Ari says nothing, and Sam’s rage swells.
“She had nothing to do with alchemy!” Sam bites back her tears and hardens her heart. “With any of us!”
“What about Dominique?” he says in a low, harsh voice. “What did she do toyou? Wasn’t her death intended to hurt us?”
“She made sand for Lumines. She was as complicit as the rest of us.”
“Philosophers are sacred, Sam. They’re meant to stay unharmed.”
“Is anything sacred in a war?”
Ari takes a step closer to her. “I know who we are,” he says bitterly. “I know she was one of your targets, just as Hanover was one of ours.”
“Then why bother bringing them up?” Sam is bitter now too, whether at Ari or herself, she doesn’t know, but it stirs her heart and brings a lump back into her throat.
“Because I don’t want to feel nothing at their deaths. I don’t wantyouto feel nothing.”
She bristles. “What does it matter how I feel about anything? You act like we have a choice. You think you’re so holy. What are you? Reed’s little bioalchemist, selling sand to the world?”
“I never said I was a saint,” Ari says through gritted teeth. “But she didn’t deserve to die.”
“My mother didn’t deserve to die. And yet she’s gone.” She closes her eyes and feels the world spinning around her. But the more Ari denies hisinvolvement, the less sense any of it makes to her. The most logical thing for Lumines to do would have been to take her mother hostage, use her as collateral against Sam. It seems impractical for them to just want her dead. It was effort that amounted to nothing.
“Sam,” he says, falters, and stops. There is an anguish in his voice so deep that it scares her. “Sam, listen to me.”
“Why should I?” she says hoarsely.
“You have no idea,” he says.
“Is this about Dominique?” Sam snaps. “Did you love her?”
“I lovedyou,” Ari says harshly.
Sam blinks, and her retort dies on her tongue. The world suddenly stops spinning around her, the dizziness making way abruptly for a strange stillness. Her heart pounds in her chest.
“No, you didn’t,” Sam whispers.
“I hate that I did.” His eyes glint in the darkness. “I hate that I still do.” He looks like he regrets saying it, but it’s too late to go back now, so he plunges on. “I loved you, Sam. And in spite of everything, I love you now.”
She looks away so that the darkness hides her expression, and bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. There is too much pain in her chest now; she has to release it somewhere. When she looks down at the blade of glass in her hand, she realizes that her grip has deformed the hilt.
Is Will watching this exchange between them, reading their body language? Can they hear their conversation from the ledge?
“I don’t believe you,” she murmurs.
It isn’t true. But she says it anyway, the words nearly drowned out by the sound of the tide. Ari says nothing. She thinks she can hear his heart cracking.
“I know,” he answers.
She’s quiet for a moment at that. The tide is higher tonight than during their first meeting, the waves lapping against the rocks at their feet.
Ari turns to nod at the ocean. “There’s a crack in the archway,” he says. “In a minute, the moon is going to move into position there, and this spot will be bathed in light.”
She’s careful not to turn her full attention toward where he’s looking. It’s a common enough tactic, throwing someone off guard by telling them to focus somewhere else. Instead, she looks and simultaneously clocks where she’s standing, whether it’s a good place for her to do what she needs to do.
They wait quietly as the moon makes its way toward the gap in the arch. Beyond them, the tide laps and pulls noisily against the rock, white foam visible in the darkness, hungry for land.
When it happens, it is sudden. The first ray of silver finally comes through the gap, and all at once it seems like they are bathed in silver light, and the world around them seems to change color. Sam stays still and takes it in, and has the curious sensation that they’ve entered that strange middle space again, where they no longer exist in a world with other people.
