Ari
He doesn’t worry, at first. They’ve been sent here for different reasons, and Dominique has likely gotten pulled into yet another circle of guests, perhaps fellow philosophers, syndicate trophies all demonstrating how well they are doing.
Useful knowledge, he tells himself bitterly, hating how it makes him feel ill.
He steadies himself against the wall, waiting for the feeling to pass. Instead, it broadens, the tight coil around his chest stretching up into his throat and down to his stomach, into his arms and legs. He doesn’t feel good.
When he arrives back at his hotel suite, Rudra is waiting for him on the couch. The lights are dim, and no one else is here.
Ari steels himself. A feeling of dread is still looped tightly around his chest, and the presence of his mentor isn’t helping.
“Am I late for something?” Ari says.
“You’re right on time,” Rudra replies, and right away Ari can tell that the man is drunk. There is a slight slur in his words, and when he shifts forward in his seat, his posture is unsteady.
Ari takes off his shoes and heads into the kitchen to turn on the teamaker. “Where’s Dominique?” he asks warily. “Have you seen her?”
At that, Rudra laughs a little. “Look at you,” he mutters, “already talking as if you’re managing me.”
Ari sighs, fighting back the waves of anxiety in his head, and tosses his coat onto the back of a couch. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Do I?” The man tilts his head.
Ari turns away. He really needs to calm down. “Would you like tea?” he offers.
Rudra doesn’t reply, but Ari fetches two mugs anyway, then pulls out packets of tea from a drawer and milk from the fridge. Behind him, he hears the man get up.
When Ari turns back around, Rudra is standing by the kitchen counter, leaning against the marble top. “Reed sent you to negotiate with Neuewelt and Pirenne,” he says quietly.
The teamaker beeps as the hot water starts to boil. Ari pours out two cups of tea and hands one to Rudra. “Yes,” he says.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I thought you knew,” Ari replies.
Rudra smiles, his lips twisted. “This is how they do it, you know,” he mutters.
“How who does what, sir?”
“Don’t sir me, you little shit.”
It’s been a long time since Rudra has called him that, and for a moment, Ari feels like a student again, cowering in the laboratory over another failed transmutation. The anxiety in his chest builds again, and he feels his heartbeat racing uncomfortably.
Rudra approaches him. “This is how they do it, turning us against each other,” he says. “I was born in Gotham, but my family comes from Maharashtra. We should trust each other, you and I. But look at us now, forced to play musical chairs for one seat.”
Charisma is working against Ari now—Rudra’s eyes are dilated with the desire to hurt and manipulate him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ari says.
Rudra moves frighteningly fast. One moment, he’s standing a few feet away from Ari—the next, he flings the steaming mug of tea at Ari’s face.
Ari’s hand flies up—his fingers twist in midair and he transmutes the scalding water into a burst of ice crystals.
Rudra slams him hard against the fridge and presses an arm against his throat.
“Do you remember who you used to be?” the man murmurs close to his face, his lips curled into a snarl.
“Worthless little gutter rat, sneaking along behind your uncle? The first time I met you, you didn’t even have the balls to tell me your name.
You could barely look me in the eye. And what did I do, Ari? Go on. Tell me what I did.”
Ari winces as the man presses harder against his throat. “You took me from my family,” he whispers.
“What?” Rudra says.
Ari bares his teeth. “You took me from my family,” he snaps.
There is a moment of silence. Rudra smiles.
The smell of whiskey on the man’s breath is overpowering.
The man puts his hand against the fridge, then slowly transmutes an arch of metal thorns from it.
He wraps it around Ari’s neck, letting the thorns extend until they scratch against Ari’s throat.
Ari winces at the feeling of the needles pricking his skin and tries in vain to steady his spiraling thoughts.
His anxiety is building into a panic now. His arms and hands tingle.
“No,” Rudra whispers. “I saved your goddamned life. You think anyone would have given you the time of day, had I not found you? I picked you out of the trash and handed you a kingdom of gold. I taught you how to use that soul of yours, honed you into a blade. I turned your imperfection into perfection. Because of me, you learned how to smile, how to hold your head high, how to make everyone look your way, call you Shakespeare.” He draws close.
“I gave you your worth. You should be kissing my feet.”
The thorns are pushing into the skin of Ari’s neck. He can feel the needles breaking through, drawing forth pinpricks of red. A wave of dizziness washes over him and he blinks, lightheaded.
“I’m not the one you’re angry with,” he says.
Rudra starts laughing in a low voice. His eyes glitter, black and gleaming. “You should be afraid, little boy,” he murmurs. He leans closer. “Do you know who the latest casualty is, in this war between us and Grand Central?”
Suddenly Ari feels the bottom of his stomach falling out, feels the wave of grief before Rudra even says the name. In a way, he realizes, he already knew. He knew it, the instant he noticed her absence in the quad.
“Cleopatra,” Rudra says. “Our philosopher. Your classmate.”
The world tilts. Ari suddenly forgets his argument with Rudra—he forgets everything. The man can’t be telling the truth.
“No,” he whispers.
“Dominique is dead, Ari.”
Her reassuring nod to him on his first day in the library.
The countless hours they had worked together, her helping him through their work, him asking her questions.
Her quick smile, her easy manner. She was supposed to be the one that succeeded beyond any of them.
A philosopher, creating new billionaires within Lumines.
She can’t be gone.
Ari’s head swims. His limbs turn weak. He feels like he’s drowning.
“That’s impossible,” he says faintly.
“Is it?”
“She’s a philosopher.”
“She’s as human as us.”
“Stop.”
His anxiety is spilling over now, it is too far gone and there is nothing Ari can do to save himself. His heart is racing so fast that he thinks it might burst. He breaks out in a cold sweat.
Rudra suddenly realizes what’s happening. “Well, well,” he says, smiling. “The great Shakespeare, losing his shit.”
Ari’s legs start to buckle. He tries to get a grip on his spiraling panic attack—but he can’t breathe, he gasps for air, he’s going to throw up, he’s going to faint.
“Stop,” he whispers weakly. “Please.”
“Stop what?” Rudra mocks him, patting his cheek. “I’m not the one who did it.”
Sam. Sam had done it. Ari has no proof at all, but he can feel it in his bones.
Grand Central’s ghost is the only one they would send for such a sensitive hit.
Reed had wanted to push Diamond over the edge, and he’d succeeded—in retaliation for Hanover, Sam has been sent to end Dominique’s life.
Grand Central has decided to step over the line.
Sam, his Sam. Her dark eyes glittering under the full moon.
He has to get out of here, he is trapped, the metal shards are digging into his throat, he can’t escape, he is going to die, he is going to die. His hands fly up—one to his neck, one gripping Rudra’s shirt collar.
“Stop,” he gasps, eyes shut, brows furrowed. “Help me. Please.”
Rudra’s laugh vanishes, and his expression stills into a statue.
He grips Ari’s face so hard that Ari makes a muffled sound of pain.
“I can’t help you,” he growls close to Ari’s ear.
“No one is safe in this war. Don’t think that you will be spared just because Reed has decided to favor you. All of us are pawns in this game.”
And all of a sudden, Ari remembers Zan. He recalls the way Rudra had dragged him, sobbing, into the laboratory, how the sound of his cries had cut off abruptly. Zan is gone. Dominique is gone, too. Only Ari is left, teetering over a ravine, his life on a thread.
This is how they do it, turning us against each other.
Then the thorns are retracting, smoothing out. Rudra transmutes them back into a sheet of glossy metal, pushes it back into the fridge until it looks like nothing had happened. He releases Ari.
Ari collapses. He barely feels the impact of cold marble against his cheek. There, he curls up and shudders uncontrollably, wheezing as he struggles to breathe, hands clawing at the floor, panic still racing through his body. Trickles of blood run down his neck, mixing with his sweat.
Rudra puts his hands in his pockets and regards Ari coolly. Ari registers that the man is standing in a puddle of spilled tea. The man notices too, and wipes his shoe off on Ari’s trembling body.
“Remember your place,” Rudra says. “Or I’ll kill you.”
Then he steps over Ari and heads out the door, leaving Ari to fight off his panic alone.