Chapter 37 Zaria
ZARIA
Zaria watched in part apprehension, part fascination as her mother tracked a circle around the crystal fountain, emptying the vial of soulsteel into the clear water.
With a jolt, she realized why the fountain was necessary at all: It was the first step in the alchemological Magnum Opus.
That was why Aurora had chosen this location.
Not only did it see a constant flow of people—a constant flow of energy—but at the center of it all was a source of running water.
“The universal solvent,” Zaria murmured.
“Yes,” Aurora said, overhearing. She straightened and pulled a second vial from her pocket.
This one was tiny, containing a fine black powder.
It wasn’t a substance Zaria recognized, but then again, she’d never looked into the ingredients required to re-create a primateria source.
“I’m glad to see your father taught you well, at least when it came to alchemology.
The first step, and arguably the most difficult step in creating the Magnum Opus, is dissolution.
You’d think it simple, but an incorrect measurement can make all your work for naught. ”
Zaria watched Aurora add several more things to the fountain, giving the absurd impression that it was being treated as an overlarge cauldron. “What’s the black powder?” she asked her mother hoarsely.
Aurora smiled. “Calmactium. It will incite a reaction that causes the water to heat.”
The word was familiar to Zaria. She’d rarely had occasion to use the chemical herself, but she knew it could be combined with other substances to exponentially increase the strength of their certain properties.
As she had the thought, to her horror, the fountain began to boil.
Steam rose in plumes and saturated the air, dampening her face.
Before her eyes, the water in the basin turned a pale, dimly glistening shade of translucent red.
“Come here.” Aurora extended a hand. Zaria found herself shoved forward by Shaw and Pritchard, nearly stumbling into her mother. The two men flanked her as she set her jaw, determined that whatever Aurora requested, she was not going to comply. “Give me your arm.”
“No.”
Aurora’s eyes flashed. This close, it was easy to see that they were a deep shade of blue, so dissimilar to Zaria’s own. “I’m not going to ask you again.”
She was holding a knife, Zaria saw now. It was obvious what came next. “If you want my blood, you have to let me do it myself.”
Giving an apathetic shrug, Aurora handed over the small blade.
It was a normal knife—nothing special or alchemological.
Zaria pressed the point against the fleshy part of her forearm, heart thudding irregularly.
Her blood was the final ingredient needed for transmutation to occur.
After that, assuming everything had been done correctly, crystallization would see the creation of carmot.
“Do it,” Aurora hissed, and the entire Exhibition seemed to hold its breath.
Zaria pushed the blade in, gritting her teeth, and let the blood drip into the crystal fountain.
The reaction latched onto her energy at once, seeming to yank it from her core like some rapidly unraveling cord.
This wasn’t like making primateria, where she had to focus her mind and seek out that place of creation inside her—this was being thrust into it headfirst. This was drowning in the confines of her own mind while feeling her life slip away from all sides.
Meanwhile, her arm continued to bleed steadily, slick and hot.
The Exhibition had turned fuzzy around her, the only illumination emanating from the four devices positioned at the corners of the space.
Two in India, one in China, and one in Egypt.
Together they formed a perfect diamond. Their dim glow had stretched into columns of lights that made the glass walls of the Crystal Palace glitter.
With each passing moment, the lights synchronously angled closer to the fountain, and Zaria didn’t dare to consider what might happen when they finally met.
Adding her blood to the water in the basin had turned it mostly opaque, the pale red hue seeming to solidify and darken as the transmutation occurred.
“You see,” Aurora said, her voice seeming to drift over from far away, “I placed your father’s primateria source in the very top tier of the fountain. That way, it acts as a guide as the water cycles through.”
Zaria didn’t require any further explanation.
The way alchemology worked, you needed to be able to visualize an exact process and the subsequent outcome.
That was what Itzal would have done when he created the source originally.
Just as Aurora had said, it was a guide.
Something for the reaction to latch onto in lieu of Aurora pulling from her own energy and performing her own complicated visualization of the steps.
All she had to do was provide the ingredients for the reaction to happen on its own, assuming the setup had been done correctly.
And Zaria wasn’t sure it had been. Her mother continually snapped at her to make another incision, to add more blood, to give up more energy.
Zaria was pleased to see it didn’t appear to be working, but she also didn’t know how long she could keep this up before her body succumbed.
It wasn’t only about the blood loss: Just as when creating regular primateria, the reaction seemed to be pulling the very life from her bones.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she told Aurora, horrified by how weak her voice sounded.
Already Pritchard and Shaw had been forced to prop her up between them in the event that her legs gave out, but she was barely cognizant of their presence.
“I don’t understand. Shouldn’t the energy you collected from the Exhibition be enough? ”
Aurora was standing back a few paces from the fountain, watching the reaction take hold with hungry eyes. Her face was lit bizarrely by the columns of light that slanted around her, now only inches from meeting. She didn’t look at Zaria when she answered.
“That energy—the animundi—is what will drive the creation of carmot. Before that happens, however, we must incite the process of projection, which requires re-creating the exact circumstances of the original source’s creation.
” Aurora spoke as if imparting wisdom to a curious student rather than an estranged daughter moments from unconsciousness.
“Does that make sense? Your energy will carry us through the process of transmutation and into projection. Once that is achieved, the animundi I’ve cultivated will be used to duplicate the result over and over again. ”
It made sense in a roundabout way, Zaria supposed, but the explanation had terror lodging in her throat.
“You can’t re-create the exact circumstances of my father’s creation.
I won’t survive.” Itzal had been suffering long beforehand, but of one thing, Zaria was now certain: Making the primateria source was what had ultimately killed him.
It would kill her, too. And if it didn’t, there was the possibility it would drive her to near madness.
Aurora shrugged. “You’re far younger than he was. I suppose we’ll see if you’re better equipped to endure it.” She frowned into the fountain. “More.”
Zaria swayed as a wave of nausea crashed over her, nearly collapsing into Pritchard. He grunted, shoving her back up. “Do as she says.”
“I can’t.” Her vision was unclear, but this time it wasn’t only from exhaustion.
She bit her lower lip, trying to see her mother clearly as the misery overwhelmed her.
“You’re my mother. I can accept that you didn’t want me, that you don’t love me, but using me like this?
Knowingly condemning me to die? What did I do to deserve that? ”
Aurora turned to face her, expression softening.
“I’m not condemning you, Zaria. Some things are more important than the bond between parent and child.
This is about changing the world. It’s about bringing alchemology into the light.
It’s about getting the world to appreciate our study as the art it is. ”
“Really?” Zaria injected the word with all the scorn she could muster. “So it has nothing to do with your desire to forcibly clear out the slums?”
There was a heavy beat of quiet, punctuated by the rush of the fountain in the background. “Who told you that?” Aurora said softly.
Zaria didn’t answer, heaving a breath through her teeth. “When you speak of changing the world, you mean changing it into one that you find acceptable. Purging it of the things you find unsavory. How is that any different from what the crown did to alchemologists?”
Her mother ignored that. When her lips curved into a smile, it was pitying.
“You would think that, having lived the pathetic life Itzal forced upon you. Look around us.” She indicated the shadowy Exhibition.
“This is what London is capable of. This is what it should be known for. Not our wretched slums and our increasing willingness to let anyone in its boundaries. As for the crown… Well. Several of the queen’s advisers share my views already, and I expect she and the prince consort will be easily swayed, once I get my hands on that ledger.
Once again, I’m forced to do everything myself. ”
Despite how badly she wanted to argue with everything else Aurora had said, Zaria’s attention snagged on the last point. “How do you expect the ledger to help with that?”
Aurora made a sound of bored disdain. “Do you really need to ask? Do you even know how often Buckingham Palace enlists the services of an alchemologist? They may cover their tracks well enough for most people to miss it, but I pay attention. How do you think this place was constructed so quickly? How do you think industry in this country accelerated the way it did?”
“You can’t honestly believe alchemology was responsible for that,” Zaria said, stunned.
“Of course I do. And if I know anything about Alexander Ward, he kept records of every last transaction—even those that predated him.”
For a moment, Zaria wasn’t sure how to respond. “You plan to blackmail the crown?” She shook her head in disbelief, promptly regretting it when her vision wavered. “I’ve seen the ledger. There’s only one entry on there, and it’s from years ago. You’re mad.”
The beams of light were about to meet above the crystal fountain. Aurora watched them raptly, not seeming to have heard anything Zaria said. Finally, however, she replied in a singsong voice. “Maybe. But Ward isn’t the only one with evidence. It adds up, you see.”
As she spoke, the water in the basin turned a vivid, sparkling red.
Aurora began to laugh, clasping her hands together, the sound distorted as it collided with the buzzing in Zaria’s ears.
The world seemed to tilt beneath her feet as the last remnants of strength were siphoned from her bones.
Black filled her vision. She went limp, the knife slipping from her fingers to clatter against the floor.
She was only vaguely aware of Pritchard bellowing something as his grip tightened painfully on her upper arm.
She hoped she was better equipped to endure this than her father had been. She hoped she didn’t die this way, with the last of her life bleeding out to bolster a goal she’d never supported, never believed in.
And then everything stopped.
Shouts filled the air as Zaria was released none too carefully to the ground.
She just barely managed to stop her head from hitting the tile, and squinted through the sudden gloom, trying to understand what had happened.
Fear slammed into her as she saw a dozen or so dark figures silhouetted by the windows behind them.
Pritchard and Shaw were suddenly nowhere to be seen, and Aurora’s voice cut above the rest of the clamor as she shrieked their names.
Zaria scrabbled backward, her breaths labored, when yet another figure loomed in her periphery.
This one, though, was familiar. She froze in place.
It was Kane. His face was lit red from beneath, thanks to the still-glimmering fountain, and his hands were shackled.
Beside him stood a large mustached man wearing a Metropolitan Police uniform bearing an inspector’s medallion.
The man leveled his gun at Aurora where she stood by the fountain’s basin, cornered and furious.
An alchemological gun, Zaria saw with abject confusion.
“A thousand pardons,” Kane said. His voice was uncannily pleasant. “Did we disturb something important?”
Aurora cast a panicked gaze around at the other figures who were, Zaria realized now, more coppers. She gnashed her teeth, her voice a snarl. “Do you understand what you’ve done?”
“Indeed,” said the officer beside Kane, who could only be Inspector Price.
“It occurred to us that the best way to disrupt your magical devices was, most likely, with more magic. And what do you know?” He lifted the gun, pointing it past Aurora to aim at the device among China’s exhibits, and pulled the trigger.
Aurora unleashed a furious scream as the glowing orb shattered.
“It works. Now, Aurora Vaughan, you’re under arrest.”
When Aurora replied, her voice was suddenly, unnervingly calm. “I don’t think so.”