Ari
“I’ve been told that Mozart is someone you know.”
Reed leans back against his couch and regards Ari with a thoughtful eye. Ari holds his ground calmly, but his gaze sweeps around the penthouse, settling for a second on the guards stationed at the balcony and the door. To Reed’s left, Isla sits with shades on, a clear sign that her sand-induced headaches are acting up. Rudra paces nearby.
“Do you know her well?” Reed muses at Ari’s silence.
“Not well,” Ari answers.
Reed lifts an eyebrow at him. “How not well?”
“She and I used to attend the same school.”
“Were you friends?”
“I wasn’t exactly given time to make friends,” Ari says pointedly. “But we were friendly.”
“Did you keep in touch with her?” Reed asks.
“No.”
Rudra stops pacing for a moment to shoot Ari a dark look. “Is that so?” he says. “For being so estranged, you seemed quite eager to let her go.”
“I didn’t let her go,” Ari says calmly. “She’s a polemist. She was too skilled for me to fight on my own.”
Rudra looks away in disgust and continues pacing.
“If you wanted to get in touch with her now, could you?” Reed asks.
The storm in Ari’s head roars, and he forces himself to stay steady. “I suppose it’s possible,” he replies.
“Did she know who you were?”
“Yes,” he says.
Reed leans back in his seat and ponders for a moment. While he does, Isla glances at Ari, as if checking on how he’s feeling. When he meets her eyes, she narrows hers, then shakes her head imperceptibly.
Tread carefully,she seems to be warning him with her gaze.
At last, Reed looks at Ari again. “You’re going to find out everything you can about your old friend. Get close to her without making your actions known to the rest of Grand Central. Make her talk to you.”
“Our chat last night didn’t exactly go well.”
“Give it another go,” Reed says. “Nostalgia is a powerful weapon, isn’t it?”
All Ari can think of is when he was still a new alchemist, and had first worked up the nerve to ask Reed directly about when he might see his family again.
Why?Reed had replied.
Because I miss them,Ari had said.
Of course you do,Reed had acknowledged, and never brought it up again.
“You want Sam to be an informant?” Ari asks now.
“An unsuspecting one. I want a direct line through her to Grand Central leadership. I want info that will take them apart, and I want you to get it.”
Sam weaving sea daisies into her dark hair, leaning against his shoulder, running her hand through the tide, staring out across the sea.
