Sam
In one of Sam’s recurring dreams, she tells her mother the truth about her life.
Everything. About the meeting at the Odyssey and Will’s test of her, the afternoon lessons at the Observatory, how much money is really in her bank account. That she hadn’t really gone to college, that Grand Central had faked the documents and diploma she needed to back up that lie. That none of it matters anyway, because wasn’t that all about being successful, and hadn’t she achieved that?
At some point, Sam reaches across the table to grab her mother’s shoulders.Are you angry with me, Mama?she says.Are you proud of what I can do? What areyoursecrets? What haven’tyoutold me?
But her mother never responds. She just stares at Sam in silence, eyes dark and flat, lips folded in a thin line. She stares and stares as Sam’s pleas grow louder and louder, until at last Sam jolts awake in her bed at the estate, trembling all over.
That’s one of the changes over the past few years, where she sleeps. Before, she would spend most evenings at home with her mother and only risk a few overnight stays at her apartment at the estate, but Sam now lives entirely at the Red City. For a while, she still went home several nights a week for dinner. Two years ago, this dwindled to one night. Now, sometimes, she might not go home at all for weeks at a time.
Why are you working so much?her mother asks her.
The firm’s busy,Sam replies. She’d used the same lie when she’d claimed to skip her graduation ceremony. Busy, busy, busy. What was the point of pomp and circumstance if she was already working somewhere? If her new employer needed her for overtime? And besides, how many things had her mother skipped because of work?
She has been instructed to never tell her mother that she works directlyfor Grand Central. Instead, she gets false pay stubs from a shell company, which she shows her mother. And yet the questions continue, as if her mother never quite believes her.
Every time, in the midst of her mother’s familiar interrogation, Sam wants to ask her the questions building up in her own chest.Have you always known what alchemy is? Did you know Lumines caused your injuries? Do you know what Lumines really does?
But Sam always pulls back. She has witnessed her mother’s fury over alchemy. If she lets on now that she’s involved with the syndicates, what will her mother do? Will she try to stop her? Will Sam anger Grand Central, after they’d explicitly warned her to keep her mother in the dark?
So Sam just lets her mother ask questions, and she just answers in her vague way.
What is your salary?
Good.
Where are you going?
I’ll be back soon.
Are you happy there?
Don’t I look happy?
The other thing that’s changed: her appearance.
Five years is a long time. Sam looks fundamentally different from when she’d first joined Grand Central. Her wide eyes from childhood have turned sharp and calculating. Her smile, once quick and shy, must be earned now. Her hair, straight and cut bluntly to the small of her back, is now a transmuted shade of steel gray. Her ears are pierced with rows of silver; a glittering stud decorates one side of her nose. Her clothes are expensive and well-tailored, keeping with the syndicates’ creed of perfection, and her makeup is sparing but flawless. She is the subtle kind of beautiful that’s easy to miss if one isn’t paying attention. And when on sand, that understated beauty turns luminous—a glow to her skin, a softness to her freckles, a shine in her hair. There are no more undone corners of her, no mistakes or imperfections. The invisibility that plagued her youth is a weapon now, and she wields it well. She is the symmetry in a pattern, the one that moves undetected through a crowd, gliding with grace past ignorant eyes and careless guards. Only Diamond seems to notice, and once, on a rare occasion when Sam crossed the woman’s path at the estate, she glanced at Sam and said,You look well.It wasn’t much ofan acknowledgment, but it was enough, and Sam felt light on her feet all the way back to her apartment.
But her mother doesn’t say a word about this gradual shift, doesn’t tell Sam one way or the other whether she likes it. She has started to refuse some of Sam’s gifts for her—fine cashmere and designer purses, extravagant trips to tropical paradises. When Sam asks why, her mother will say,What a waste of money, where did you get this, how much was it, what are you doing, where have you been.Sam will answer,I’ve been working, I’ve been busy, and isn’t this what you wanted for me?
Their conversations always trickle awkwardly away into nothing, and Sam will leave frustrated, an ache of dissatisfaction in her stomach, feeling smaller and lesser than, her mother’s acceptance perpetually out of reach.
Tonight, Will has chosen her as his right hand.
“Note everyone present, Lumines or otherwise,” he tells her as they head down the estate’s hill to their waiting car. “They’ve been muted about who they’re sending tonight. I suspect we may see a few new faces.”
They both wear suits tonight, his a deep sapphire, hers black striped with thin threads of white. Her tie is clipped with a bar, and her black shirt’s collar is pinned with silver crests of winged lions linked by chains. A fresh dose of sand courses through her, and the entire world seems sharper.
As always, she feels a small rush of pride as attendants open their doors and then step aside for them, looking on as she and Will slide simultaneously into the car. This part of her training is still new, where Will brings her on his missions. Her status has elevated at his side. And all across the estate, everyone reacts accordingly, hushing when she speaks, obeying her orders without question.
“What’s the fuss?” she asks. “Lumines has no grounds to accuse us of interference.”
“We don’t concern ourselves with accusations from those beneath us,” Will replies coolly. “But their movements lately have me wondering if they’re planning something bigger. Diamond wants extra eyes at the meeting tonight.”
“Is this about Doherty?” Sam asks as they drive out through the gates.
“Doherty’s alliance with Lumines is less important than how it happened,” Will replies.
