Chapter 33 Zaria
ZARIA
It was nightfall before the door to the parlor opened again.
Zaria didn’t know how many hours had passed. She’d spent them staring blankly at the tapestry on the wall opposite the sofa, the intricate stitches blurring before her eyes.
Her mother. Her mother was at the heart of everything.
Vaughan. The Curator. Zaria had never had any love for the woman who’d abandoned her at birth, but now she desperately wished their paths had never crossed at all.
Knowing someone didn’t love you and being forced to face it head-on were two vastly different things.
Aurora wasn’t a good person. She was quite possibly mad, and still Zaria didn’t understand what she was planning.
Whatever the plan was, though, it had worried Cecile enough to pen a letter to Ward.
Despite regaining some feeling in her legs, Zaria didn’t have enough control to stand, so she was forced to remain motionless as someone else entered the room. Her breath caught—she was anticipating her mother once more—but to her surprise, it was Maisie who appeared in her periphery.
“What do you want?” Zaria muttered, too tired and furious to care that the girl always had a gun in her possession.
Maisie rounded the sofa to stand before her. “I’m supposed to ensure you’re fit to travel.”
“Travel where?”
The other girl hesitated, eyeing the door, then released a breath. “The Crystal Palace.”
Zaria narrowed her gaze. “That’s not all you came to say, is it?”
One side of Maisie’s mouth twitched. She approached the sofa, dipping her chin as she lowered her voice. “No,” she admitted. “It’s not.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Zaria dryly.
“I know you probably don’t want to hear anything I have to say, and I don’t blame you. I’ve messed up. Made the wrong choices. Taken the wrong sides.”
Zaria only waited.
With a sigh, Maisie continued. “I’ve been working for Vaughan for a couple of months, but I hadn’t met him—her—until a few days ago.
I always reported back to Evan. He told me I’d been handpicked for the role, and that I’d be rewarded for it.
I believed him. I did whatever he asked.
And then, finally… I met her. Aurora. I learned what was really going on, and I was officially invited to join them. ”
“To join who, exactly?”
“The Scriniarii.”
That stopped Zaria’s thoughts in her tracks. Any resentment she held against Maisie evaporated, replaced with acute curiosity. “The Scriniarii? What do you know about them?”
“Aurora’s been trying to rebuild the group.
Or rather, a new version of it. I hadn’t even heard of the Scriniarii until they reached out, saying they’d been watching me and were impressed by my work.
At first I thought it was some kind of trick.
I was apprenticing with an alchemologist in South London, and didn’t think I was particularly skilled.
Apparently the Scriniarii thought otherwise.
So I left. Crossed the river and came here.
I was told that if I followed orders and did well, I’d be allowed to become a full member.
The rest of my life would be so much easier. ”
“But that’s not what happened, is it?”
Maisie gave a slow shake of her head. “I was so excited when I met Aurora. But then she told me her plan, and what she wants with you, and I realized I can’t support her.
She’s delusional. She thinks her grand plan will fix everything, and people like Evan—not to mention several other politicians—are all too happy to support her. ”
“What plan?” Zaria said sharply. “And why are you telling me this?”
“Because you can’t let her do what she’s planning to do.”
“Which is what?”
“The Scriniarii’s original goal was to make magic accessible to everyone. Aurora isn’t interested in that, though. Quite the opposite.” Maisie ran a hand through her hair in an anxious gesture, smoothing the strands back. “She wants to turn it against people.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You know as well as I do what magic is capable of. There’s a reason we use it mainly to create weapons. When you think about it, it’s good there are so many limits on creation. They keep people from abusing its power.”
“And how does Aurora intend to abuse it?” Zaria asked, not certain she wanted to know the answer.
Maisie glanced at the door again, as if she feared the woman in question might burst through at any moment. “She wants to clear out the slums.”
“What does that even mean?”
“That’s what the whole kingpin angle is about, I think.
She’s working to gain control of Seven Dials, and then she’ll set her sights on Devil’s Acre.
It’s not just control she wants, though—it’s destruction.
She thinks London is going by the wayside, thanks to the growing population and overflow of the slums. She wants them gone. Removed. Displaced.”
Zaria couldn’t quite process that. “Those living in the slums already have so little. Where else would they possibly go?”
“Good question.” Maisie shrugged. “That’s how Aurora has gotten the wealthy on board, though. They’re all for the idea.”
Horror gnawed at Zaria as she considered all the ways in which alchemology could facilitate the destruction of the slum communities.
Because that was what they were: Communities.
Families and children, newcomers and longtime Londoners alike, all just trying to get by.
A bit of magic imbued in a gun could destroy a person, but what about on a larger scale?
What if there were no limits? “If that’s her plan, I don’t understand why she cares about controlling the dark market.
After all, it mostly operates out of the slums. And why would she need Ward’s—Kane’s—ledger? ”
“I don’t know about the ledger, but I think she wants to bring the dark market out of the darkness, so to speak,” Maisie murmured. “In her eyes, alchemology should be a tool for the privileged.”
“It already is,” said Zaria, bewildered.
“Secretly, yes. She wants it to become accepted. Another subject for the wealthy to tutor their children in.”
“That will never happen. Not while the queen is on the throne.”
Maisie spread her hands wide, her expression troubled.
“This isn’t about logic, Zaria. It never is with people like Aurora.
But the worst part is, she might actually have a chance of making it work.
She believes she has the skill to carry out the Magnum Opus, and she’s found a way to replicate the primateria source by channeling animundi. ”
“Animundi?” The word struck a chord of familiarity in Zaria, though she was loath to admit she couldn’t place its meaning. Something about the way Maisie said it had apprehension prickling the back of her neck.
“It’s the energy of the collective. Aurora has found a way to steal people’s energy, their life force, without their consent. That’s what the devices at the Exhibition have been harvesting.”
Zaria was nodding. “We did figure out that much. Enough different people attend the Crystal Palace each day that they’re unlikely to notice any ill effects.”
“Right. As I understand it, the fourth and final device was installed in the Exhibition last night, so everything’s ready to go. Essentially, the plan is to generate enough carmot that alchemologists will never again be limited by the amount of magic they’re able to produce.”
“And once she has that magic, Aurora’s first course of action is to ruin people’s lives.” Zaria felt vaguely sick. “Great.”
Maisie gave a rapid nod. “Yes. But in order to do any of that, she needs—”
“The blood of the original creator,” Zaria said quietly. “In order to effect a proper transmutation or replication, you require the life force of the practitioner themselves. That would have been my father. With him dead, I’m the closest thing there is.”
“Right,” Maisie said again. Her dark gaze was wary, gauging Zaria’s reaction as though she expected her to… what? Scream? Cry? Beat her fists against the floor?
Zaria didn’t do any of that. She didn’t have the energy.
All she felt was a deep, yawning pit of emptiness.
If Aurora planned to keep making carmot using Itzal’s primateria source as a guide, it was possible she would require Zaria for years.
Was that her mother’s intention? To keep her captive and siphon her life force slowly, bit by agonizing bit?
“I’m hardly a good person,” Maisie went on with a brittle laugh, “but I don’t want that for anyone. Not even you. I certainly don’t want to see innocent citizens harmed.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you cared about that,” Zaria admitted. “It’s difficult enough for people like us to make a life in London. Why do you care what happens to those in the slums?”
Maisie gave a wry twist of her mouth. “I’m Irish, Mendoza.
I know the kind of damage that results from too much power.
I’ve seen the suffering. I’ve lived it. I was sent to London when I was only a child, alone and with nothing at all.
Everyone is just trying to survive in the best way they know how, and I’ll be damned if I stand by and let people like Aurora Vaughan make it harder for them.
” She paused. “You know, I believe that’s why nobody ever found Hohenheim’s original primateria sources.
I think he made sure they wouldn’t be able to.
I think he realized the kind of power they held, and saw how dangerous it could be. ”
“Then what are we going to do about it?”
Maisie proffered a hand. “There’s no use trying to escape yet. Not when we’re this far outside of the city. Once we get to the palace, though, I’ll distract Aurora, and you need to run.”
“How are you going to do that?” Zaria let the other girl pull her to her feet, draping an arm over Maisie’s shoulders as her shaky legs protested.
She felt Maisie’s silent laugh beside her. “I’m going to shoot the bitch.”