6. Seb
SEB
Immediately the bonfire got off to a bad start.
Something in Asher’s cocktail rubbed up unpleasantly against his not-enough dinner, and he was off-kilter and lightheaded even before they got to the back fields.
Tori looped her arm through his, even though she’d worn riding boots instead of heels.
More than once, they’d been mistaken for siblings, and Seb could see it—both dark-haired, though his was soft and wavy, and hers was thick and preternaturally straight; both with gold-flecked eyes, though his were hazel and hers were a deep amber.
He clenched his jaw as they passed through the senior apartments.
They’d chosen the on-campus suite on the ninth floor of Millay Tower because Tori didn’t want to walk so far on heels every day, but Seb didn’t mind their housing.
Their suite was spacious enough, with a combined living room and kitchen, and his room had a bay window with a seat from which he could look out over all of campus and the blue smudge of the Catskills rising beyond that.
Nine was early by bonfire standards. The cantrips were only just getting started, the kegs only just rolling out. No one had started throwing things on the fire that melted instead of burned.
Even so, the haze of magic hanging over the field was almost too much for him.
Alcohol had stripped away his buffer, and his senses were overloaded on cheap cantrips.
He could taste them, thick and cloying, almost plasticine, on his tongue.
It was nearly impossible to comprehend that other people couldn’t see ambient magic—its outlines and intersections—the way he could.
Biret had told him that his sensitivity was a strength, proof of his connection to Magic, but in this moment it felt like a curse.
Just when he thought he was safe, he remembered the last bonfire.
It snuck in, in an unbidden flash, and then it was gone.
He fished the copper flask out of the pocket of his jacket and drank deeply.
Asher had filled it with something he’d brewed on the stove.
Seb tasted whiskey, cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, and magic.
The whiskey didn’t even sting at the back of his throat; instead, combined with the magic, it warmed all the way down to his toes and filled his head with a golden, drowsy sweetness.
For a moment, as he savored the autumnally spiced nectar, he forgot.
He forgot how he had felt on midsummer’s eve—cracked apart and bleeding through his seams, the pain so all-consuming it rendered him senseless.
He forgot that he’d tried to dull the edges of it with weed and drinks far less sweet than what he held in his hand.
He forgot his puffy eyes and pounding head—the dull, wet-cotton ache from a body that wouldn’t stop crying even though it had no more water, only salt, for tears.
He forgot the burning yawn that scraped in his chest every time he thought about talking.
He forgot what it was like to feel so flayed open that death would have been a welcome gift.
He’d wanted oblivion and thought he could drink himself there.
But oblivion had been a devil’s bargain, and he’d scrawled his signature on the dotted line, signing away more than he could have imagined for one senseless moment of relief.
He was still fulfilling the fine print—would do so, maybe forever.
It’s not your fault, he told himself.
He took a drink.
How funny it is, he thought, to know the truth and be incapable of believing it.
Next to him, Asher stiffened slightly, and he followed his friend’s gaze past the Matter fire to the main conflagration.
Conrad and his housemates—all lacrosse players and former friends of Seb’s—were carrying a hideous couch over their heads, arms extended heavenward, deltoids straining, like it was a precious gift for the gods.
Which gods, though, Seb didn’t want to know.
They threw it onto the fire, where it landed with a great crack as it broke the weakening centers of several logs.
A few nearby revelers screamed, then giggled as they realized that the danger had been a false alarm.
Seb traced the great gout of sparks that erupted from the fire into the indigo sky until they disappeared against the smoky blue of the clouds.
When the earth drew his gaze, he caught Conrad’s eye. Conrad smiled at him from across two bonfires. Seb didn’t smile back.
He took a drink.
Tori maneuvered herself subtly—but not subtly enough for it to go unnoticed—between them, blocking his sight. She ran her hand down Seb’s shoulder, letting it rest on his elbow.
“It gets better.” The flames turned her irises to smoldering garnets in the darkness. “I promise.”
“I know,” he said.
He took a drink.
“That stuff is potent, Seb. Maybe take it down a notch.” Asher grimaced.
Seb turned on them, quietly seething. “You two made me come out. Don’t tell me how to enjoy myself.”
Both of them were too smart to react to his outburst. Asher jerked his chin toward one of the other satellite fires. “Come on, let’s go get some quality cantrips going at the Metaphysics fire. This is pathetic.” He and Tori started away and then turned back. “Coming?”
Seb spoke to the flames, “Cantrèa tomorrow.”
“We’ll find you later.”
He turned back to the fire and sank onto a hay bale, letting the heat glue his eyes open, letting the fire draw him in. The embers of it—a writhing mass of black, white, orange—flickered in his own heart. He realized his flask was empty and got a cup of terrible beer from the nearest keg.
He was just drunk enough now for his anxiety to grab the wheel with both hands and start replaying everything he wanted to forget on an endless loop.
Don’t think about it: The way he’d come across Conrad that night—a smear of gold in the pinprick of his darkening vision, his head thrown back laughing, his arms steadying Seb, even though those were the same arms that had tipped the gravity of his world off its axis.
Don’t think about it: The way he’d leaned into Conrad’s warmth even as his single shred of remaining sense screamed at him, leave.
Don’t think about it: The way he’d realized he could barely stand on his own two feet.
Don’t think about it: His own Words, tripping between Conrad’s lips and into his ear, binding him to someone else’s intent.
Don’t think about it: The way he was suddenly in the foyer of Ashmole House—Conrad’s dorm—and not knowing how he’d gotten there.
Don’t think about it: The way the next thing he remembered was the scent of Conrad’s sheets, that beloved, now forbidden smell, tumbling against his cheek.
Don’t think about it: Their song, lulling him, suffocating him under thick waves of familiarity.
Don’t think about it: The way he’d fumbled out the words “I need to go home,” but his legs wouldn’t take him there.
Don’t think about it: The way Conrad had slid into bed next to him, even though it was never supposed to happen again.
Don’t think about it: The way, in between blackness, he felt Conrad’s hand slipping down his side, pulling Seb’s hips into him even as he tried to leave.
Don’t think about it: The way he’d whispered “Stop,” even as he knew it was too late, even as Conrad drowned him out, smothering Seb’s words with his own: “It’s fine, it’s fine.”
Don’t think about it: The way his body betrayed him in every possible permutation.
Don’t think about it: The way Conrad’s weight settled against his back; the way the pillow swallowed his protestations and his oxygen in equal measure.
Don’t think about it: The repetitive chorus of the song, drawing out endlessly, grinding against the back of his skull.
Don’t think about it: The way he wished for oblivion for the second time in one night.
Don’t think about it: The way he would have given anything to have this again, in any way but this.
Don’t think about it: The way the slick of someone else’s sweat on your skin could feel like a curse and not a gift; the noise Conrad made as he rolled off of him.
Don’t think about it: The way the last thing he remembered thinking before darkness took him—this is all your fault.
“Seb?” Then, “Sebby? You okay?”
He blinked up at Tori, swathed in fire and darkness.
“Ye-yeah.” He took the hand Asher offered to help him up. “How were the cantrips?”
Shake it off, shake it off.
Asher shrugged. “Not as good without you.”
He mustered a fraction of his usual bravado, staring past the night. “Nothing ever is.”
“Ass.”
“Oh, look, here comes trouble.” The boys followed Tori’s gaze. Gemma Greer was stalking toward them, her face hooded in determined sensuality.
“And trouble’s looking for Seb.” Asher turned to him, eyebrow raised. Gemma’s crush on him was both long-standing and well-advertised.
Seb took another sip of his warm beer and sniffed. He took in the waves of Gemma’s burnished bronze hair, her athletic frame, her square jaw. Trouble looked good. Earlier that night he’d told himself to make new memories, overwrite the old.
He finished his beer and tossed the cup away.