Don’t forget who you belong to.His words from the other night come to her, and her leg aches at the memory of his hand clamped there, cutting frostbite into her skin.
“Maybe it’syourthoughts that keep lingering on him,” she replies pointedly, tilting her head at him.
“It’s you I’m always thinking about, Sam,” he says. His voice is low and quiet, part affection, part something else, a darkness, a mystery, something lethal, circling her.
Is he looking for a crack in her demeanor? “Then I should be pleased,” she answers.
“My mother thinks your weakness is your heart,” he continues. “It makes you hesitate, increases the risk that you might fail at your missions when each second makes a difference. But I disagree. It’s not your heart that’s the problem.” He rises from his seat and comes next to her, forcing her to move to the side. “It’s your mind.”
His body leans against hers, warm and familiar, and the young girl in her who used to stare up at him in wonder, imagining dark and exciting things, still responds to him, even after everything.
“Your mind tells you certain things are possible. You think you can do things, even when you’re out of your depth.” He searches her face, his eyes lingering on her lips. Her heart flutters in confusion. “You always want to be in control.”
Everything in this moment feels beyond her grasp. She doesn’t know what he’s thinking, she can’t guess at what he knows, she’s unable to figure out what to say or do next in order to keep herself and Ari safe. Maybe nothing in her life has ever been in her control. Maybe someone else has always been steering her ship, forcing her this way and that, and she has gone with it, always pointed in the wrong direction, never knowing how to reach the land in the distance.
She hardens her gaze at him and says, “Maybe that’s why you like me.”
He smiles a little, as if he knows she’s right, that in a way, she’s always been able to get to him. To control him too.
“Sam,” he says softly, “if there’s something you need to tell me, do it now. I can’t help you with what I don’t know.”
She stares back at him, puzzled by the peculiar gentleness in his voice, unable to tell if this is genuine or part of a game he’s playing with her. Her heart tugs toward him, betraying her. Is he asking because he knows something, or is he asking in order to get her to tell him what he suspects?
Sam shakes her head and forces herself to stay the course. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The sound of a faint commotion in the hall breaks their moment. One of the crewmen from the lobby is hurrying up to them. He nods at Will and motions toward the building’s side door.
“Diamond’s here,” he says.
The thickening tension between them dissolves. Will nods and rises, and Sam follows suit, dizzy with relief at the interruption. They head along the corridor and step out onto the narrow street that runs along the east side of the tower.
A silver Mercedes has turned the corner and is making its way along the barricades beside the road. Behind them, several guards fall into place in front of the side door, as well as on either end of the street.
Sam’s momentary relief wavers, and her sense of foreboding starts to quiver again. The number of crewmen here is far, far lower than it should be for such a significant negotiation with Lumines, it isn’t right, something isnot right.
The silver car pulls to a stop beside them. Sebastian is the first to get out of the car. He straightens his jacket and turns to face them, and as he does, Diamond Taylor emerges from the back seat.
Sam barely has time to meet the woman’s gaze before Will’s hands are on her.
She lets out a terrible gasp as Will grabs the back of her neck. Then pain explodes through her body. It is greater than the agony of a first transmutation, greater than being stabbed in the gut or shot in the stomach or set on fire. It feels like he has reached into her soul and torn it in half. She arches and stiffens, eyes wide, mouth open, wanting to scream, unable to find relief. The world washes out into light.
In the wake of it, she finds herself staring into Will’s green eyes. Sebastian has now come to stand behind him, his sunken eyes dilated, both sympathetic to her pain and yet excited by a life hanging in the balance. But it’s hard for her to keep focused on anything through the agony, so she looks skyward, then toward the blur of buildings down the street, before her eyes finally settle for a second on Diamond, who has somehow appeared right before her.
“You’ve broken your oath, Mozart,” Diamond says softly, and her brow furrows in disappointment.
Then the pain floods Sam again.
She tries once more to scream, but it feels like a hand has clamped downon her lungs. Her body responds in desperation, chest heaving, arms coming up to her throat, trying to save itself.
Will releases her. She feels her body give way and collapse to the street. The ground beneath her hits hard and cold. She sweeps her hand against the stone and tries to transmute it into a weapon, into anything—but Sebastian stomps his boot down hard on her hand. She shudders as one of the bones in her fingers breaks from the impact.
The polemist’s gnarled hand clamps down on her wrist, and she screams as he transmutes part of her skin into the street, her flesh melting, becoming rock. Her voice comes out odd and hollow, like she’s nestled inside a small cave, and when her eyes flutter up, she notices Will’s hand making a brief, sweeping gesture, transmuting the air so that the sound waves can’t travel beyond their circle.
As she trembles on the ground, Diamond stoops down before her. “What has changed you so dramatically?” she says. “Talk to me.”
Sam’s teeth are chattering from the pain. “I—don’t know what—you mean.”
She shakes her head. “Still so confused,” she murmurs. “You’ve been busy passing information along to the police. Mind telling us more about it?”
