Chapter 6 Zaria
ZARIA
THAT’S NOT ENOUGH,” ZARIA SNAPPED, EYES FIXED ON THE tiny pouch the chemist was currently weighing.
The woman shrugged. “That’s what twenty shillings gets you. You want more, bring more money.”
Zaria pressed her lips together, glancing out of the dingy window to where Jules stood keeping watch in the rainy street.
This wasn’t the first time she’d completely run out of soulsteel, but she tried not to let it happen often.
She had another client coming to pick up a commission tonight, and as of right now, the second explosive still wasn’t finished.
It wouldn’t work properly without primateria, and Zaria couldn’t create primateria without soulsteel.
She liked Louisa Hoffman just fine, but the chemist was notoriously inflexible.
She never offered discounts, and she didn’t accept debts.
The shop she ran with her husband received a small shipment of soulsteel from Switzerland biweekly.
Although the mineral was naturally occurring, it wasn’t sold via any legitimate channels; instead, it was being illegally mined in the Alps and shipped worldwide.
Few were using it for legitimate alchemological purposes; it had become something of a curiosity, and vials were purchased for absurd reasons that encompassed everything from rumored healing properties to warding off evil.
Then there were those who bought it simply to display.
Demand was increasing rapidly as more people began collecting these so-called curiosities, and Zaria was getting priced out of her own damned market.
“You’re screwing me over,” she grunted, snatching the pouch from the counter and pushing a pile of shillings across to Louisa. “I thought we had an understanding.”
The woman gave an apologetic shrug. “I said I’d have it available for purchase every two weeks. I never said I’d only sell it to you. The price reflects the demand, Zaria. I’m sorry.”
Zaria knew it was unfair of her to be angry. Louisa was trying to make a living just like she was. But a chemist always had patrons, and Zaria couldn’t help feeling resentful at the ease with which the Hoffmans kept their business afloat. “It’s fine. I’ll take what I can get.”
She shoved the pouch of soulsteel into her pocket and ducked back out into the rain.
The clean, soapy scent of the shop was replaced at once with the pungent stink of the streets.
Even outside of the slum, the roads were covered with all manner of foul matter, the rain churning up what ought to have remained undisturbed.
“Well?” Jules said when Zaria reached him. She held up the tiny pouch in reply, and he inhaled through his teeth. “Is that going to be enough?”
“It’ll have to be.”
They walked in silence for a time before Jules asked, “Who’s the commission for?”
Zaria sighed. “Nobody we’re familiar with. Mister Vaughan, his name is.” Her clients were all beginning to blur together. “Another explosive. I’m already late completing it, and if I don’t have it ready for pickup tonight, I’m in trouble.”
“You’ll be fine,” Jules said confidently. “You’re excellent under pressure.”
That tended to be true, but it didn’t mean Zaria liked it.
She squinted through the rain as they headed back into Devil’s Acre, already considering how she might make the soulsteel last. A dark sludgelike substance had formed in the divots at the side of the road, and she swerved to avoid it, slamming into a boy around her and Jules’s age.
“Sorry,” she muttered, but the boy was already ducking away, a flicker of beige passing through his fingers before he shoved them into his pocket. It took Zaria a moment to comprehend what she’d seen—a small linen pouch. Her small linen pouch.
He’d stolen from her.
“Jules!” she bellowed, already sprinting after the pickpocket.
She kept her gaze on the boy’s cap as he wove in and out of the crowd, short and lithe enough that he was difficult to keep track of.
Her boots slipped in the disgusting sludge, but she was heedless of the muck that spattered on her skirts. “Stop that boy!”
The call was to the citizens at large, but no one paid her any mind.
Most scarcely glanced up. Petty theft was common here, and people weren’t inclined to get involved in what they considered to be strangers’ business.
Zaria came to a halt, breathing hard, a deep ache pinching one side of her chest. Distantly, she was aware of Jules hurtling past her—he had always been faster, and besides, he wasn’t weighed down by skirts—but she caught up to him a moment later, blood trickling from his nose as he swung a fist at the thief who had evidently decided to turn and fight.
Zaria shoved her way past the few nosy onlookers who had already stopped to observe, wincing as Jules’s knuckles made contact with the other boy’s face. The thief cursed colorfully, stumbling backward into a couple of onlookers, then used the entire force of his body to slam Jules to the ground.
Zaria didn’t stop to think. She was on the thief in an instant, wrenching at his arms in an attempt to stop him from pummeling Jules.
Someone in the crowd screamed as the boy turned and elbowed her in the stomach, but Zaria barely felt it.
She scrabbled for her knife. Jules grunted as he took a punch to the side of the head, and then Zaria drove the blade into the meat of the thief’s shoulder, clenching her teeth with the effort it took.
The boy screamed, whirling for her once again. His eyes met hers, wide and furious, the scleras tinged red. His unfamiliar face was gaunt and speckled with grime. Zaria yanked the knife out and leapt back, her entire body trembling from the sudden rush of energy. She bared her teeth.
“Give it to me,” she hissed. The fingers clenching the blood-slick knife felt numb. “The soulsteel. Give it back.”
The thief made an offensive gesture, spat at her feet, then took off at a run. Zaria made to follow him, but a hand grabbed her arm, pulling her back.
“Zaria, no.”
She turned to glare at Jules, chest heaving.
Blood still dripped from his nostrils, and discoloration was already starting to spread beneath his eyes.
His hair was in disarray, damp from rain and sweat, and his coat was rumpled, torn near the collar.
His expression was exhausted and utterly forlorn.
Zaria’s anger abruptly dissipated at the sight of him.
With the small crowd having dispersed, she pulled him into an embrace. Tears blurred the corners of her vision. Not tears of sadness, but of frustration. Of helplessness and anger and fear. She might have crumpled to the ground in that moment had Jules’s steadying arms not kept her upright.
“I’m sorry, Zaria,” he rasped. “I understand how important the soulsteel was, but he’s clearly not giving it back without one hell of a fight. You’re better off letting it go.”
She wiped at her eyes. “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”
“I know.” He still looked miserable, though. “What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know.” Zaria winced as she studied his busted face more closely. “But you should go back to Louisa. Get her husband to take a look at your nose.” Gert Hoffman was a former apothecary with a great deal of medical knowledge, though these days he sold drugs more than he administered them.
“Your commission—”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m not going to get in any trouble. The explosive will still work.”
Jules appeared doubtful but capitulated. “Fine. I won’t be long. If you need anything, my father should be in his office.”
Zaria nodded. As she watched Jules walk away, though, she wasn’t nearly as confident as she’d claimed.
The explosive would work—just not the way it was supposed to. Not unless she got her hands on more soulsteel.
And it was too late for that.
When Zaria returned to the pawnshop, soaked to the bone and caked to her knees in muck, her misery had hardened well and truly into anger.
Was some unseen force conspiring against her?
As if she wasn’t already having enough trouble fulfilling her father’s outstanding commissions, now she was down twenty shillings with nothing to show for it.
She couldn’t afford to keep living like this.
George was lenient with her when it came to rent payments, but she was still barely keeping her head above water.
Even her most impressive commissions didn’t yield enough of a profit.
Then there was the fact that Jules could have been seriously hurt, and it was all her fault.
She knew full well that pickpockets were rampant in Devil’s Acre, and she hadn’t been careful enough.
The theft never should have happened in the first place.
It had, though, and now Jules was the one paying for it.
When would he finally stop trying to help her?
He had to know it was hopeless. That she was merely putting off the inevitable.
Once she had changed and retrieved the unfinished explosive, Zaria made her way to the pawnshop proper to wait for Jules.
With George in his office, she wouldn’t be able to meet her client’s representative there, so she settled herself behind the shop counter and trained her gaze on the door.
Her thoughts revolved in an infinite loop, each one more miserable than the last.
For God’s sake, she’d stabbed a man today.
Had stuck her knife into his flesh like it was the most natural thing in the world.
She was always prepared for the eventuality that she might need to defend herself—and this wasn’t her first time doing so—but she couldn’t stop thinking about the onlookers.
The ones who had simply… watched. The people in the slum had become hardened to all manners of violence, and was she any different?
Was she destined for a life where such things were the norm?