Chapter 33 Zaria
ZARIA
THE NECKLACE WAS WARM TO THE TOUCH.
Warmer than it should have been, sitting there upon its bed of cool velvet.
Zaria shoved a few additional pieces of jewelry into her pockets for good measure, fastened the necklace around her throat beneath her high collar, and stepped over Kane’s prone form in a daze.
She swore she could feel the metal pulsing against her skin, almost as if it had a heartbeat of its own.
Perhaps it was the magic that lived within awakening at the touch of someone who knew how to use it.
She hadn’t expected to encounter any trouble with the lock, but it ended up providing precisely the delay she’d needed.
The timing had been impeccable. She’d done it.
The primateria source was hers so long as she could get out of here safely.
Jules was supposed to meet her back at the pawnshop, and then they would leave London behind forever.
They had to be fast about it if they were going to escape both Kane and Ward.
At her feet, Kane didn’t stir. He wouldn’t for a good half hour or so, assuming the smoke dissipated in time. Zaria could hear his voice in her mind, the dangerously furious tone of it as he whispered her name.
He’d said it like he’d known she was betraying him.
She wondered what more he might have added had he not succumbed to unconsciousness.
If he’d wake and think the second kiss was a ruse.
If the gentler pieces of him she’d uncovered would evaporate.
If he’d hunt her to the ends of the world for his revenge.
She supposed that this would become her life the moment she walked away from this place.
An existence running from Kane Durante was surely a dangerous one, but it was a risk Zaria was willing to take.
She would sleep with one eye open, a gun clasped in her hand.
She could sell the rest of the jewelry and leave this wretched life behind.
After all, the dark market was everywhere.
Let Kane hunt her all he liked. She had survived this long.
She was always, always willing to do whatever it took.
It was why they could never be together. Why it had never really been an option.
“Goodbye, Kane,” she murmured, knowing he couldn’t hear.
And she left him there to be devoured by the haze.
The glass panel nearest the Waterhouse exhibit was already gone, courtesy of Jules.
Tiny fragments of glass were scattered on the floor, and more aleuite smoke billowed into the sky outside the palace.
Based on its current density, she could estimate that Jules had released the final explosive less than five minutes ago.
She darted through the jagged opening, careful to avoid the jut of the metal framing, and emerged, coughing, into Hyde Park.
Once she was mostly clear of the smoke, she tossed her handkerchief aside, letting the crowd swallow her up.
The panicked cacophony was too loud after the tense silence while Kane picked the lock.
It was an assault on her ears. There were too many bodies, too many smells.
She felt as though she were being squeezed through a veritable tube of humanity.
She kept half an eye out for Fletcher but didn’t see him among the officers she spotted.
Thank God for that. Not only because she didn’t want to be caught, but if she’d truly just doomed him, she didn’t want to look him in the eye.
And yet she couldn’t help but feel certain Kane would protect him. It was why she’d never considered that part of the equation with much concern: Kane would keep Fletcher alive no matter what it cost him. Zaria knew as much because she would have done the same for Jules.
She let the frantic wave of people engulf her, plastering a terrified look onto her own face as harried officers ushered them farther away from the Crystal Palace.
Here, people milled around on the grass of Hyde Park, hollering for their families or exchanging panicked theories about what had happened.
Zaria had no doubt that at least some of the patrons would’ve recognized the effects of aleuite, but to say as much was to admit a connection to the dark market, and thus she suspected it would be a while before the mystery was solved.
The sky above had turned a uniform gray, a colorless drape tossed over the heavens.
She paused a moment, allowing herself to be buffeted by the cool wind.
Her mouth was dry, her heart beating a relentless countdown.
Once she returned to the pawnshop, Jules would be prepared to go, either with George or without him.
Zaria would grab her alchemology supplies, and then they would start over someplace else.
Someplace she could build a new reputation for herself.
Someplace she could deal in magic only if and when she wanted to.
She would have to go by a different name, of course, but that was no matter.
Her blood thrummed in her veins. Everything felt surreal. The day she’d been anticipating for so long was finally here.
The pawnshop was eerily quiet when she arrived.
The trio of golden orbs swayed above the entrance as the wind picked up, the stench of piss and impending rain on the air.
As she wrenched her hair out of its updo and shoved open the door, Zaria hoped it was one of the last times she’d ever smell this place.
The last time she’d skirt reeking puddles and dirty, wailing children.
The last time her chest would clench painfully as she tried to avert her gaze from the hopeless ones staring back.
She couldn’t save any of them. London’s working poor had to fend for themselves, and they all knew it.
Neither Jules nor George was in the front of the shop, but Zaria could hear footsteps upstairs. She doubted George would agree to leaving. It would break Jules’s heart, but he’d conceded that if it came to it, they would leave his father behind. He could make his own choices.
She drew a finger along one of the dusty shelves before turning into the hallway. She thought of how she’d led Kane down here, his own gun pressed against his back. How calm he’d been, that self-satisfied grin making him look devilishly, frustratingly handsome.
Something horribly close to guilt roiled in the pit of her stomach, and she shoved it aside.
Nothing Kane did had been for her—it had all been for himself.
He had merely been helping her to help him.
Zaria knew as much, and yet the thought of Kane brought back the mental image of him lying motionless on the Exhibition floor.
They were enemies now, she realized. Honest-to-God enemies.
She didn’t know how to feel about that.
In another life, perhaps they could have worked well together. Could have pulled off countless heists with her skills and his cunning. A formidable team for more than just a week, had they chosen it.
But Zaria had made her choices. And if there was one thing she’d always been good at, it was following through.
She pushed the door to her workshop ajar. It was dark inside, and she felt her way over to the table as her eyes fought to adjust. The place was painfully familiar; she knew there were candles around here somewhere.
As she had the thought, one flickered to life just in front of her.
Zaria froze, her mouth going bone-dry. Kane couldn’t have found her already. There was no way for him to have gotten here before her. By now, he should have barely regained consciousness.
But it was not Kane’s voice that echoed in the room around her.
“Good afternoon, Miss Mendoza.”
Zaria turned and looked directly into the face of Alexander Ward.
She’d only seen him once before—at a dark market exchange she’d attended with her father back when she was all of twelve—but she couldn’t forget those eyes.
They had an oddly metallic sheen to them, and there was something feline about the way he blinked far too infrequently.
They were the eyes of a man who did not feel the way most people did.
In fact, Zaria suspected they were the eyes of a man who did not feel at all.
For a moment, she couldn’t speak. Every muscle in her body tensed.
She was tempted to flee, but she knew instinctively that Ward would be able to stop her.
Besides, Jules and his father were right upstairs.
Her gaze flicked up to the ceiling as she mentally urged them both to stay put.
As her thoughts realigned themselves, she reached for the gun at her waist.
She saw too late that Ward was already holding one of his own, and he pointed it right at her.
“Put it down,” he said calmly, almost politely, “and take a seat. I realize that, of the two of us, only one of our weapons is lethal, but wouldn’t it be nicer if we could chat like civilized folk?”
Fear spiked in Zaria’s blood. “How did you—”
“Price works for me. Not Kane. Put the gun down.” Ward took a slow step, then another, beginning to circle her like an animal circling its prey.
Zaria’s head spun, but she couldn’t foresee an outcome where she managed to shoot Ward before he shot her first. She dropped the gun.
It felt like the worst kind of surrender.
Everything she’d dreamed of only moments ago suddenly felt out of reach again.
Because of course she knew why Ward was here: He wanted the necklace. The primateria source. Forget leaving the city—Zaria would be lucky if she left this room alive.
“Say what you came to say.” Her voice sounded dead, little inflection to it. She sank numbly into the chair by her desk.