Zaria loosed an unsteady breath, and only then did Kane glance up to see a flash of white. Was she wearing some sort of scarf? He narrowed his eyes, then shook his head. He wasn’t thinking straight. What mattered was that they needed to get this lock open.
“You’ll need to arrange the bits yourself, then,” Zaria said firmly. There was a rustling of fabric, and the next moment she had thrust what looked like a delicate pair of spectacles in front of Kane’s face.
“What the hell are these?”
“Magnispecs. Put them on and use them to look into the keyhole. They’re powerful enough that you should be able to see the levers inside. Once you know the arrangement, you can pick the lock the regular way. I assume you’re capable of it.”
Kane held the strange spectacles up to his eyes, feeling like a fool. It was difficult to see much of anything at all, but he pressed them against the keyhole as she’d suggested, waving her away with his free hand. “Leave this to me. Go check on our escape route.”
He felt Zaria move away, which he took as assent. He didn’t quite understand the mechanics of the atomizing adhesive, but he had to believe it would work. He’d timed everything around the moment when the device would apparently cause the glass wall panel to disintegrate, the pieces tiny enough that it would look as though nothing had ever been there at all. Once they escaped with the necklace, Fletcher would ensure any officers stationed at the exterior wouldn’t interfere. The smoke would spill outside, and they could blend into the evacuated crowd, no one the wiser.
Kane’s hands were sweating. His vision didn’t seem to want to focus as he squinted through the magnispecs, trying to make out the levers inside the lock. Zaria was right: The magnispecs were inconceivably efficient. He adjusted them using the dial on one side. At the very least, the levers were somewhat visible. He counted quickly once, then again. There weresixteen bits. His heart thudded in his ears, seeming to echo strangely. Now the trouble lay in working out how they corresponded to the key he held. If he was correct, the first two bits of the parautoptic key needed to be quite short. With shaking hands, Kane removed each of the key bits, trying desperately not to let them fall to the floor. His dexterity was off, but he plugged two of the metal pieces back in, then pressed his eye back to the keyhole. A long bit next, then another short. Two medium-size ones of nearly the same length.
He had no idea how much time was passing. It could have been seconds or hours. His hands itched to check his pocket watch. At one point, he realized in horror that he was out of short bits and had to start all over again. Finally, however, he had an arrangement that made sense. The lock couldn’t possibly require another combination.
“Kane.”
Zaria’s voice seemed to emanate from somewhere far away. Kane felt as though his ears were stuffed with wool.
“Kane, the smoke will lift soon.”
Her steps neared, and Kane inserted the key. Only then did he procure his smallest pick, inserting it so that it pressed against the sixteenth lever. Darkness crowded the edges of his vision. He might have been looking through something small and tube shaped. But he forced his body to stay upright, maintaining his grip on the key and lever as he turned them simultaneously.
The lock clicked.
Zaria’s face swam into view at the narrowed apex of his vision. Itwasa scarf, Kane saw—or, rather, some kind of handkerchief. His thoughts were hazy, strings of logic coalescing as slowly as if they were being dragged through molasses. Horror dawned, acute and sobering, followed by realization.
Then rage.
She saw it, that rage, and something flickered in the depths of her gaze. “Kane—”
“Zaria,” Kane spat.
It was all he said before he crumpled to the ground.
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 panickedcacophony 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.
