Just like the first time, there was fire and hunger and desperation. It was softer this time, though, and there was the distinct taste of melancholy on his lips. It caught Zaria off guard the same way his music had. She had not known Kane Durante could be soft in a way that was not coercing. Had not known he could be melancholy in a way that did not scream of falsehood. As if in response, she felt the weight of her own sadness settle on her chest, and she kissed him harder.
That was when the smoke came.
It was preceded by abangthat made Zaria flinch and Kane go still. His body turned statue-like, and when he spoke, it was in a voice altogether different from the one he’d just used.
“I suppose that’s our signal.”
Zaria supposed it was.
Chaos reigned as the aleuite billowed, released from a place of unidentifiable origin. It was thick and impossibly dense as it swelled to fill the area. Tendrils crept out from a rapidly growing wall of slate-gray smoke. It looked lethal, Zaria noticed with no small amount of pride, as officers yelled panicked orders and footsteps slapped againstthe floor of the Exhibition. She could see Fletcher ushering wild-eyed men and women toward the exit, their faces masks of horror.
“If we don’t move,” Kane yelled into her ear over the clamor, “it’s going to look mighty suspicious.”
He had a point. Zaria allowed the wave of patrons to sweep her up, grimacing as bodies slammed into her own in a series of shoves and elbows. She hadn’t realized how many people remained in this area until they’d all begun swarming to escape at once. Her ears rang with the frantic calls of women looking for their significant others, or perhaps their children, and the tang of aleuite grew identifiable in the air.
Kane had disappeared. Zaria knew he was here somewhere, heading for the Waterhouse exhibit the same way she was, but the back of his head wasn’t distinctive enough for her to know whether he was in front of her. She tried not to think of his mouth—desperation on his lips, melancholy on his tongue—as she fumbled with her own explosive.
Nobody paid her any mind as she withdrew it from her pocket or as she fiddled with the wax sealing the vial shut. Why should they? They didn’t notice when she broke away from the crowd, turning from the exit instead of shoving through it, and let the second aleuite bomb go.
The sound of the explosion was loud enough to set her teeth on edge, but it was the subsequent screeches that made Zaria wince.Dramatic, she thought, pulling a cloth kerchief from a pocket of her dress and holding it to her mouth as the smoke spread out. The fabric smelled of chemicals, having been thoroughly dipped in an alchemological solution the night before. Zaria hadn’t lied to Kane and Fletcher: Nobody experienced lasting effects from aleuite.
The short-term ones, however, were something else entirely.
It had taken some trial and error, but Zaria had managed to adjust the concentration so a person could withstand the smoke for about five minutes before they would pass out—approximately the amount of time Kane said he needed to get the lock open. Given that they were behind schedule, she would need to delay him slightly.
There was a reason she hadn’t told Kane about the nonlethal revolver she’d created. It utilized aleuite as well, but in a highly liquid concentration sure to knock someone unconscious once it found its way into their bloodstream. A tranquilizer of sorts. If he’d found out, he would have asked about it. And if she’d told him the truth, she might well have risked him making the connection.
Zaria squinted, but it was difficult to make out her hand in front of her face. She was forced to rely on memory as she picked her way toward the Waterhouse exhibit, eyes streaming. Her heartbeat was frantic, her breaths labored against the kerchief. The other patrons were being evacuated, which meant they would be fine. The officers, too, should be okay so long as they didn’t venture into the denser parts of the smoke.
Eventually, she found Kane.
He was all but an outline, those skilled fingers working away at the lock on the cage. The only thing separating him from the item that would save Fletcher. His one friend. The one person he cared about. And yet he didn’t know what he was after, did he? Ward did, surely, but Kane was oblivious. His frantic desperation was not for himself. It was not for magic, or money, or any of the other things most people cared so much about.
He didn’t notice her at first, focused as he was on the lock. Zaria could tell by the way he kept shaking his head that the effects of the aleuite were already taking hold. The cacophony of the crowd fadedinto the distance, and for a moment, her mind was full only of the song he’d played. Sad and beautiful, just like him.
The good parts of him anyway.
She wanted to kiss him again, as many times as it took to understand who he was when the mask came off. But Zaria was under no illusions that he was fixable, and besides, it wasn’t up to her to try. She knew what she wanted. She knew, and it was within her grasp, and Kane Durante was not the type of boy you gave things up for.
KANE
KANE SENSEDZARIA BEHIND HIM, BUT HE DIDN’T DARE TURNaround. Even if he had, he doubted he would have been able to see her. His attention was on his hands as he struggled to insert the parautoptic key for the third time.
“This isn’t working,” he hissed, panic making him dizzy. He didn’t understand what was happening; normally, he was calm and collected while committing a theft. It was crucial to keep yourself grounded. This time, however, he was starting to feel as though he might pass out.
Zaria’s body was suddenly flush against his back, her hair brushing his cheek as she leaned forward. “What do you mean?”
Her voice was laced with urgency, though it sounded slightly muffled. Kane didn’t look up at her—his gaze had started to swim, and the last thing he wanted was for Zaria to notice something was wrong.
“The key isn’tworking. You said it was supposed to adjust to fit the lock, right? Well, I’ve inserted it three times now, and nothing’s happening.”
There was a beat of silence that felt like an eternity. “But—that can’t be,” Zaria whispered, audibly shaken. “I created so many iterations, and this one is supposed to work. When it’s in an enclosed metal space, the bits are meant to rearrange themselves to align with the levers.”
“That’s all very well, but that doesn’t seem to be the case!” He inserted the key again. It rattled uselessly, and only then did he realize the problem. “There are more than fifteen levers.”
“You said fifteen was the maximum, so I only created fifteen bits!”
It was true. It wassupposedto be true. Kane swiped an unsteady hand across his brow. “This is impossible.”
