Chapter 10 Zaria #2
His dismissive curtness had Zaria’s back up before she could think better of it.
She knew she’d been foolish. She knew that.
But it sure as hell didn’t mean she wanted to hear Kane Durante say it.
“I didn’t ask you to rescue me, and I don’t know who that man was, okay?
His face was mostly covered.” Her next exhale was uneven.
“He knew me, though. I think he was sent to find me.”
Kane’s eyes were slits. “Start listing your enemies.”
“I don’t have any.”
“Everyone has enemies, whether they know it or not. Swindle any clients lately?”
Zaria scowled. “I’m not swindling anyone, but my father used to require that his clients pay a deposit up front.
Maybe someone thinks I don’t intend to deliver.
” It was why she couldn’t simply ignore the deals Itzal had made before his death.
He’d taken the money and gambled it away, leaving her with debts she had to pay with her life.
“You’re fulfilling his outstanding commissions,” Kane surmised. “If someone put down a lot of money and still hasn’t gotten what they asked for, that’s a good reason to kill you. But there’s more, isn’t there?”
Zaria worried at her lower lip. She was loath to admit what she’d done, especially to Kane of all people.
“Tell me, Miss Mendoza.”
“Fine.” The word was a hiss. “I gave someone an unfinished commission the other night. I was out of soulsteel, but they’d made it clear they wouldn’t wait any longer.”
“So the item doesn’t work properly.”
“Correct.”
Kane whistled long and low. “Once again, what the hell were you thinking? You don’t mess around with dark market buyers. You’ve put your own life in jeopardy.”
“Why do you care?”
“As you might imagine, your death would inconvenience me greatly.”
That stung, although it shouldn’t have. “Because you need something from me.”
“Because,” Kane corrected her, “we have a mutually beneficial agreement.”
She scanned the lines of his face, looking for some evidence that he was being disingenuous.
He had seemingly perfect control over his features, which just now appeared hewn from granite.
She found her focus drifting down to his mouth and wondered vaguely whether he’d become a con because he was handsome enough to sell water to a drowning man.
“Miss Mendoza?” he said, and Zaria realized she had missed his next question.
“Yes.” She forced her gaze back up to his. “What?”
“I said, what was this client’s name?”
“Oh—Vaughan. I’ve no idea if it’s an alias or not.”
“Interesting. Well, I’ll make sure this Mister Vaughan’s apparent bloodlust doesn’t impact our deal.”
Zaria lifted her chin. “Speaking of our deal, I’d like to discuss the terms.”
There was an indecipherable shift in Kane’s expression. “Not now. Let me escort you home. You almost died tonight, and it’s far too late to talk business.”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
A cavalier shrug. “All right then.”
She watched in disbelief as he leaned against the nearest soot-stained building and procured a small pipe.
Not clay—metal and wood. Of course he would be able to afford something like that.
He watched her slyly over his hands as he lit it with a solanum lighter, then tilted his head back, chin jutting toward the dark sky.
His gaze seemed to flick among what few stars were visible through the smog, and if Zaria hadn’t known better, she might have thought he was tracking constellations.
She figured his preoccupied silence was as much of an invitation as she would get.
“I actually came to ask you a favor,” she said after a beat.
Kane puffed smoke into the air. The look he gave her was incredulous. “Did you, now? Well, you’re ever so charming, I can’t imagine I wouldn’t oblige.”
“Are you going to listen or not?”
“Have you noticed Orion’s Belt is visible tonight? Unusual, that.”
Zaria was beginning to think she’d never met a more frustrating person.
Every barbed remark was poised perfectly to infuriate her.
But she forced herself to think of Jules’s face.
Of pockets full of money. Of leaving London and never seeing Kane Durante’s dagger-edged smirk again. She could manage for a week or two.
She hoped.
“I don’t care about Orion’s Belt,” she said, though she indeed glanced up, automatically seeking the trio of stars.
“I need help finding someone. A woman who used to work for Ward. It was years ago, and I don’t know if she’s still in the area”—or alive, her brain supplied—“but it’s imperative that we speak. ”
Kane surveyed her with mild irritation. “You’re asking me to get Ward involved in a manhunt just so you and some woman can speak?”
“No,” Zaria snapped, too quickly. “I don’t want Ward involved at all. And it’s not a manhunt. But I would think you have the same resources he does, right?”
“We already have a deal, Miss Mendoza. Are you certain you wish to make another?”
“It’s not a deal. Besides, it helps me help you.”
“Does it, now?” His expression was appraising as he pivoted to face her straight on. “Who is this woman to you?”
Zaria didn’t answer right away, treading carefully. “I believe she might have important information. Information that can help me with my work.”
Kane’s face hardened. She could see him thinking, unraveling the pieces. After a moment of silent consideration, he leveled an accusatory finger at her. “You’re looking for a magic source.”
Damn it all. Zaria should have known he would be able to guess as much. He was familiar with the dark market. He knew what alchemologists coveted, what legends they believed.
“Good luck with that,” he went on, voice scathing. “I’m not convinced those even exist. Why do you think there aren’t exactly an abundance of dark market alchemologists?”
“Because most people don’t have a prayer of mastering the craft. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were envious, Kane.”
He lowered his pipe, bending at the waist so as to lean in closer.
“Ward once told me that creating magic is like falling in love. You want it at first, but then it begins to hurt, and you can’t bring yourself to stop.
You can’t be compelled to draw away. And finally”—he smiled winningly, wickedly—“it kills you.”
Perhaps it was like love—at least from what little Zaria knew of such things. She knew the way her father’s love for her mother had left him a bitter shell of a man. But it turned her cold to hear Kane describe it so.
“I didn’t ask for your input,” she ground out. “Can you help me find her or not? It’s in your best interests, you know. If she does have a magic source, I’ll be able to create everything you ask of me without difficulty. Stealing the necklace will be easy.”
Kane made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, peeling himself away from the wall. The smell of his pipe was acrid in Zaria’s lungs. “What’s her name, this woman?”
“Cecile Meurdrac.”
“Meurdrac,” Kane echoed, the hint of his accent shaping the syllables somewhat differently. He stared into the middle distance as though he’d abruptly forgotten Zaria’s presence. Then he added, “I’ll do my best. But you owe me a favor in return. No questions asked, at the time of my choosing.”
Zaria swallowed. The action took more effort than usual. “What kind of favor?”
“No idea. I suppose I’ll know when the time comes.”
“Absolutely not. Tell me now.”
Kane tilted his head, teeth gleaming in the moonlight. He looked rather haunted like this, shadowed on one side by the looming factory. “Ever so bold, Miss Mendoza.”
“Zaria is fine.”
He didn’t correct himself. “You asked me for a favor. I don’t do favors—I negotiate.” That cursed pipe was at his lips again, and he blew a short puff of smoke in her direction. “Take it or leave it.”
Leave it, a voice hissed in the back of her mind, and it sounded distinctly like Jules. But Zaria had never been one to shy away from risks. Everything she had ever gotten, she’d gotten by playing the game, no matter what that game might be.
“Fine,” she said, her mouth twisting around the word. “I’ll take it. But only if you’re successful in finding Cecile.”
Kane shook her hand for the second time that week, yanking her close so his tobacco-laced breath was at her ear. “I assure you, Zaria—nobody hides from me.”
As she ripped free from his grasp, heart beating in her throat, Zaria believed him.
“Now,” he said, shaking the contents of his pipe out and stowing it in his pocket. “Let me escort you home.”
“That won’t be necessary.” But a chill slipped down her spine as she considered the prospect of being accosted once more by her attacker, and she didn’t argue as Kane trailed her all the way back to the pawnshop, relenting to her unspoken—but obvious—desire for silence.
Only when they reached the door crowned by its trio of golden orbs did Zaria deign to address him again, pivoting to find him far closer than she’d anticipated. Her next exhale tangled in her chest.
“Are you planning to follow me everywhere from now on?” she managed to force out.
“If I need to. Don’t go out alone. At the very least, bring your unpleasant friend along.”
“His name is Jules” was her automatic reply. “But fine.”
“So you are capable of doing as you’re told.”
“This may surprise you, but I have very little interest in being killed.”
“Good. I need you.” Kane tilted his head, his gaze serious, piercing.
A lock of unruly chestnut hair had come loose from its normally slick style, and it curled against his brow, the darkness turning it nearly black.
Zaria stood motionless, pinned to the spot, entirely unsure what to make of that.
A heartbeat later, Kane straightened, winking.
“Because of our agreement, of course. Speaking of which, don’t forget that we start tomorrow.
Hyde Park, two o’clock. Don’t come alone. Dress nicely.”
“Don’t forget about Cecile,” Zaria said.
“Oh, I’ll find the woman, just as I’ll find the man who wants you dead. And when I do”—Kane smiled unpleasantly—“someone will be very sorry indeed.”
Only after he was gone did Zaria remember how to breathe again.