Ward’s brows shot upward, and something like understanding crossed his face. “You care about him.”
She didn’t respond.
“And yet you still betrayed him.” This time Ward’s laugh was the real thing. It sent goose bumps climbing Zaria’s arms. “How boldly you claimI’mthe monster, Miss Mendoza.”
She wasn’t about to get backed into that corner. “You don’t even care that the people in Devil’s Acre are suffering, do you? You makedemands of them while knowing they have nothing. You ruin lives with no thought for it. And all the while you’re bleeding boys of their humanity, turning them into monsters just like you.” Her mouth twisted on the last sentence, and they both knew she was only referring to one boy in particular.
Ward clicked his tongue. “IsavedCanziano’s life. I could have killed him, and I didn’t.”
“Canziano?”
Ward’s mouth twisted. “The name Kane’s mother gave him.”
It didn’t suit Kane at all. Was that why he’d left it behind? Zaria tried to imagine him as the child he’d once been: a watchful, well-mannered little creature. Slender hands made for music, not murder. She wondered if his parents’ deaths were what had broken him or if he’d already been starting to crack.
“Give me the necklace,” Ward repeated, malice edging into his tone.
She took a step back, knowing it was pointless. “No.”
He looked almost bored. “You have five seconds to hand it to me, or I fire a bullet into your pretty little skull.”
Zaria could picture very well what damage a dark market gun would to do her head. Magic would shred the flesh, burrow into her brain, then disintegrate from the inside out. She’d be dead before she realized Ward had pulled the trigger. But was she supposed to simply… give it up? She had risked everything for the primateria source. It was all she’d wanted since her father’s death. It was the one thing that was supposed to change her life.
It couldn’t do that, though, if she was dead. And what about Jules? Would Ward leave her cooling body here for him to find, crushing his heart and hope for the future in one fell swoop? Or would he take Jules for his crew without ever explaining what had happened?
Hands shaking, gaze as hard as flint, Zaria reached up and unclasped the necklace.
She’d worn it only a short while, but giving it to Ward felt like handing over a piece of her soul. She watched it dangle between her fingers, glinting vermilion in the firelight, before he reached out and snatched it. Greed sharpened the angular planes of his face, and his lips parted.
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
Ward’s gun was still raised, but his attention was no longer on Zaria. If she could move fast enough to retrieve her gun from where it sat atop the worktable, she might be able to get a shot off. Maybe. It was a chance she needed to take before the moment passed her by.
Zaria lunged.
At the same moment, someone burst through the doorway into her workshop.
KANE
ZARIA HAD BETRAYED HIM.
Kane ought to have known. She wasn’t the type to let herself be easily manipulated. He’d given her far too much leeway. Had trusted her to believe him when he said he could give her what she wanted. After all, he was accustomed to people wanting to trust him, wasn’t he? Zaria shouldn’t have been any different.
He’d been a goddamned fool, though, and let himself get pulled in too deep. Fletcher had been right all along.
Kane thought unwittingly of Zaria’s face. The way she’d looked when she’d asked him to kiss her again. How the feeble light creeping through the glass windows of the Crystal Palace made her look more goddess than girl. He’d known he was in trouble then. Because for the second time in his pathetic life, he’d found someone he couldn’t bear to let down.
He had planned to take more than just the necklace from theWaterhouse exhibit. It wasn’t quite what he’d promised, but it was better than nothing. How could he leave Zaria with nothing after all she’d done?
Kane hadn’t known what was wrong with him—why he suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of doing exactly as he’d planned from the very beginning. Maybe he was becoming too soft. Maybe he’d let her in just a little too far. He’d made it a habit of caring for no one but Fletcher, and that was the way he ought to have left it.
Part of him had known what was happening when he’d heard Zaria’s footsteps. When she’d whispered his name like an incantation into the smoke.
All he could do was murmur hers in return, a furious rebuttal.
Then he’d felt nothing at all.
He was shaken awake a short while later, having been dragged away from the display—and then to his feet—by a panicked-looking Fletcher. A splitting headache had settled itself behind his temples, and he found himself unable to form words as he looked into his friend’s worried face. In the background, he could vaguely make out the shape of a suspended canoe, which had to mean they were near Canada’s exhibit.
