Chapter 15 Zaria #2
Her voice sounded small, and her cheeks reddened as Cecile pulled back, mouth turning down at the corners. Regret danced in her blue eyes. “I’m so sorry, Zaria. I thought it would be for the best. Where I was going… it wasn’t safe.”
“Because you went to work for the kingpin, you mean.”
Cecile’s thin brows shot up. “You knew?”
“I only just found out,” Zaria admitted. “George told me. Until this week, I’d never thought to ask him. You two didn’t seem to have much to do with each other.”
“That’s true,” Cecile said. “But I expect Itzal told him what happened.”
“Which was what?”
The other woman sighed. “Our parting wasn’t exactly amicable. I don’t wish to cloud your opinion of your father, especially now that he’s gone.”
“I don’t care about that,” Zaria insisted, though a cold sensation trickled through her blood. It wasn’t like her opinion of Itzal wasn’t already tainted, but something about the way Cecile spoke made Zaria wonder whether she wanted to hear what came next.
Cecile’s gaze darted around the space. “Why don’t you first tell me why you went to the trouble of tracking me down? From what I’ve been told, it sounds like you’ve commenced a rather dangerous search.”
The last thing Zaria wanted was to hear Cecile warn her away from seeking a magic source—to remind her what that obsession had cost Itzal.
How to make the woman understand? “I was going through my father’s documents recently, and I came across a notation in your hand.
I was trying to find out what he knew about primateria sources.
” She gritted her teeth. Saying the words aloud brought her frustrations to the surface all over again.
“He was desperate to find one. Though he wasn’t successful, I’m positive he must have learned something of use.
And I need to find one, Cecile. He left everything to me, including his list of commissions. ”
Cecile’s eyes flashed with perturbed comprehension. “Oh, Zaria.”
“I need to finish them. I can’t pay back the deposits, and his clients aren’t exactly understanding. I think—I mean, I’m worried they’ll come after me.” There was no point telling Cecile it was already happening. “But I’m so afraid that—”
“That you’ll work yourself to death just like he did,” Cecile finished in a hushed tone. “The deposits… he lost the money, didn’t he?”
Zaria didn’t answer. The question seemed a rhetorical one.
“I’m not surprised.” Cecile coughed a dark laugh.
“That’s why I left, you know. We worked so hard, put so much effort into our creations, and then he would lose it all.
His share and mine. It was during this time that Alexander Ward was trying to recruit your father to work exclusively for him.
Itzal Mendoza was a well-known name on the dark market, but your father wouldn’t budge.
To get Ward off his back, he offered him the next best thing. ” She sighed wearily. “Me.”
“What?”
“Your father told Ward I knew everything he did. That I was a better choice because I was without a child to distract me.” Cecile’s expression turned sympathetic, and Zaria stilled.
Was that what she’d been to her father? Nothing but an inconvenient distraction from his work?
It was the impression he’d given every day of her life, but she never thought she’d hear proof he’d said it aloud. Acid climbed the back of her throat.
“I accepted Ward’s offer,” Cecile said. “What other choice did I have? Itzal was no longer paying me, and life in the slums is difficult. I don’t have to tell you as much.
It was a dangerous escape, but one that gave me everything I needed.
I left without saying a thing, mostly because I didn’t want you to come searching for me, but also because I didn’t want you to think poorly of me. ”
“I wouldn’t have,” Zaria said hoarsely. Even back then, she’d understood desperation. How the need to survive could trump all else. “You’re not working for Ward anymore though, right?”
“No, I’m not.”
There was a heavy pause. It felt as though the crypt air grew heavier around them. “How come?”
Cecile stepped closer, the fabric of her dress whispering across the stone floor. Her eyes reflected the candlelight like twin flames. “I’ll tell you something about working for that man, Zaria,” she said. “It is very, very difficult to stop.”
Zaria swallowed. “Because he didn’t want to let you leave.” It wasn’t a question.
“Of course he didn’t. When you work exclusively for someone, you learn a lot about your employer.
With every piece of information I picked up, I knew I was digging myself a deeper hole.
Eventually, it became clear there was no turning back.
Knowledge is a dangerous commodity. More dangerous than anything we create in our workshops. ”
“But you did leave.”
Cecile splayed her long fingers out before her, staring at them contemplatively. The shape of her mouth was melancholy. “I did. After less than two years, in fact.”
“How?”
“I believe the more pertinent question is why. Truly, I might have been content to stay. The pay was good. I always had work doing what I loved. It was the ideal arrangement, at least on its face. And yet things were not so perfect.” Cecile’s stare turned glassy.
“One day, about eight years ago, I went to Ward’s office.
I had an idea that I was excited about. You see, Ward wasn’t interested in the search for a primateria source; he wanted me to create one, the way Hohenheim once had.
He was growing weary of the limits to my creation.
He was growing weary of me, and resented his own need for my skill.
He wanted to wield magic in his own right, but he couldn’t master it. He wanted a primateria source.
“I worked tirelessly trying to unravel alchemology’s Magnum Opus—the process used to create a primateria source, as you’ll remember.
I was attempting to work backward, so to speak, and I hit countless dead ends.
I grew weak, sickly.” Cecile gestured down at her thin frame.
“I forgot where I was for hours at a time. On the day in question, however, I thought I was having a breakthrough. I left my workshop and ran to Ward’s office at once, intending to let him know.
“The front doors were unguarded.” Her eyelids fluttered half-closed.
“That should have been the first sign something was wrong. But I was so excited, I scarcely noticed. I barreled up the stairs. I could hear voices coming from Ward’s office and recognized his at once.
The door was cracked, just slightly, so I shoved it open the rest of the way. ”
Zaria had to remind herself to breathe. The silence turned oppressive, absolute, until she found her voice. “And then?”
“Then.” Cecile said the word as if it were an entire sentence on its own.
A moment encapsulated by a single word. “Then I saw them, lying on the floor of his office. A man. A woman. And—” Her voice cracked, sputtering out.
What she said next was a mere croak. “And a young boy. He wasn’t on the floor; someone had lifted him onto Ward’s desk.
His face was turned toward the door, toward me, and it was as pale as anything I’d ever seen. ”
“They were dead,” Zaria said quietly.
“The man and woman had been shot. The boy—God only knows whether he was still alive at that point. There was blood all over the floorboards. It was fresh, spreading toward the door where I stood. In the center of it all, standing casually as if they’d been discussing the weather, was Ward and two of his men.
He looked up at me, met my eyes, and I saw that his were…
” Cecile exhaled a shaky breath. “They were empty. So horribly empty. That was when I decided to leave.”
“And he let you?” Zaria said, her stomach churning as she tried and failed not to imagine the scene Cecile described.
“He did. I still don’t know why—perhaps it was easier that way.
I got a place near Regent’s Park, far outside of his territory.
But he found me, of course, and to this day, he sends me small sums of money in exchange for my silence.
I suspect he likes it, knowing I live in fear of him and that I’m reliant on him.
Alexander Ward likes control far more than he likes killing.
” Cecile’s throat bobbed. “I haven’t touched alchemology since.
I wanted to get in touch with you so many times, but I feared it wasn’t safe. ”
A strange ache took up residence in Zaria’s chest. “Can we… I mean, will you contact me now? I’m no longer a child. I’m willing to take the risk.” Hell, she was already taking so many.
Cecile’s face softened. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think so.”
Zaria bit her lower lip to hide her smile. For the first time in years, she felt warm with optimism. She owed Kane Durante, frustrating bastard though he was.
“When it comes to your father,” Cecile continued—and Zaria was grateful for the change of subject—“he did much of his research alone. That said, he was positive magic sources did exist, and he was convinced there was one in Britain. The difficulty lay in finding it. You see, nobody’s quite sure what the source would even look like.
Some believe it can take the shape of nearly anything.
And if your father knew anything for certain, that was a long time ago. ”
Zaria’s heart sank. “So you can’t tell me anything more.”
“I’m sorry,” Cecile said, her brows drawing together. “I really am. But your father was not one to confide in others no matter how well he knew them. We worked together for a time, yes, but our relationship was purely business. Any side projects he may have had, he did by himself.”
It was what Zaria had expected, but it still hurt to hear.
Rediscovering Cecile had been a beacon of hope.
A promise that she hadn’t yet exhausted all possibilities.
Now she had hit another dead end, and the expression of the woman before her was full of such pity that she could scarcely bear it.
Gathering her determination, she made one last-ditch attempt.
“Your note—it said something about the source possibly being disguised. Were you doing research of your own?”
“Ah. Yes,” Cecile said, an emotion Zaria couldn’t decipher lighting her face.
She leaned closer, voice low and furtive, one hand reaching into her pocket.
“When it comes to primateria sources, I have suspicions of my own, but I need you to be smart about this, Zaria. I debated whether or not to even share this with you. You see, I believe—”
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps grew audible above their heads, echoing through the crypt walls. Surely it was too late for even the most devout to pay the sanctuary a visit. What had Cecile been about to say? Frustration swelled in Zaria’s chest alongside the panic.
The voices came next, and her eyes locked with Cecile’s.
“Did you bring someone else?” Cecile said, a barely audible whisper, and Zaria shook her head.
Her heart pounded against her ribs like a caged animal trying to escape.
She could feel sweat beginning to bead on her upper lip.
The footsteps belonged to more than one person—it couldn’t be Kane, then.
Or, at least, not Kane alone. She set the lantern down, intending to extinguish the flame, when it snagged on a duo of silhouettes at the entrance to the crypt.
One of them lifted something. Zaria’s vision wasn’t clear, but she suspected she knew what it was.
A masked man swam into view. When he spoke, his low voice held the echo of a smile.
“Miss Mendoza,” he said. “Regret working with Kane Durante yet?”
His finger twitched, and several things happened simultaneously.
Zaria reached for her own gun, screaming Cecile’s name as the woman lunged, moving with astonishing speed.
She shoved Zaria harshly aside, causing her to stumble just as a single shot reverberated through the crypt.
There was a flash. A cry that might have come from her own lungs. The ashy, bitter scent of magic.
Then silence.