Jules gave a soft laugh devoid of humor. “Perhaps. But it’s not as though his hands are clean.”
That was true. After all, George Zhao ran a pawnshop in the heart of a London slum; he couldn’t very well be expected to have a strongmoral compass. He did what it took, and Zaria didn’t begrudge him that. If you ever ceased trying to claw your way up in society, you’d be trampled in a heartbeat.
Jules caught up with her as she rounded the corner at the end of the hallway. The flickering candlelight lit his angular face in a strange way as he forced Zaria to hold his gaze. His dark eyes were made for seeing through falsities. “Are you sure you don’t want me in there with you? They’ll have guns.”
“And if they want another one, they won’t shoot me. I’ll be fine.”
In this part of London, women didn’t have the luxury of relying on people to do things for them. If their husbands weren’t dead from disease, then they were neck deep in drink or else slinking off to some brothel. Zaria Mendoza made her own deals, and she would see them through.
Jules spread his hands in good-natured surrender. “All right. Well, scream if anything goes wrong.”
“If you hear screaming,” Zaria said, “I assure you it won’t be coming from me.”
She watched with some measure of disconnect as Jules disappeared back down the stairs, then glanced down at her cracked pocket watch. Twelve-fifteen in the morning. Her meeting was supposed to have been at midnight, which meant she’d kept them waiting long enough so as to be fashionably late. She took a steadying breath. It had been so much easier when her father was alive. Not only because his commissions kept them afloat in the grime-encrusted belly of the slum, but also because he’d been the one to do the actual transactions. No matter how many times Zaria met with a client—or one of their hired grunts—she felt inadequate somehow. They always looked at her with confusion or distrust. As if her appearance would somehow impact the quality of her work.
Luckily, her work had gotten far better over the years. So she endured the gibes, the sideways glances, the far-too-low offers. Word of mouth was how any dark market vendor built a reputation, so satisfaction was crucial. If that meant accepting less money for the time being, then fine. She simply needed to be patient. The right deal would come along, and once she’d fulfilled all her father’s commissions, perhaps she could be free.
Besides, things were already looking up. Tonight, her buyer was one of the most powerful men on this side of London.
Zaria took a deep breath. Then she shook her hair back, stood up straight, and shoved open the door at the end of the hall.
She sauntered into George Zhao’s office, ignoring the two men who hovered on the far side of the room. It was always vaguely embarrassing to meet here, where her patrons could see the walls stained by water damage and the items cluttering every available surface. Where they might notice how much dirt caked the floor no matter how often Jules tried to sweep it aside.
But what mattered most in transactions like these was how you presented yourself. So Zaria stalked over to the chair behind the desk, sank into it, and propped her feet up. Only then did she make eye contact, forcing an expectant kind of confidence onto her face. “Evening, gentlemen.”
Now that she had deigned to look directly at them, she examined the men with interest. Both were tall and dark haired, though not in a way that made her suspect they were related. The older of the two was balding, with an angry face and thick eyebrows. The younger had a sharp jaw and straight nose, his expression bemused. They were clad in all black, their trousers and overcoats made of thick linens. Those who risked their necks to deal on behalf of the rich—provided they didn’t steal anything—were well compensated. And if theydidsteal something, it wasn’t difficult to find someone else willing to hunt them down.
Zaria leaned back in her cushioned chair, positioning the revolver wordlessly on the desk.
The older man grunted. “Is that it?”
“Yes.”
He started forward, eyes narrowed in distrust. “Looks more or less like a regular firearm.”
Zaria raised a brow, and even the younger man shot his companion a disdainful glance. The expression looked comfortable on him, complementing his high collar and the vaguely amused curve of his mouth. If trouble wore a face, Zaria thought, it was undoubtedly that of the boy before her.
“That’s the point.” She drew out the words as if speaking to a fool. “Unless you wanted to draw questions from the coppers, I suggest you thank me for my ingenuity.”
The man’s face reddened.
“Relax, Larkin,” the younger man drawled. To Zaria, he added, “Show us.”
Zaria shrugged, taking the gun in one hand. The thing about her style of revolver was this: It wasn’t a revolver at all. You didn’t have to go through the inconvenient, menial task of loading it every time you fired more than a few shots. The cylinder spun as it should, but that was merely for show. Her guns didn’t fire bullets; they fired magic.
Real magic was nothing like the stories described it—its sole use was manipulation. As long as you had the right tools and materials, you could use primateria to modify an object’s purpose into one that should otherwise be impossible. Simple, more common examples included perpetually burning lamps and unbreakable glass, but the dark market wasn’t concerned with items like that. People wantedweapons. So that was what Zaria made, because anything she didn’t get paid for was a waste of energy.
She pointed the revolver lazily at a thick panel of wood leaning against the wall—already riddled with holes from prior demonstrations—and pulled the trigger.
The gears whirled as light flashed from the barrel of the gun, leaving a barely visible shimmer in its wake that hung in the air, filling the space with a lightly acrid smell. There, in the panel across the room, was a fresh hole. Magic fired from a gun ate away at material in the same way a highly concentrated acid might. It worked faster, though. Much faster.
And unlike bullets, magic left no trace.
Zaria turned back to her audience expectantly. The younger man tipped his head back and laughed; there was something sharp about the sound. He ambled over to the wooden slab, dragging a finger over the new indent. Dark eyes found hers across the room.
“It’s not very big.”
Now it was Zaria’s turn to laugh, long and low in her stomach. “That a line you hear a lot?”
