Ari #2
His sudden presence is like a winter draft—the conversation around the room halts as if paused by a button.
Sam holds her breath, watching him as he crosses the room and leans in toward their professor.
As they exchange quiet words, the others watch him with a mix of respect and fear.
Sam marvels at the way he can command the attention of the entire space—how, without making a single gesture, he seems to suck all the air out and replace it with himself.
How does he do that? Why does she respond?
Then the exchange is done, and Will steps away to head for the door. Before he goes, he glances across the room and lets his gaze lock for an instant on Sam.
A white-hot shiver jolts down her spine, and her eyes dart down to her desk. But the gaze is so brief that a second later, when she looks up again, heart hammering against her ribs, he’s already gone, the door closing in his wake.
When class ends, Sam packs up her books, then heads down the winding stone path and under the rose archways until she reaches Will’s house. She stands there for a while, hesitating, shifting from one foot to the other, before she finally knocks on the door.
She’s never been here before, and she doesn’t expect anyone to open it. But after only the first knock, the handle turns, and she finds herself looking at an expectant housekeeper.
“Your name?” the man asks.
She has to clear her throat to answer. “Sam—Samantha Lang.”
The man looks over his shoulder. “Samantha Lang, sir.”
There’s a pause, followed by the distant sound of Will’s voice. “Let her in.”
Inside, the rooms are painted a dark, soothing gray-blue, and the walls are lined from floor to ceiling with books.
She spends a beat admiring what looks like a period fireplace, restored to perfection, before heading down the hall toward the study from where Will’s voice had come.
Her shoes click against the wooden floorboards.
She itches to take them off—her mother would have scowled at the thought of Sam wearing her shoes inside a house.
She steps into a cozy library, where Will sits writing behind a mahogany table. He doesn’t bother looking up at her, but even being alone in his presence is enough to make her nervous, and for a second, she lingers at the entrance, suddenly unsure what to do next. Will ignores her and says nothing.
“Can I come in?” she says after a moment.
He gestures at her without looking up. She approaches, then stops and stands before him.
“Well?” he asks, voice flat, eyes still down on his papers.
How had she even gathered her courage to come here? She smooths down the edges of her skirt, suddenly afraid in his presence, and says, “I was just wondering if there’s a more difficult class I could take.”
He doesn’t react to her words. “Is that all?”
She takes a deep breath. “I’ve already memorized the texts being used for the rest of the year.
I’ve read the bioalchemy books, which aren’t even what we’re covering.
I’m ready to try out a transmutation. I have nothing to add during class discussions, because none of the discussions are new to me.
I’ve just been using them to remind myself of what I already know. ”
“This is a problem?”
She steels herself and tries a different approach. “I don’t think you’re getting your money’s worth,” she says. “You’re paying me eight thousand dollars a month to sit around every afternoon learning nothing new. I’d like some more challenges.”
“I’ll log your request.” He pauses to write a line on the notepad beside his arm. Sam is bored.
Sam’s hackles rise at his inattention. He still doesn’t look up at her, so she walks around the desk until she’s standing beside his chair. “I’m not a child anymore,” she says in a low voice.
“Then don’t complain like one.”
“What’s the point of coming to the estate every afternoon if I’m not making progress?”
For the first time, Will puts his pen down, leans back in his chair, and regards her with a sigh.
She tenses, sucks in her breath. The sear of his gaze makes her flutter in panic, makes her want him to do it again.
She can’t quite understand her reactions to him, so different from her blushing affection for Ari and the way she’s always seeking him out.
Ari is pure and desired by everyone, unattainable to her.
But there is dark energy in her attraction to Will, something sharp, a blade that cuts.
“You say you’ve memorized everything in the books you’ve been assigned,” he says.
“Yes, sir.”
“Every transmutation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Should I switch our professor with you, so you can train the rest of your classmates?”
Now he’s just messing with her, and she flushes with frustration. “I’m not asking to be a teacher. I’m just saying that—”
“A teacher is simply someone who understands their subject so well that they can impart the wisdom to others.” Will laces his fingers together. “Can you do that?”
“Well…” Her voice trails off as she tries to puzzle out what answer Will wants.
“Ah. Perhaps one’s not as knowledgeable as one thought.”
“That’s not what I’m here for,” she says.
At that, a hint of cynical amusement curls at the edge of his lips. “And you know what you’re here for?”
She hesitates again. She’d sounded so effortlessly defiant in her head earlier, when she’d decided to march over here like a petulant kid. “I know I’m not here to sit idle,” she replies.
Will’s gaze wanders across her face, and she fights down a rush of heat.
He rises from his chair, then steps up to her with his hands in his pockets.
When she looks up at him, she has to crane her neck.
She backs up instinctively until she feels the edge of the desk pressing against her thighs, imagines him pushing her against the wood, thinks of the way he’d blindfolded her during her test in the courtyard, wanting him to tug her head back until her throat feels exposed.
“What do you want?” Will asks her quietly.
“I—” she begins, and pauses. “I thought you were supposed to teach me that,” she finishes.
“Apprentices always think they’ve got everything figured out,” he says.
“They want to skip to the rewards, so they come barging into my office, wasting my fucking time.” He narrows his eyes at her.
“Arrogance breeds bad alchemists, Miss Lang. Your time will come. But for now, you will honor the patience required of alchemy. There is a reason why we pace the class the way we do. Memorization is not mastery. You must prove yourself capable enough to be valuable on the job. These are Diamond’s rules, not mine.
But I am here to enforce them. Do I make myself clear? ”
“How will I prove anything if I’m not allowed to try?”
“Enough, Miss Lang.”
His voice is a quiet rebuke, and Sam senses it’s time to stop. He’s standing so close to her that she can make out the slashes of brown in his dark irises. Her heart races frantically.
After a while, he looks away from her and takes a seat again.
She waits while he writes something down on a document, wondering which of his buttons she can push, as if she desires to see him angry with her.
Anything is better than his disinterest, her unbearable invisibility.
She waits a little longer, just in case he says more to her.
But he doesn’t look up again, and after another beat, she takes her leave. As she goes, she makes Will a silent, bitter promise.
I’ll get you your proof.
The next week, on a breezy spring evening, Sam stays late at the Observatory and takes a stack of books outside, where she sits against the low brick wall surrounding the courtyard.
She stares listlessly out at the gleaming tiles.
There is a frustration bubbling in her chest, fighting to break free.
In her heart, she knows she’s outgrown her classes, and her hands ache to do real transmutations.
But no one here believes in her, not even Will.
She stares at the swaying tree branches, then grabs one of her books and opens it.
It’s a course book on bioalchemy, far ahead of what they’re currently learning.
She turns a yellowing page to the first formula and reads through the steps for transmuting a leaf into wood.
She reads in silence until the twilight has grown dim enough for the courtyard’s lanterns to flicker on.
After a while, she reaches behind her and pulls several leaves off the bushes, then holds them out in her palm.
She touches the leaves carefully, letting her soul stir as her fingers trail along the leaves’ stems, their green surfaces still full of active chlorophyll that hasn’t yet realized they’ve been severed from life.
She concentrates, pulling forward her soul, then closes her eyes and tries to sense the organic material in the same way she’d done when Will had first tested her.
There is, she has learned, a vast and uncrossable gulf between the organic and inorganic, such a difference between the living force present in a leaf and the unchanging and undying nature of a stone, that she fully expects the structure of it to feel unrecognizable against her fingers.
But even with this knowledge, she’s stunned.
Shimmering under the surface of the dying leaves is a soul, wholly distinct from her own and yet every bit as hungry to live.