Sam
Diamond’s instructions to Sam and Sebastian are to hit early and fast and hard. To strike fear, and serve as a reminder to Lumines about how many eyes Diamond has in the city, how much territory they cover, how quickly and ruthlessly Grand Central can dole out justice in retaliation for the attack on Will.
“You ready for a job like this?” Sebastian asks her tonight as they arrive across the street from Union Station, which is now closed and shuttered for the night.
In the passenger seat, Sam’s face is emotionless, but she squeezes her hands together over and over in her lap. She can feel the rush of sand in her veins now, everything about her heightened to its peak in this moment. Even on this cool night, the car feels warm in a good way, and the world around her looks crisp and fine-tuned, her mind easily recording each detail.
“I’ve done plenty of jobs,” she replies.
“Not a hit, you haven’t.” He raps against the windshield in the direction of a rooftop lounge down the street, its strings of lights a glaring warmth against the dark industrial block. “I can see it on your face. You understand what to do, but you don’t know yet how to strike fear, do you? You’re too new a polemist.”
“I know how,” she says as she steps out of the car, and Sebastian just chuckles.
The rooftop lounge, Minnow, is the hippest new restaurant in Downtown, the kind of place that has a nondescript art deco door with the number 314 emblazoned on it. The door is closed, but as they approach, it opens from the inside and a hostess greets them with a smile, her eyes gliding right over Sam and onto Sebastian.
“Right this way,” she says.
Inside, the heater is blasting and conversations echo loudly off the walls. People are dressed as if they are ready for the cameras, and some of them do draw cameras, eyes following them wherever they go. Overhead, lights hang from transparent wire as if floating in midair; statues hover over koi ponds in the corner. In this sort of atmosphere, Sam can feel herself disappear into the air, nothing more than an apparition, a nobody among somebodies. She takes a breath and imagines it dissipating out of her lungs, as if her body isn’t real.
They make their way up the stairs at the end of the common lobby and bathrooms, winding up in the darkness until they emerge on the rooftop, where crowds cluster underneath the comfort of heat lamps.
As they settle into a pair of seats in a cozy corner of the bar, Sam looks around the space. With her senses heightened, she can feel herself gathering information about every person around them—the new couple seated two tables away, the rowdy bachelorette party, the screenwriters working on a television show, the group of businessmen discussing stocks. She takes in one full sweep of the space so that she’s memorized all the faces, and as she does, she finds herself unconsciously searching for Ari among them.
But of course he’s not here. She tears her gaze away from the room, reminding herself that they’re here to find Maclan, that his is the only face she should be hunting for in the crowd. But even as she tells herself this, she finds herself hoping to glimpse a head of dark curls, a glimmer of dark eyes.
They order drinks and some appetizers, yellowtail crudo and charcuterie and old-fashioneds with giant ice cubes.
As they eat, Sebastian says, “Tell me about yourself, Mozart.”
She scowls at him over her drink. “That’s general.”
“Well, here we are together, on our way to an assignment. Best we get to know each other, right?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Sebastian smiles at her. He has an uncanny way of showing all his teeth, weathered skin wrinkling like leather around his mouth, and she looks away from him, tension coiling tight in her stomach. If she weren’t on sand and practically unnoticeable, she knows they would get looks from others, people murmuring about their stark age difference and wondering if he’s some sort of film mogul.
“It’s because they haven’t used you properly yet. You’re still taking occasional lessons at the Observatory, aren’t you? With Constantine and others.”
“I’ve done plenty.”
“No no, you’veexperimented,” Sebastian explains. “Diamond’s easing you in. Take, for instance, what you once did to your classmate. Nicolas, wasn’t it?”
The desperate eyes, the burnt skin. Sam shivers as the memory appears in her mind. “Why do you know about that?” she mutters.
Sebastian smiles at her. “My dear. Everyone knows about that. Nicolas still walks around with a scar across his neck like he survived a dull guillotine.”
She doesn’t see Nicolas often now, as he works with sand as a philosopher, but sometimes they still cross paths back at the estate. Always, he avoids her eyes. She avoids him too. Best to keep their distance from each other.
“Well, what about it?” she says stiffly, looking out the window and away from Sebastian.
He shrugs. “You could have killed him that night. Maclan too, at the hotel. I heard you sliced his throat. But you didn’t want to give him a fatal wound.”
“I didn’t need to.”
“Why?”
The question is so genuinely curious that Sam looks up at him in disbelief. Is there a way to recognize a serial killer? Her mind pores over each detail of his face, the watery brown eyes and the thin, tapering lips. His limbs are restless, fingers drumming against the table, knee bouncing. But none of these features define a person with a twisted mind.
