“You look like hell.”
“You’re one to talk. What happened to your face? Finally piss off the wrong person?”
The look he gave her was odd. “Don’t worry about me. Is this because of the work you’ve been doing?”
“I’m not worried. And yes, as a matter of fact.” Zaria gestured to the table, attempting at the same time to push herself to her feet. Kane reached out as if to help her, but then his arm snapped back to his side. Smart. “There’s a reason not many people practice alchemology.”
“You said it requires sacrifice.”
“It does.”
“And what exactly are you sacrificing?” he asked, watching as she finally managed to stand.
It had been easier not to think of Kane when she wasn’t looking at him. Embarrassment flooded her like poison. She could remember how he felt against her, how hetasted, and it made her palms sweaty.
“Currently? My patience.”
“Hmm.” Kane turned away, pacing a slow semicircle around the worktable. For someone who must have arrived to find her unresponsive on the ground, he was relatively unruffled. He came to ahalt, forefinger trailing over the tools she’d abandoned, and said, “Have you finished?”
Zaria pressed her dry lips together. “Yes, actually.”
“And you didn’t think to come and get me?”
“I wasunconscious.”
“Right.” He smiled, but the shape of it was grim. “You cut it close, the grand opening being tomorrow and all.”
It felt like a jab, and Zaria bristled. Thank goodness Kane couldn’t keep his mouth shut, so she was forced to remember all the reasons she disliked him. It didn’t matter how lovely and dangerous he looked in white, or how one side of his mouth creased whenever he grinned. It was a facade. A mask he used to trick people into doing what he wanted.
Zaria could only hope the confidence he stowed behind it would be his downfall.
“No matter,” he said smoothly. “Let’s drop it off, then, shall we?”
“Dropwhatoff?”
Kane arched a brow. “Your handy inventions. Unless you’d planned to carry all this into the Exhibition in broad daylight.”
Zaria hadn’t planned anything of the sort. She hadn’t truly thought about it. Howwerethey going to get all this into the Crystal Palace? Aleuite explosives were small, but they weren’t exactly inconspicuous, contained in fist-size vials as they were—and that wasn’t even considering the other items.
“I suppose you have a plan for that,” she said.
“I told you before that I do.”
“Are you finally going to tell me what it is?”
Kane splayed his fingers on the surface of the worktable, considering them rather than looking at her. “You’ll find out shortly. Now, do you have the key?”
Slightly apprehensive, Zaria handed him the final version of the parautoptic key. Kane’s face tightened as he turned it over. She knew why: It looked distressingly ordinary. The handle was a little wider than most, designed to accommodate the primateria, but otherwise it could have been any old key.
“It should self-adjust to fit the parautoptic lock,” she told Kane, whose frown deepened.
“Should?”
“It wasn’t as though I had anything to test it on. You said yourself the only locks of its kind are displayed in the Exhibition.”
He dragged his index finger along the key’s metal bits, counting them. When he had ascertained there were fifteen, he said, “It better work.”
Zaria straightened, suddenly defensive, though she had the same reservations. Her heart thrummed unsteadily. “How aboutthank you?”
