria sources, and I suppose he panicked.
Very irritating, to say the least. He’s usually such a good boy. ”
Her mother spoke of Louisa’s death with the same detached tone Kane always used. As if the loss of life meant nothing to her. Was that why Zaria sometimes felt wrong, she wondered? Because this was the type of person she’d come from?
She swallowed with some effort. “I know what you’re doing. I know the devices at the Exhibition are set up in the arrangement of the Magnum Opus, and that you’re harnessing the energy of everyone who enters the building. Why? What do you need it for?”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Aurora said, her tone saccharine.
“Then at least tell me why you need me.”
“I need you to be your father’s daughter. You see, if I can’t have Itzal’s energy, yours will have to do.”
Now—now Zaria understood. “You’re planning to carry out the process of projection. You want to re-create the Magnum Opus, but instead of creating a new primateria source, you’re going to replicate an existing one.”
Everything in alchemology is inextricably connected to the creator’s own life force, she remembered telling Kane and Fletcher the day she explained the Magnum Opus to them. So I’m not sure projection is a real possibility unless you’re attempting to replicate something that you also created.
Aurora hadn’t created a primateria source, but Itzal had. Which meant Aurora couldn’t replicate it, but Itzal could. Except Itzal was dead.
Zaria was the next best thing.