Chapter 9 Zaria #2
Zaria wasn’t sure close was the right word.
Regardless of the time they’d spent together, she knew little about Cecile and hadn’t offered much about herself in return.
Their closeness had been, if anything, a quiet companionship.
“I think she was too afraid of my father to tell me much,” she admitted to Jules.
“But also, I was a child. Perhaps she feared I’d go looking for her. ”
“You wanted to,” he reminded her. “You told me as much.”
A hollow sensation gnawed at Zaria’s stomach.
It was true. She remembered feeling guilty when, after Itzal’s death, she realized she’d been less upset to lose him than she had Cecile—and Cecile hadn’t even died.
Of course, Zaria had grieved in both cases, but the loss of her father was more about fear.
The sensation that the world had abruptly been placed on her shoulders, and her not knowing what the hell to do about it.
“I wouldn’t have known where to start,” Zaria said eventually. “I still don’t.” How could she know so little about the woman who had taught her so much? With Zaria’s luck, Cecile might have gone all the way back to France.
“We could ask my father,” Jules suggested. “Itzal might have mentioned something to him at the time.”
Zaria glanced at the clock in the corner of her room.
It was late, but George Zhao kept strange hours.
She’d been avoiding the man these past couple of days, knowing she wouldn’t be able to help confronting him if they were in the same space for too long, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore.
She wouldn’t be able to sleep until they spoke with him.
For years, she’d told herself not to bother with futile hopes.
If even her father couldn’t find a primateria source, how could she?
Now, though, she wondered. If Itzal had allowed Cecile to assist with his research, maybe it didn’t matter that he had burned the results.
Maybe some of what he’d learned still existed in the mind of his first and only assistant.
And maybe, if Zaria could find her, she would finally have a lead.
“Yes,” she said. “Let’s ask your father. Right now.”
The stairs creaked as they slunk upstairs, the sound ominous against the fragile silence.
Jules’s candle was a bloom of light in the corridor outside George Zhao’s office, and he paused outside the door, twin flames in the depths of his eyes as they met Zaria’s. “Try not to be upset if he can’t help.”
She blinked in impatience. “I don’t get upset.”
“No, you don’t always get visibly upset,” he corrected her. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Don’t be absurd.” But Zaria knew Jules was right.
She was too reactive, too emotional—Itzal had always told her as much, and thus she’d spent years learning to push it down.
To hide her excitement, her misery, her frustration.
She was quick to anger and even quicker to snap unkind words.
When she was disappointed, it dropped like a stone in the pit of her stomach and hollowed everything else away.
Better, she had learned, not to let anyone know what she was feeling at all.
And yet Jules had always been able to see through her.
At times, he arrived in Zaria’s room before she’d even fully realized she was sad.
She didn’t know how he knew—how his emotional intelligence was so many leagues above her own—and sometimes she feared she was failing as his friend.
Steady Jules, who wasn’t afraid to express himself and took everything in stride.
Who was always there to be her comfort yet rarely seemed to require anything in return.
Zaria couldn’t help but feel it was a lopsided relationship. It was why she was so desperate to give him the world. A better one than this, preferably.
With that thought, she knocked on George’s office door.
“Come in.”
So George was awake. Good.
He was at his desk when Zaria and Jules entered, poring over what appeared to be a ledger of numbers.
Something to do with the shop, no doubt.
He was very like an older, balding version of Jules.
He had the same searching gaze, the same thin build, the same melancholy smile.
But one of his incisors was missing and there were crow’s-feet stamped on the corners of his eyes.
A clay pipe was poised between his teeth, though no smoke emanated from it—he claimed he simply liked the feel of it in his mouth.
Besides, tobacco cost a fair bit of money.
“What are you two doing awake at this time of night?” George grunted, motioning for them to enter the office farther.
He seemed utterly at ease, which set Zaria’s teeth on edge and only reinforced that she’d been right to accept Kane’s offer.
Someone had to take the kingpin’s threat seriously.
How could George look his son in the eye, knowing what was at stake?
Jules shut the door. “We could ask you the same question.”
“Lots to do in preparation for redemption day.”
“Hmm.” Jules led Zaria over to the other side of George’s desk. “We wanted to ask you something.”
George set down his pen, which Zaria took as assent. Jules shot her a look, indicating that she should be the one to speak. She cleared her throat.
“Cecile Meurdrac. You must remember her.”
George frowned at them. “That’s not much of a question.”
“Do you know where she went when she left us?”
George set the pipe down, and Zaria was struck by how long it had been since she and Jules’s father had engaged in direct conversation.
They occupied the same space, yes, but rarely bothered interacting.
George Zhao was simply a fixture of the pawnshop.
Zaria accepted his presence, and he accepted hers.
Their silent point of contention, she knew, was Jules—George wanted his son to take over the shop.
Zaria wanted Jules to get as far away from it as possible.
“Why?” George said just as the pause was becoming uncomfortable, drawing out the single syllable. “Why now?”
Jules cut in before Zaria could reply. “So you do know.”
“You tell me why you’re asking, and then I’ll decide how much to say.”
Frustration heated Zaria’s cheeks, and yet she couldn’t help being struck by how much George looked like his son when he set his jaw. Damn these men and their stubborn streaks.
“Because I miss her,” she blurted out, at once a truth and a lie. “I’m looking for Cecile because I miss her. Apart from you and Jules, she’s the closest thing I have to family.”
George visibly softened, relaxing back in his chair.
“Don’t think I’m not sympathetic, Zaria.
To be as grown as you are without parents or any marriage prospects”—he returned the pipe to his lips and spoke around it—“it is unfortunate, to be sure. But Cecile can’t help you.
In fact, I’d be surprised to learn she’s still alive, given where she was headed. ”
“And where was that?” Zaria pressed, ignoring the remark about her admittedly woeful lack of prospects.
The thin line of his mouth twisted. “She went to work for Alexander Ward.”
“What?” She and Jules spoke at the same time. Zaria felt as if someone had cuffed her upside the head, her thoughts reeling. Kind, quiet Cecile had left to work for the most dangerous man on this side of London?
Why did everything seem to involve the kingpin as of late? He was becoming inextricably twined with every part of Zaria’s life.
“I don’t know why you’re surprised,” George said. “Ward has always held a deep fascination for alchemology. Why do you think he situated himself in the dark market? He all but popularized the magic trade in London.”
Zaria shook her head. “I’m not surprised he wanted Cecile to work for him. He had his eye on my father for years. I’m surprised she went, is all.”
Though working for Ward would surely have afforded him both money and safety, Itzal had turned the kingpin down more than once, resolutely declaring that he didn’t answer to anyone save himself.
Ward had enough influence that Zaria was certain he could have forced her father to create whatever he demanded, but for reasons she wasn’t clear on, that had never happened. Not that she knew of, at least.
George gave a half-hearted shrug. “You know I held a great deal of respect for Itzal, but he was a difficult man to work with. I suspect Cecile grew weary of him, and Ward could offer her so much more.”
“Does she work for him still?”
“I’ve no idea. Like I said, I’d be surprised to learn she’s still alive. The kingpin is demanding, and Cecile had an impertinent streak, not unlike yourself.”
Zaria lifted her chin but didn’t argue. It was Jules who said hotly, “Having an ‘impertinent streak’ is the only reason Zaria has been able to help pay our dues. Her clients are forever trying to shortchange her, and she doesn’t take it.”
George beheld his son with an impassive expression. “You’d do well to adopt that skill yourself. It’s not becoming for a woman to act in such a way, but for a pawnbroker it is a necessity.”
Jules flushed, and this time it was Zaria who bristled.
When Jules was behind the counter, he wasn’t quite as firm in pricing as his father, instead electing to work with what people required or could afford.
In a place where everyone was struggling, he’d told Zaria more than once, he couldn’t bear watching patrons’ eyes cloud with dismay when they realized they wouldn’t reach an arrangement.
He doesn’t want to be a pawnbroker, Zaria wanted to snap. And that’s if the shop even survives long enough for him to get the chance.
But she held her tongue. She understood how important family was to Jules, and to his father as well.
The years George had spent caring for his ailing parents was proof of that.
Despite her gripes with the man, she knew Jules’s dream of leaving the slum included his father, and she would never stand in the way of that.
Whether George would leave, though, was another question entirely, and a barrier she wasn’t sure how Jules would deal with.
George’s eyes had drifted back to his work, and Zaria knew the conversation was over. That was fine by her; she’d gotten what she came for. She could tell Jules was still grinding his teeth, and she put a gentle hand on his arm.
“Thanks,” she told George curtly, pulling Jules from the room as he added, “Good night.”
George inclined his head.
“You’re not a disappointment,” Zaria said to Jules the moment the door closed behind them, knowing where his thoughts were. “You know you’re not. He expects a lot, but he loves you.”
Whether that love was enough for George to keep his son from Ward, though, she wasn’t sure.
Jules’s smile was faint, bitterness thinning his lips. “Yeah. I guess.”
Once back in her workshop, the two of them stretched out on Zaria’s bed, cocooned by the darkness. Zaria still clutched the paper in her left hand, as if prolonged contact with Cecile’s words might foster some deeper connection to the woman.
If she could find Cecile, perhaps she could find a primateria source.
And if she found a primateria source, she wouldn’t have to worry about what acquiescing to Kane’s demands would do to her.
She could create without limits. Then, when she had the jewels Kane promised her, they would have everything they needed to save this place—or leave it behind.
“Too bad about Cecile and Ward,” Jules murmured eventually, his soft voice shattering the fragile quiet. “But we’ll find another solution. Don’t worry.”
To her swiftly deteriorating state, he meant. Zaria grunted. “I’m not worried.”
Not yet, at least. Whereas Jules had seen George’s mention of the kingpin as a dead end—or, at the very least, one too dangerous to pursue—Zaria saw it as the key. She was going to find Cecile.
And, much to her dismay, she knew who might be able to help her.