Sam
Sam tries not to pace. Her eyes stay in the direction of the Confession Room’s closed door, then darts to the rest of the corridor, then back. Little sound comes through the walls—but she can hear a muffled cry, a crack, the harsh cadence of Will’s voice. Her fists stay clenched at her sides, and as another cry comes through, she closes her eyes and turns away, trying not to imagine what Will is doing to Ari.
At last, the door suddenly pulls open, and Will walks through. He strides past the guards without a word and heads down the hall toward Sam.
The storm on his face is unmistakable, his jaw tight and his eyes black with anger. She swallows her surprise. Will rarely loses his composure like this. She has seen that look only a handful of times, the rage in him contrasting with the easy calm of his walk, and in those moments, she knows that his strings have been tugged so tight that any wrong movement will make them snap.
Will doesn’t bother to meet her gaze. When he passes her, he says, “Clean him up and send some lunch for him.”
Sam’s heart hammers in her chest as he continues down the hall without slowing. She shivers at the breeze of his passing.
When he’s gone, she turns back to the room and opens the door.
Her eyes first catch on the hundred shards of glass littering the floor, the pieces glittering against the tiles. In his chair, Ari remains bound and gagged, his face turned down and slightly away from her. Immediately, Sam notices the bruising on his left cheek and near his eyebrow, the skin split and swollen, a streak of blood running down his face. A cut on his jaw is still bleeding, staining the white of his gag, the gash matching what Sam suspects is one of Will’s rings. He’s trembling.
She sucks her breath in through her teeth. The sight of Ari like thismakes her chest twist. Will never loses his temper this way, not so much that he’d make the extra effort to hurt Ari with his own hands instead of using alchemy. There is no grace or strategy to inflicting injuries like this. It is just brutality, a desire to feel the impact of each hit.
Of course Will had intentionally sent her in here to tend to Ari. He wanted her to see.
Sam heads into the bathroom and prepares a warm towel in the sink. When she returns, he’s lifted his head and his eyes are on her, somber and dull. She gingerly pulls down his gag, then sucks in her breath. His bottom lip is split open, and another bloody bruise mars the edge of his mouth.
“Stay still,” she says.
He obeys as she presses the wet cloth gently to the bruise near his eyebrow. She wipes the streak of blood away, then holds the cloth to the cut on his lip. Her fingers brush briefly against his skin, and she feels him shiver at her touch.
“Did you say something to piss him off?” she asks as she works.
“I think it was what I didn’t say,” he replies.
She looks at him. “Answer his questions,” she says softly. “Will’s a rough interrogator. Just because he wants you alive doesn’t mean he won’t take you to the brink of death.”
Ari looks sidelong at her. “He’s nothing I haven’t experienced before.”
“You should be more frightened of him.”
Ari winces, a damp curl falling over his eyes. There are more wounds on him than she can see. “And what about you?” he asks.
“What about me?”
“You said I should be more afraid of Will.” He nods at her. “Are you afraid?”
The expression in his eyes is so sincere and concerned that it reminds her of the dark weeks after her mother’s accident, when he would comfort her without knowing what had happened. Her cheeks heat up, and she turns her eyes away from him.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” she asks.
He doesn’t answer, so she taps his bound arms gingerly, applying pressure in specific spots to see if it triggers a reaction. When she reaches his stomach, he suddenly shies from her touch, his face tight with pain. The fabric of his shirt is damp there.
“Let me see,” she says.
He holds still for her as she gently unbuttons his shirt and pulls the fabric back. She hisses. It’s not a kick. A vicious gash, deep and crimson, runs diagonally along his waist and up his chest, as if Will had carved him with a knife. She gingerly brushes the skin around the wound, and he flinches, the muscles of his abdomen tightening at her touch.
“You need an alchiatrist,” she murmurs. “Or you’ll bleed out. I’ll get the guards.”
“Sam,” he says.
She pauses to look at him.
There is a sudden weariness about him, as if he can barely hold himself upright. She remembers this from childhood, too, the way he would sit quietly in his chair, so world-weary for his age, his eyes far too large and dark for his small face.
