Zaria pressed her lips together firmly enough that they began to ache. Unlike last time, she didn’t have anything with which to cover her face, and her head was beginning to swim. Kane, realizing this, cursed. His gaze darted around urgently, coming to settle on something by Zaria’s right ear. She stiffened in confusion as he reached out with both hands and plucked a pin from her hair.
Several loose strands cascaded down her shoulders, but Zaria didn’t care. She held her breath, watching as Kane flipped the pin around. Holding it rather precariously in his fingertips, he worked the sharp end into the tiny lock of his handcuffs, wiggling it until the mechanism gave way with aclick. He flexed his hands, then slipped the pin back into Zaria’s hair. The gesture caught her off guard. It wasn’t at all in the right place, but she didn’t move to fix it.
“I need you to put your arms around my neck,” Kane said. “Can you do that? I’m going to get you out of here.”
She shook her head firmly, stubbornly. Maybe she was imagining things, but now that the Magnum Opus process had been interrupted, she seemed to be regaining her energy. In slow increments, perhaps, but it was enough. Zaria had no intention of leaving the Crystal Palace until she knew for certain her mother was no longer a threat.
She didn’t need to say as much aloud. Kane, seeming to see it in her face, loosed an audible exhale. “You’re not going anywhere until she’s captured, are you?”
Zaria shook her head. In a place as large as the Crystal Palace, without any light to guide them, her faith in the coppers wasn’t high. Not that it had ever been.
“Can you even walk?”
She nodded absently. An idea had begun to take hold. She crawled on all fours back to the other side of the fountain, squinting through the smoke until she found the knife she’d dropped. Her lungs screamed as she used it to slash a haphazard strip of fabric away from her skirts, then tie it around the lower half of her face. It wasn’t perfect, and she’d already inhaled some of the aleuite, but it would do. She rose unsteadily to her feet as Kane stood behind her, an arm outstretched in case she needed assistance.
He didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t tell her she was foolish, that she didn’t have the strength, or that this was a job better left to the coppers. Instead he simply quirked a brow, his gaze determined, awaiting her direction.
Zaria took a muffled breath through the fabric. “This won’t last forever,” she told Kane, indicating their face coverings. “But it will stave off the effects for a short time.”
“Why don’t we just get out of this area?” he returned. “The aleuite couldn’t possibly have spread through the entire Exhibition. Besides, we know Aurora isn’t here.”
“There’s something I need to do first.”
Without waiting for Kane to answer, Zaria lifted her ruined skirts and stepped into the bottom tier of the crystal fountain. The water was warm, although no longer boiling, and the crimson hue had faded to a reddish tinge once more. She’d been right, then, to think the reaction had been interrupted.
“The Magnum Opus couldn’t be completed,” she told Kane as she waded toward the center of the fountain. “When Price shot the solanum orb atop one of the devices, it stopped channeling.”
“Okay.” Kane’s face was mostly obscured, but Zaria could hear the dubious note in his voice. “So you got your energy back, I take it?”
“It would appear that way.” Only the aleuite was affecting her now.
“And does that have anything to do with why you’re currently knee-deep in a fountain? I somehow doubt you’ll find Aurora there.”
Amazing, really, how his dry quips managed to get under her skin at the most inopportune times. “I’m getting my father’s primateria source,” Zaria said. “It’s been here the whole time.”
Kane came to stand right by the edge of the basin. “Where ishere, exactly?”
“The top tier of the fountain.” She tilted her head back, trying to glimpse the glow of the carmot through the gloom, to no avail. It didn’t matter. “I know it’s there. I saw it earlier.”
“Is that going to help us catch Aurora somehow?”
“Hopefully.”
The water rippled as he placed one foot in the basin. “Then let’s get it.”
Zaria watched, perplexed, as he waded over to her. What she could see of his expression was set in stony determination. He bent down, linking his fingers together to form a sort of step. “What are you doing?”
“How else are you going to get up there?” His eyes lifted to meet hers. They were wide, full of sincerity. “Just… be careful.”
It took Zaria a moment to regain her bearings. Then she nodded, steeling herself, and placed her wet boot onto the platform of Kane’s hands so that he could hoist her up. Water crashed over her, immediately making her ascent far more difficult than she’d anticipated. The second tier of the fountain was curved, almost umbrella shaped, so that any attempt to latch onto the crystal only sent her fingers slipping.
The tier directly above that, though, was bowl-like, mirroring theone below. “I need to get higher!” Zaria shouted over the roar of rushing water, not caring who might be around to overhear. Her head was still foggy, and her wet hands continued to scrabble on the glass.
She heard Kane heave a breath, and then she was pushed several inches higher, just enough to reach out and hook her fingers over the curved ridge of the next tier. Her grip was precarious at best, the crystal cutting into her skin, but she managed to use the strength of her arms to pull herself all the way up and into the basin. This one was far smaller than that of the first tier, and for a moment Zaria fought for balance, struggling against the relentless pressure of the water surging over the edge. Just when she thought it might take her with it, she lurched forward, steadying herself with one of the ornamental spikes clustered around the fountain’s center.
She heard Kane shout her name from somewhere below, and she waved a hand to indicate that she was fine. “Kane!” she called, blinking through the spray of water. “Do you remember where the American exhibits are?”
He responded in the affirmative before adding, “Why?”
