He nodded even as he winced. “I was running, as per your suggestion. Not the easiest thing to do when you’re still recovering from an alchemological dart to the torso.”
“Right. Sorry about that.”
“Did you get the source?”
Zaria nodded, procuring the necklace from the collar of her dress. Kane looked visibly relieved.
“Good. Is this the part where you tell me why, exactly, you need this specific gun?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “I just neededagun, and I knew from passing the American displays that the Colt revolvers were about the right size.”
Kane frowned. “The right size for what? Zaria, the inspector is going to want Aurora Vaughan for questioning. If you’re planning to shoot her—”
“I’m not,” she assured him, managing to refrain from asking why in the world he had thought that her plan. “Take out the cartridges, would you?”
Brow still furrowed, he did as she asked, then handed them over. Zaria folded herself onto the ground, using her mother’s knife to pry the bullet out of a single cartridge.
“What are you doing?” Kane demanded, watching in rapt confusion as she dumped the gunpowder unceremoniously onto the ground.
Zaria didn’t answer. Holding her breath in an attempt to steady her hands, she picked up the dish of solanum and tipped it into the cartridge instead. Kane reared back from the overwhelming brightness.
“Whatisthat?”
Without glancing up, she said, “Solanum. It acts something like an eternal flame. If you combine it with another alchemological substance called calmactium, you can bolster its existing properties. Make the reaction more intense, so to speak.”
Kane pressed a hand more firmly against his ribs as he watched her work. “And by chance did you bring this calmactium with you today?”
“No. My mother dumped a bunch of it into the fountain, though. It’s used in the creation of the alchemological Magnum Opus.”
“Were you able to get some of it back out?”
Zaria shook her head. “Calmactium is water-soluble.” Before Kane could question her yet again, she passed him the cartridge. “Hold this.”
He accepted it, crouching down beside her as she grabbed a handful of her damp skirts. Then she began to wring out the fabric, letting the fountain water drip messily into the cartridge’s tiny opening where it mixed with the solanum.
“Oh,” Kane breathed, realizing what she was doing. “What’s supposed to happen when you fire it, then?”
“That’s what I need to work out,” Zaria said. “And that’s where the magic comes in.”
In any other instance, she would have lit a flame and gathered a tiny pinch of soulsteel. She would have taken a knife to the fleshy part of her thumb and let a few drops of blood fall languidly into the fire. Then, closing her eyes, she would have retreated deep into herself, pulled a thread of her own life force out by the root, and used it to create primateria.
This time, she didn’t do any of that.
This time, she reached for the necklace at her throat.
The sensations were familiar. A plummeting. A turning inward to a place unnameable. A jolt like a skipped heartbeat. But when the pulling came, Zaria didn’t feel it within herself. She felt it in the heated pulse of the carmot beneath her fingertips. This was what it was to have a primateria source, she realized—an unending well of energy.
She refocused her attention, pushing her excitement down. She needed to think about what she wanted the source’s magic todo. Needed to picture it in unblemished detail. She saw how thesolanum interacted with the calmactium, and in turn how the inner mechanism of the Colt revolver would propel the reaction outward into space. Alchemology—magic—was all about intention. Zaria had always been good at that: Knowing what she wanted to happen. Seeing it play out in her mind, then willing it into existence.
She heard Kane’s sharp intake of breath and opened her eyes to see… light. It seemed to stream from the necklace and solidify in a circular motion, almost like it was condensing in on itself. And then suddenly she was holding it:primateria. It sat in the palm of her hand, delicate and crimson and glowing, as though it had been there all along.
“How?” was all she could manage, blinking down at the tiny sphere in awe.
Kane looked equally bewildered. He shook his head, speechless for once.
Zaria couldn’t help it—she laughed. A single, sharp sound, edged in giddiness. Her father had truly done it. His primateria sourceworked. She’d created magic, and it hadn’t taken a single thing from her.
After brushing her hands against the front of her dress to dry them, she refit the cartridge back into the revolver, ignoring the five other bullets still littering the floor. Then she loaded the primateria in alongside it, rose to her feet, and walked over to the very edge of the balcony. Kane followed, his gaze expectant. Trusting.
