Sam
They arrive the next night at Oxford, where their black car takes them through the university’s ancient streets to the front gates of Magdalen College’s main quad, which has been closed all day to visitors in preparation for the evening gala.
Term ended a week earlier, and all of the students are already gone, home for the long Easter holiday.
Still, the quad is bustling tonight, and a glimpse of flickering golden lights from within entices curious passersby.
A cluster of people mill around the entrance, necks craning, their figures making way occasionally for the black cars as they continue to drop off their passengers.
She searches for Ari. Chances are high that he’s here, given his rank, but he’s certainly not here right now, or she would see a cluster of guests around him.
By the time they make their way back out to the pavilion, piano music fills the night air, and some guests are dancing. Here, a couple wearing stallion pins stop to shake Will’s hand.
“It’s been over a year since we’ve seen you, Constantine,” one of the ladies says with a warm smile. “Far too long.”
“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Hypatia,” Will answers. He nods at the woman on her arm. “You’ve been in the country for over a month, I hear.”
Sam realizes that this must be Eleanor Mien, who leads Belle Epoque, and her wife, Hanya.
The exchange is both polite and a warning; Will is letting them know that Grand Central is aware of their movements.
Eleanor’s smile stays even, although her gaze turns careful.
“We’re finishing up a deal with a supplier in Manchester,” she reassures Will. “The same deal you helped broker.”
“Of course,” Will replies. “I hope it’s been working out?”
“So far. It helps to have good terms with you, of course,” Hanya adds, and Will acknowledges the praise gracefully.
Sam shifts on her feet, and the woman glances at her in disinterest before turning her attention back to Will.
“We’ve been meaning to have a conversation with you here about your support of our work building a new train line between our suppliers.
” She tilts her head thoughtfully. “Is your mother here?”
“Diamond unfortunately has some business to attend to in Angel City,” Will replies. “I’m here in her place.”
“Very well,” Eleanor says. “Would you mind sparing us a few minutes, then?”
Will steps away from Sam, and for a while she stands alone in the crowd, careful to keep him close and yet not to encroach on his discussion with the Miens. The chatter around her blends into a single rolling din.
Sam senses him behind her before she sees him. Or, perhaps, she just happens to turn at the right time.
Ari is at the edge of the courtyard, talking with a young woman. He’s leaning down toward her, and when she whispers something in his ear, he smiles and laughs a little.
Sam’s breath catches. A tingle rushes through her body.
She’d been searching for him, but she still wasn’t prepared to see him.
He wears a suit of deep maroon, and his fox pin gleams on his collar.
Her eyes go briefly to his companion. She, too, wears the fox pin on the strap of her yellow dress, and has the kind of smile that comes easily and genuinely.
Now and then, they are interrupted by someone coming up to introduce themselves, and Ari always pauses politely to exchange a few words.
“Dance with me.”
Sam turns to see Will back at her side. He holds a hand out to her. Her heart leaps into her throat as his other hand comes around to press against the small of her naked back.
She takes his hand and lets him pull her closer, trying in vain to still the rapid beating of her heart.
He keeps a polite distance as they sway, him guiding her easily, her following along as best as she can.
As they turn, she notes where Ari was. Ari is gone now, but his companion remains, speaking lightheartedly with a small cluster of people.
“Are the gatherings always here in Oxford?” she asks Will as they turn away.
“Often,” Will replies.
“Why?”
“The university has known of and protected alchemists for centuries. It became a safe haven for syndicates to congregate, a place where you could set up meetings in its lecture halls and work in its labs without persecution. Diamond recruited our first philosophers from among their student body.”
“Are there other conferences?”
“Are you asking because you want to attend them?”
“Of course.”
He sighs. “You always want everything, right away.”
“I don’t want everything.”
“You’ve been like this since you were a child.”
“I’m not one anymore.”
“I noticed.”
There is nothing remarkable about the way that Will says this, but Sam feels it as surely as a touch, as if his words have caressed her skin. Goose bumps rise along her arms.
“What do you notice, then?” she says, feeling bold.
He turns them. When they settle into their dance again, he runs his fingers lightly across the base of her spine, back and forth, sending a ripple of shivers through her.
His face is closer to hers now, and the look in his eyes is an examination of her.
She wavers under the sear of it, her breaths turning shallow.
He leans close, and for a heart-stopping second, she thinks he’s going to kiss her. But he turns his head slightly instead, so that his lips are beside her ear. “I notice your assignment,” he murmurs.
Sam stirs herself from the spell of dancing with Will, embarrassed by his rebuke that she has a job to do. She lets Will guide her in a circle until she sees her target.
It is the young woman in the yellow dress.
“Dominique St. Clair,” Will tells her.
Cleopatra. She swallows and collects her wits. He must have noticed Ari too, of course, and with a tightness in her chest, she realizes that Ari has likely spotted them as well.
The spell of their dance wanes, and Sam’s hands tingle with the dread of what she’s come here to do.
Dominique St. Clair is laughing now at something her companion said.
The sound is bright and clear. The glittering Harry Winston bracelet on Sam’s wrist clinks as she moves with Will, the stones winking under the light.
Sam suddenly feels foolish over all the excitement and glamour of their shopping excursion from yesterday.
So stupid. Had she forgotten why they were really here?
“Go,” Will says. His breath is warm in her ear, making her tingle. “Keep it quiet and quick. When you’re done, leave and find your driver. He’ll take you back to Londinium. I’ll see you there tomorrow morning.”
The song ends, then, and Will steps away from her. Sam takes a deep breath at the sudden coolness of his departure. They join the rest of the crowd in scattered applause, and as they do, Sam’s eyes linger on the back of Dominique. She thinks of Hanover, and her mind clears a little.
Dominique excuses herself a few minutes later.
As she crosses the space and enters one of the halls, Sam breaks away from Will and trails her.
No one looks their way. Still, Sam makes sure to keep a reasonable distance from Dominique, waiting until the young woman has moved on before following along, always keeping her yellow dress just barely in sight.
They move to somewhere quiet now, a narrow pathway on the other side of the hall that is lit by a lone lantern.
Somehow, Sam expects Ari to make an appearance, and on instinct she searches the street and the roofs of nearby buildings, the darkness of the windows.
But there is no foot traffic here, no prying eyes.
The rest of the party is back in the main quad.
Alone, Dominique takes a breath and pulls out her phone, sends a few messages.
Sam waits behind the doorway leading out to the path, covered in shadows.
She looks on as the woman makes a call, then murmurs in a voice low enough that Sam can’t hear.
In the distance, she hears scattered applause from the party.
Dominique finishes her call and puts her phone away.
As she does, Sam makes her way out of the shadows and onto the path.
She moves automatically now, as if in a dream.
And perhaps it is the sand, perhaps it is her nature, but her steps are so quiet that Dominique doesn’t look up as she approaches. Sam might as well not be here at all.
Sam recalls Sebastian’s advice to her, his reminder to move fast, out of mercy. So she focuses on the woman’s back. She wonders if this woman has children, a partner, loved ones. She remembers how Ari had leaned down to her, how easily he’d laughed, how he had touched her shoulder affectionately.
As she draws near, the woman looks over her shoulder for the first time, her gaze still uninterested. And Sam hears Sebastian’s voice in her ear this time, urgent and gleeful.
Death is a perfection all its own.
She gives Sam a questioning smile. “Yes?” she says.
Sam brushes the edge of the wall and calls on her soul. She pulls a long knife straight out of the stone.
To Dominique’s credit, she reacts quickly.
As Sam lunges at her with the knife, she darts backward with a startled sound, then ducks low to run her hand against the path.
A metal shield shoots up from the ground.
She throws it up across her chest right as Sam’s blade hits, and the clang echoes against the walls.
A properly trained alchemist, Sam thinks bitterly.
But not a polemist. Sam is too fast—the instant her blade hits the shield, she lays her other hand flat on the disc and shatters it into a million pieces of glass.
Dominique flinches back, blinking against the rain of fragments, and blindly holds her hand out to transmute the shards.
“You can’t—!” she starts to utter.
But Sam has already created another knife. She lashes out at Dominique again as the woman tries to recover from the rain of glass. Dominique only has time to hold her arms out in defense before Sam plunges the second knife deep into her chest.
Dominique’s eyes pop open, but Sam clamps her hand over her mouth and muffles her terrible gasp.
Sebastian was right. The first time was the hardest. This time it’s easier, and Sam feels like she’s standing next to herself, watching her own hand twist the knife, the woman shudder on the blade, her legs giving way.
Before she can even fall, Sam’s already withdrawing the knife from the gaping wound and changing the blade into a cloud of dust. Her hand pulls back from the woman’s mouth, shifting slightly in order to transmute away her fingerprints, turning the slight film of human grease on her skin into water droplets in the air.
By the time Sam is done, Dominique has gone still.
Sam kneels by the body and puts her hand against the woman’s chest, right next to the wound.
The wound begins to close up under her touch, the tissue forced to stitch itself together, flesh closing up again.
Sam transmutes the blood on the woman’s shirt into water, so that it will dry into nothing.
But she leaves the body where it is, fully visible.
She wants it to be found, wants Lumines to know.
Wants them to understand what Diamond ordered in retaliation for Hanover.
Sam stares down at the woman’s lifeless face, devoid now of that easy smile.
This close, Dominique looks younger than she thought, a girl her own age.
She seemed nice. If Sam had been in Lumines, perhaps they would have been friends.
A lump forms in her throat, and she swallows it angrily down.
What a useless thought. She looks up again and along the street.
The party is still going in the distance, sounds of laughter and music and loud conversations.
Again, she looks for Ari. But there is only damp cobblestone and weak lamplight, and ancient walls that have witnessed far worse.
By the time Sam stands up and walks away, there’s no physical evidence that she was there at all.