Ari
No one else in the hotel seems to notice her.
This is how Ari knows. Even now, as he looks up the dark street across from the hotel and sees her guiding Will, groups of people ignore her just as they did when she was a child. Moreso. She must be on sand, because even when she bumps shoulders with a passerby, the person barely blinks, just continues on without acknowledging her presence at all. As if she isn’t even there.
Diamond has a ghost.
It can’t be her, except of course it is.
A ghost, someone Diamond uses to gain information without drawing attention, who can enter a place and leave without a trace. Her slight figure has grown taller, her wide eyes more discerning, her black hair now a silver curtain hanging straight down her back. The image of her expands until it fills every corner of his mind. Sam, whose invisibility has now become her weapon.
He feels dizzy. How long has it been since he’s thought of Sam? She had slipped away from his memory over the years. He hadlether slip away; he never contacted her again after that day at the secret beach. She would text, and he would let the messages sit unread for weeks, staring soberly at them, heart aching, knowing an answer would only hurt them both. He had been told to move on, to end his ties with his regular world, and so he did, just as he forced himself to let go of his family, and filled his time instead with business trips to Europe and assignments in Gotham, dinner parties for Lumines in the Hamptons and negotiations aboard yachts in the Florida Keys. On it went, months extending into years, until she stopped trying and he knew instinctively that he would never hear her name again.
Until now.
The sight of Will leaning against her, of her arm wrapped securelyaround his waist, sends a flood of hot anguish through him. It’s been five years since he has seen her. Surely he doesn’t love her the way he once did, when he would stay up late writing letters that he would never give her. He tells himself it’s because he’s trying to understand Sam’s relationship with Will. How often does he rely on her? Does Sam’s own invisibility protect Will, to some extent? Ari isn’t sure.
He tears his eyes away from her as Rudra and two more Lumines crewmen burst out into the street behind him. The air is cold and damp tonight, and their breaths emerge as clouds of white.
“It should have been a lethal shot,” says Zhukov, the one who had fired at Will in the room.
“Not lethal enough, it seems,” Rudra snaps.
“He shouldn’t have been able to move as fast as he did,” Maclan mutters.
“Never underestimate Constantine.” Rudra gives them all an irritated nod. “Go finish the job.”
Ari clenches his teeth as they head across the street. How? How can this be happening? How could Sam be a Grand Central alchemist, working for Diamond Taylor? Ari searches feverishly through his memories, looking for clues of when she might have started, what he must have missed in between the words of her letters. How long has Sam been with them? Was she as young as him when they recruited her? Was she already studying with Grand Central when they first met?
How could they have kept such a thing from each other?
As they reach the other side, Ari gestures silently for Zhukov and Maclan to continue to the end of the street. They obey him without question. Then Ari turns left to catch Will and Sam on the other side. His stomach churns. He runs a hand along the wall, forcing himself to focus on the composition of the brick in order to steady his chaotic thoughts.
The tilt of her head, the wary light in her eyes. The hurt in her voice.You said you’d keep in touch.
What will happen to Sam, if she stands in the way between them and Will? What if she holds her ground?
I’m not going to hurt you tonight.
Another empty promise from his lips. Ari imagines Maclan and Zhukov catching up to her, her trying to fend them off, Will losing the fight. And what is Ari going to be able to do about it, even if he catches up? He’s pledged to Lumines—he is sworn to do his duty against Grand Central.
As Ari rounds the corner, he sees Sam and Will near their car. They don’t bother with car keys—but Sam, not Will, is the one who transmutes the door’s locks open. Will must be more wounded than he’s letting on. As he gets into the car, Sam turns back toward where Maclan and Zhukov’s voices are rounding the bend behind them. She and Will go through their steps in a symphony of motion, each knowing what the other is going to do without having to say a word. Jealousy, hot and inexplicable, rushes through Ari as Sam glances over her shoulder.
Her eyes lock on him.
Then she whirls at the sound of Maclan and Zhukov approaching.
The two have reached the scaffolding now. Sam steps into the shadows of the building, and as they appear, she approaches them, passing them on the path so closely that Maclan collides with her shoulder.
He glances at her in mild surprise, as if noticing her here for the first time. As he meets her eyes, his expression takes on a peculiar sheen—it seems to glaze over in disinterest, as if she is the most unremarkable person in the world. Ari watches in stunned fascination.
Maclan mutters an “Excuse me” under his breath, his gaze already swiveling away from her and back toward the street. As if even noticing her is a waste of his time.
Ari takes a step forward and starts to call out to Maclan in warning.
But Sam is already pressing her hand against the building’s wall. A knife emerges from the stone, changing into metal in her grip.
She slashes Maclan across the throat. The blade glints in the night and, like magic, a red line blooms on his neck, not enough to kill, just deep enough to scare him.
