More to the point, it had become abundantly, inconveniently clear that she didn’t want him to die at all. The idea of it had panic twisting her stomach into knots, and she didn’t want to think about what that might mean. Instead, she busied herself with what she’d been able to find of Cecile’s tools, a glass of alcohol at her side to act as a disinfectant. Her heart seemed to have taken up residence in her esophagus as she watched Kane shudder on the sofa before her. He was more coherent now that she’d removed several tiny shards of metal, careful not to touch them with her bare hands, but he still looked fairly wretched. His face was drawn, his complexion corpse-like.
Zaria shoved her magnispecs on top of her head—she’d found them in Cecile’s bedroom, and despite a small crack they were in fairly good condition—before vigorously rubbing her eyes. Fletcher had left to deal with the bodies of Cleland and his cronies, and although Zaria didn’t relish the thought of him traipsing around Seven Dials on his own, there wasn’t much to be done for it. She would be more liability than help, and Kane certainly wasn’t going anywhere.
She looked down at him now with a jolt. She’d been so focused on her task, fingers moving with clinical precision, that she’d almost forgotten she was working on a living, breathing human. She’d never seen a boy entirely shirtless—other than brief glimpses of Jules during their childhood, which didn’t count. But even as she recoiled from the impropriety, she couldn’t help scouring the ridges of his stomach, the firm planes of his chest. His arms were striated by tendons and overlapping veins, nothing like the soft, narrow curves of her own. Every bit of Kane Durante looked sharp to the touch.
Zaria’s gaze snagged on the inner part of his forearm, and she frowned. Tiny blackx’s—or crosses?—had been scratched into the skin there, seeming to shimmer in the light of the candles she’d set up around them. The marks varied in size, and it was obvious they hadn’t been done with care. There was a scratchy quality about several of them that still looked rather painful.
“Are you—done?”
Kane’s question startled her, the words flat and lacking intonation. There was a rasping quality to his voice, as if he’d been screaming for hours, though he’d been remarkably quiet during her torturous amateur foray into his skin.
Zaria’s eyes snapped back to his. They were half-lidded, the pupils constricted. He looked exhausted, the muscles of his neck still tensed against the pain. “No,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. My fingerswere beginning to cramp rather terribly, and I didn’t want to… Well. You can see the problem.”
Kane turned his gaze to the ceiling, lips curving in a smile that looked closer to a grimace. “By all means, take your time.” He paused to gasp a breath. “I don’t need you erroneously removing any organs.”
“I think those are all quite a bit deeper, thank heavens.” Zaria bent to retrieve a tiny stoppered bottle she’d placed on the floor. “You should take more laudanum.”
“No,” he snapped, abruptly sounding more alert. “I wish you hadn’t given me any in the first place.”
She winced, recalling how Fletcher had forced it down Kane’s throat at her instruction when they’d first returned. “I didn’t have a lot of choice. You were going into shock. It could have killed you.”
“I can’t help but feel that would’ve been more convenient for everyone.”
Zaria ignored that as she unstoppered the bottle. “You really should—”
“No.I have quite enough vices.”
The venom in his tone had her putting the laudanum down with a frustrated sigh. It was a common enough remedy for everything from headaches to sleeplessness to severe pain stemming from childbirth, but frequent use could inspire addiction.
“Fine,” she said evenly, flexing her hand. “I’m only trying to make this easier.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“It’s easier formeif you’re sedated.”
He didn’t respond, didn’t look at her, the taut angle of his jaw flexing. His fingers dug clawlike into the edge of the sofa, causing the black marks to ripple along his forearms. Zaria took that to signify the conversation was over and he was ready for her to continue.
She did so, giving her hand a final stretch before taking up her tools once more. They weren’t surgical tools, and she was far from a surgeon, but the steadiness required to put an invention together wasn’t wholly dissimilar from that required to remove bits of metal from the human body. Of course, the human body had considerably more of a reaction to pain, and she kept glancing up from her work to gauge Kane’s reaction. His lips were white, his face contorted.
“Zaria.” He invoked her name the way one might a curse.
She discarded another piece of metal. “Yes?”
“Say something.”
“I’m trying to work,” she reminded him.
“Please.”
The desperation in that single word was enough to break her resolve. In that moment, Zaria knew, she could have said anything. Kane wasn’t really listening. Her voice was a distraction—something to cling to that wasn’t agony or theclinkof her forceps against the glass of alcohol. When she eventually replied, the words were softer than she’d intended. “What do the crosses on your arm mean?”
His mouth thinned. “I have one for each time I disappointed Ward. Next question.”
“Kane—”
“I saidnext question.”
Zaria repressed a shudder, trying not to think about what tool Ward might have used to make those marks. How young Kane might have been for the first one. “Do you ever feel like you don’t truly know yourself??”
