Ari
He didn’t think she would come tonight.
But there she is, her body partially hidden in the shadows, her eyes trained on him as he approaches her. The moon is so bright that it makes the night look like a strange day soaked in silver light, and for a moment he thinks they must be existing in a dream realm, because surely this cannot be real. A faint memory comes to him from his lessons at the Central Library’s gallery, about how the earliest Babylonian alchemists had worshipped their moon god Sin. In this light, he can understand what must have awed their ancestors.
Even with his particular knack for noticing her, her presence is so quiet that it takes him a second longer to convince himself that it is really her. Then his eyes go to her hands and he notices that she’s already holding a weapon, transmuted or not, a black gun that seems to melt into the night.
His reflexes tell him to place his hands on the rocks and arm himself with something too, but he forces the feeling down.
His eyes dart to the overgrown path along the cliffside. “Are you alone?”
She doesn’t answer at first. When she finally takes a step forward, she points the gun straight at him. The back of his head tingles, as if bracing for a hit.
“Are you?” she asks.
“No one else knows about this place.” He nods at her. “Except you.”
He stays where he is, hands still out and open where she can see them, skin still tingling. Sam approaches him slowly, the gun trained on him, until they are separated only by a dozen feet. The light tonight is so brilliant and strange, and the way it illuminates her takes his breath away.
“Why did you tell me you’d be here tonight?” she asks.
Now she is bathed entirely in moonlight. Her hair has turned bright as a coin. “I knew you’d come if I did,” he replies.
She scowls at him. “That’s a bold assumption.”
“Yet here you are, Sam.”
“You think we’re still on a first-name basis.”
“What should I call you instead, then?” Ari says. “Mozart? Their famous prodigy?”
“I’m not named for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,” she replies.
“Oh? Who, then?”
“His sister.”
His lips tighten in understanding. “The invisible talent,” he murmurs.
“Why do they call you Shakespeare?” she says archly.
“I suppose I’m good with words.”
There are secrets in Sam’s eyes now, along with some past hurt that she won’t share. “Words for hire,” she says with disgust. “For Reed.”
“Don’t pretend that no one pulls your strings,” he answers.
“All that time I knew you,” she says, “all those afternoons when you’d apologize and rush away to that black car. You were working for him.”
“And what were you doing?” he replies, nodding at her gun. “Running errands for Diamond Taylor?”
Her eyes narrow. “Why’d you want me to come here?”
He looks around the beach, at their strange reunion under this bright moon. “I don’t know,” he says honestly.
She continues holding the gun up and doesn’t come closer. They don’t say anything, and for a while, their presence is acknowledged only by the crash of soft waves. The tide pools near the arches fill with seawater. Ari imagines the ocean life in them, silent hermit crabs and tiny fish, sparks of souls, all going about their lives as he faces his former friend and wonders whether they will both survive this night.
At last, Sam lowers her arm. She looks at his hands again, as if to make sure he isn’t touching anything, and takes a step closer.
