“Theo—Bond Temeran—!”
“I see,” Will says thoughtfully. “I know a Theo Bond Temeran. Except he works for Lumines. So that can’t be right, can it? Unless you’ve been dealing with the fox behind our backs.”
Mr. Clarkson’s weeping takes on a new edge of desperation. “Please,” he whispers. “Please.”
Will looks at Sam. “Again,” he says. “And do it better this time.”
“I can’t,” Sam manages to reply. Her eyes are still fixed on the man’s bleeding arm.
“You want to be an alchemist in Grand Central?” Will snaps. “You want to earn your keep? What do you think it is we do, Miss Lang? You think we earn billions by wearing suits and playing at magic all day?” His voice hardens. “We run a business. We leave nothing to chance. And we forgive no wrong.”
She turns her head down, shuts her eyes. All she wants right now is to get out of this room.
Will reaches out and turns her chin toward him. “Look at me,” he orders.
She flinches at his touch, as if he might hurt her the way he’d hurt theman. But he just holds her calmly in place. Then he says, “Miss Lang, do you know how your mother really got her burn wounds?”
Her mother? “What?” she whispers, confused.
“Do you know how?” he repeats calmly.
She swallows, heart hammering, trying to think. “There was a gas leak at the restaurant,” she says.
“No,” he says simply. “Lumines set that explosion.”
The men at the restaurant. The fox pins glinting on their suits.
“Your mother’s boss owed them money. He tried to pay his debts in counterfeit dollars.”
Hayes. The explosion. The week spent at the hospital, the agony of watching her mother writhing in pain at home. The smell of charred skin and poultices of egg yolk. Sam stays frozen and can’t speak.
“So when I ask you to do this, I want you to remember who we’re up against. I want you to remember who has hurt you before, and who is on your side.”
How had she never considered why Lumines frequented that restaurant, that Hayes had ties to them? And then, a sudden realization—did even her mother know? Sam suddenly recalls the muted fear her mother had shown when the Lumines men had complimented her during their lunch, how angry she’d been when she’d discovered Sam’s interest in looking up things about alchemy. Has she understood what alchemy was, all this time? Does she know the syndicates exist?
Will releases her, and she stares down at the trembling man before them. She’s shaking too, still fearful—but now there is something else rising in her chest, a feeling of rage, strong and deep and purposeful. She was so helpless back then, when her mother was suffering, had no outlet at the time for her grief and worry.
“Don’t be afraid,” Will says. “I’m right here.”
His voice is hard but strangely comforting. He’s telling her that she isn’t alone, that he is going to protect her. It is exactly what she needs to hear.
Sam places a hand on the man’s bleeding arm and gathers her soul.
She feels a fragment rip from it and breaks out in a sweat at the pain. Beneath her hand, the man’s skin changes, tears, shrinks into a sheet of glass so thin that it cracks against the bleeding flesh exposed beneath.
He shrieks and arches, shaking violently, straining against his bonds.Sam can’t bear to watch. She turns her eyes to the marble floor and sees blood seeping down the narrow grout between the tiles.
“You know how we deal with traitors,” Will says to him.
“No,” the man begs. “No, no, it’s not what you think. I can explain. Please, Will.Please.”
But Will’s interest has waned. He replaces the gag and gets up, leaving Mr. Clarkson there to tremble at the pain from his ruined arm. Then Will gestures for Sam to follow him out.
Sam swallows hard as the door shuts, cutting off the man’s loud cries. Her head rings in the peaceful corridor. On either side, the guards bob their heads to Will again. Their faces are expressionless, even bored, as if they’d heard nothing of what had happened inside. When Sam passes them, their gazes automatically avert from her, so apathetic of her presence that she feels less like she is ignored, and more like she trulyisinvisible.
Sand will enhance everything about you.
Neither she nor Will says a word. As they head back up the stairs and out into the golden afternoon, she struggles to comprehend what he has just told her. What she has just done. Other workers and staff pass them, nodding at Will while disregarding Sam completely.
