Zaria didn’t reply. She was trying to hold too many thoughts in place, and feared that if she became distracted for even a heartbeat, they would all dissipate. Hands sweaty and heart pounding, she sketched out a rough map of the Crystal Palace.
“Is that supposed to be the Exhibition?” Kane demanded, recognizing the cross shape.
She shushed him. “You’d say the first device was about here, correct?”
He squinted at the tiny dot beside the square she’d labeledIndia. “Looks about right. Fletch?”
Fletcher leaned close, nodding.
“Okay,” Zaria said. “And the second device was on the other side of the corridor.” She made a second mark before holding the pen out to Kane. “The third one was in China, right?”
He took it, sliding the piece of paper closer to him. “Yeah. I’d put it right here.” He made a third and final mark before handing both items back to Zaria.
“There’s going to be one more device,” she whispered. “It’ll show up in Egypt’s display.”
Kane’s frown was dubious. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Look.” Zaria turned the paper clockwise about forty-five degrees. With a light hand, she drew a fourth dot in the place she’d indicated, then connected them to form a diamond shape. Finally, breaths shallow, she drew a circle in the middle and connected that, too.
The room was silent once more as Kane, Jules, and Fletcher studied the image. It was Kane who spoke first.
“That’s the symbol for the Magnum Opus.” The words were edged in disbelief. “Each device sits at one of the four points. But what’s the circle in the middle supposed to be? There’s nothing where the two aisles intersect other than—” He cut off, comprehension alighting his face. “Christ. That’s where the crystal fountain is.”
Zaria nodded. “The fountain has three tiers. I think that’s why the symbol on the business card—the symbol we found on Cecile’s wall—was depicted with three circles instead of just one.”
Fletcher let out a low whistle, but Jules lifted a hand. “Hold on a second. Are you saying someone is turning theExhibitioninto a site where they’ll try to re-create the alchemological Magnum Opus? Why? That’s, like, the least subtle location they could have chosen.”
“If the Curator is a member of the Scriniarii—anda member of the commission, as we initially thought—then maybe the location was chosen simply to cause a scene,” Fletcher suggested. “To disturb the energy of the event, so to speak.”
“The energy,” Zaria repeated softly to herself, then gasped. “Fletcher, you’re a genius.”
“That’s demonstrably not true.”
She ignored him. Her mind was racing faster than ever. “Kane, you said Price spoke to an alchemologist who thought the devices were harnessing something. He was right—they’re harnessingenergy.”
Three dumbfounded gazes met hers.
Jules cleared his throat. “Is that even possible?”
“In theory, yes. If the story about Hohenheim is true, and if I’m right about my father, then both of them died as a result of the energy required to create a primateria source. They couldn’t survive giving up that much of their life force. But what if you didn’t want to useyour own energy? What if you were okay with taking it from others? And what if you happened to live in a city where the biggest event in the world drew thousands upon thousands of people each day, all of them packed into the same building?”
“Then as long as you had a way to harness it,” Jules said in a hushed tone, “you’d never be wanting for energy. But why would anybody need that much to create one primateria source?”
Kane had pressed his lips together, a muscle feathering in the side of his neck as he said what Zaria was thinking. “Because they don’t want to create just one. The Scriniarii’s goal was to make magic accessible, right? Create enough primateria sources, and suddenly it becomes far easier to make that happen. Suddenly, any alchemologist can create without limits.”
“It would be easier to learn,” Zaria put in. “Easier to teach people. If Vaughan is involved, though, I don’t think they’re planning to do anything good with it.” Horror coursed through her at the thought. Alchemology was her life, but she had seen firsthand how dangerous it could be. What kinds of weapons it could create. “Maybe they intend to revolutionize the dark market somehow. That’s what Vaughan wants most, right? To be kingpin of the dark market?”
“How long do you think we have until the fourth device appears?” Jules asked, swaying anxiously in place. “The time between each one seems to be getting shorter.”
“I don’t know. It can’t be long now, though. The devices keep growing brighter, so they’ve already started working.” It made Zaria uneasy, remembering how close she’d been to that glowing light. With enough patrons in the vicinity, nobody was likely to notice their energy being siphoned, but the sheer idea of it was so…violating.
Kane braced a hand on the wall. “With any luck, Price will have the Curator in darbies before anything can happen. The nextMansion House meeting is in two days, and hopefully that’ll make it easy to determine our suspect.”
Jules inclined his head, his dark eyes alight. “I poked around a bit when I was there the other day. There’s a door in the kitchens I can use to get you inside, assuming no one else is around.”
“If they are,” Kane said, “we have a way to deal with them.”
Zaria blinked. “We do?”
