Sam
Sam sees the expression change on Ari’s face. It’s how she knows. She whirls around in time to see Will emerge like a phantom from the shadows—and in her chest, she feels the last vestiges of her strength gathering for a final onslaught.
To a casual observer, Will looks calm. But Sam recognizes the violence there, in the set of his jaw and the flat darkness of his eyes. He bends down, sweeps his hand against the tiles, and pulls a gun out of the ground. In the same move, he points it straight at Ari.
Sam lunges at him, desperate to close the distance between them so the gun is no longer an advantage. Her hand closes around its muzzle, transmuting it shut.
But her recent wounds have weakened her. She can’t move fast enough. Before she can pull away, Will has seized a fistful of her hair. Sam feels herself pulled so viciously forward that she loses her footing and falls against him. She grabs his shirt, transmuting the nitrogen in the cotton to a nitric acid—it reacts violently with the fabric’s carbon, catching fire, but he is ahead of her again, his elemental skills stronger than hers, snuffing it out before she can even coax it to life. He seizes the injured part of her wrist and she screams as ice laces across the back of her hand, blackening into frostbite.
Suddenly she feels his grip on her loosen. For a second she’s free, and the absence makes her lose her balance. She falls to the ground, her hand still tingling from the intense cold.
When she looks up she sees Ari standing in front of her, shielding her. His eyes are narrowed and focused on Will.
“Careful,” Will says. “You’re on my turf now.”
“I’m adaptable,” Ari replies.
Sam crouches in place, breathing heavily, as Ari steps into the center ofthe courtyard, his figure dappled in moonlight and shadow, eyes grave and gleaming. Will circles with him, moving steadily. The heels of his boots click against the tiles.
“Reed’s favorite alchemist,” Will says as they go. “You could have gotten everything you wanted, had you cooperated with us.”
“You don’t know much about what I want,” Ari answers. Sam sees his feet tap the tiles carefully as he moves, as if he’s sensing the elements under his boots.
“I know more than you think. In the end, we all want the same things.”
“Money?” Ari asks. His foot shifts again.
“Freedom,” Will answers. “Money and power are just the paths to get there.”
“And do you feel free?” Ari says.
As an answer, Will kneels and brushes his hand against a tile close to his boot.
A wall of steel—thin, sharp as a blade—slices up from the stony ground and rushes toward Ari in a wave. It leaves a large crack in its wake.
Ari sidesteps it nimbly, skids to a crouch, runs his hand against the tiles. Sam sees where he touches his fingers, her memory calling up the order of the tiles. He’s mixing an explosive.
Sodium|Potassium|Water
He flattens his palm against the tiles, calls upon the metals and the air, and then flings his hand at Will.
A fireball sears the night—Sam squints at the blinding flash of light. Will throws his arms up protectively around his head as sparks shower the courtyard ground—simultaneously, a shield of stone rises up before him, leaving a groove in the floor.
But Ari is already on the move. He reaches Will through the shroud of smoke left by the explosion and presses his hand against the stone. The entire structure changes into glass and shatters, fragments flying in every direction.
None of it touches Will. He has two blades in his hand, one steel and one of glass combined from some of the flying shards—now he strikes out at Ari, once, twice, cutting him on his upper arm before he can dart back fast enough.
Sam struggles to her feet and heads deeper into the courtyard, careful to stay in the shadows.
In the circle, Ari jumps backward, arching away from the blades. Will drops to one knee and flattens his hand against the floor. A stream of black tar slices across the courtyard floor and under Ari’s feet. He sinks into the thick liquid.
Immediately, Ari reaches down to touch the tar, changing it into water, but before he can finish, Will is on him, hand reaching for his throat. If he grabs Ari with his hands, he could kill Ari on the spot. Ari is forced to pause in his transmutation of the tar into water—he falls backward onto the tiles, one leg still trapped in the tar. His arm comes up, creating a thin stone barrier between himself and Will at the last second.
Will crushes the stone into powder. But before he can seize Ari’s throat, Ari’s hand darts out and presses against the side of his face.
Something burns—there’s an acrid smell, and Will jerks away with a snarl, a burning red mark on his cheek.
Ari’s hand too has been burned. As Will stumbles off him for a second, Ari sits upright and frees his leg from the tar, transforming the last of it into water.
