31. Lily
LILY
Someone was in her bedroom. No, she realized, blinking against foreign dawn, I’m not in my room. Rubbing sleep out of her eyes, Lily lifted her head and looked over the back of the couch. Asher Vis, his curly hair smashed on one side, wearing striped pajama pants and an old T-shirt, blinked back.
All at once, the remains of the night came back to her.
They’d spent two hours checking every window in the library, recording every symbol—almost all of them alchemical in nature—in Sebastian—no, Seb’s—leather-bound journal.
When they’d finished, she’d been dead on her feet, slicked in sweat and shaking.
He’d refused to let her bike home, and she’d been too exhausted to argue, so he’d dragged her to the ninth floor of Millay Tower and deposited her on his couch.
One of his pillows supported her head, and his duvet covered her chin.
It smelled like him, and the diamond-paned window cast long shadows across her lap.
She glanced under the duvet. She wore a Junior Cantrèjeux Invitational T-shirt that she had only the vaguest recollection of changing into.
“Coffee?” Asher raised a mug in her direction, and she nodded, taking in the suite.
She’d never been in upperclassmen housing before, and she wasn’t sure if they all came so tastefully appointed or if that was a result of its inhabitants.
One of the walls was occupied by a cutting-edge multimedia setup on an antique sideboard.
By the door nearest her stood a mid-century bar cart, hosting spirits she’d never even heard of.
Across from the TV sat another couch—nothing you’d find during Curb Week—and above it hung a triptych of prints in expensive frames.
The built-in seat beneath the bay window was covered in throw pillows.
A stack of art books held court on the coffee table.
The entire place was a warren of ultra-rich coziness.
Lily fished her sweatshirt from the floor and pulled it on before padding over to join Asher at the kitchen island.
She fidgeted, unsure of herself, unsure of everything, before hopping onto one of the tall chairs.
Asher poured steaming water into a funnel.
It looked more like something she’d find in Paracelsus than in a kitchen.
“I would have been quieter—I didn’t realize there was anyone here.” Asher shot her an apologetic look, tinged with mild curiosity.
“It’s okay, I’m an early riser.” Today she could have slept until noon, but she left that out.
“Me too. Seb and Tori sleep like corpses, though. What’re you doing on our couch, if you don’t mind me asking?”
She found she didn’t mind. Asher spoke to her as if she were any new acquaintance, not Leper Lily. Seb had turned out to be different from what she expected—why should she be so surprised to find the same of his friends?
“We were working late. Seb—astian didn’t think I should bike home.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to call him Seb in front of his oldest friend. If Asher found the explanation lacking, he didn’t show it.
“You live off campus?”
She nodded, and he made a thoughtful noise as he poured them each a mug.
“This is really good coffee,” she said, because it was.
“Thanks. I have a subscription from a roaster in Portland. Libations are something of a passion of mine.”
She grinned. If she’d had any doubt that this was Sebastian’s friend, that dispelled it. Vaguely, she recalled that he’d worn a plaid waistcoat and a yellow button-down to alchemy last class.
“That’s your bar?”
“Mmm. So, what do you normally do with your mornings?”
She shrugged. “Nothing fancy. Listen to music usually, sometimes homework, sometimes dance. Yoga.”
“Dance?”
“Since I was twelve.”
Asher whistled low through his lush lips. “You must be good.”
“I guess. What do you do with your mornings?” Talking to Asher was easier than talking to anyone she’d ever met. Something about his demeanor invited openness.
“Music also. Composition usually.”
“Sebastian said that music is your mundane major?”
Asher looked as if he’d gotten a whiff of something foul. “Only technically. Music is my major. Period. I’m certainly not planning on going into Metaphysical Theory when I graduate.”
It took Lily a moment to gather herself. What Asher was saying—that he considered his non-magical major to be his true one—was practically sacrilege.
“Wow.”
He turned to her, his lightheartedness gone. “I’m speaking freely to you because I can only assume you have a very different viewpoint on the mundane world than most people here, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat that.”
“My lips are sealed, but why…”
“Don’t I think the mundane world is a worthless burden? How many famous magical artists can you name?” He gave her two seconds to contemplate. “And how many non-magical ones?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Point taken.”
He drained his coffee and stood up, twisting his long torso until his back popped. “Want to hear what I’m working on?”
“Like a composition?”
He grinned. “Yeah, like a composition.”
Lily sleepwalked through the day, tumbling into bed shortly after dinner. She and Seb had barely stayed upright during alchemy and had nearly melted a hole in their lab table.
They’d found both of the symbols from the ring in the windows, and they were fairly certain the windows contained some sort of code.
The problem was that alchemists, being notoriously paranoid, didn’t have a universal symbolic language, so certain elements had nearly infinite symbols used to denote them.
Now, with the weekend arrived, Lily hopped from foot to foot, trying to stay warm as she waited for Seb in Studio C. It was time to switch to a heavier jacket. He arrived, hair rumpled and cheeks red, and they began warming up in companionable silence.
“Are you doing anything for the midterm break?” he asked when they paused for water.
“I was going to work on the code, mostly. Why, are you doing something?”
He looked vaguely guilty as he said, “We’re going to Québec City. We go every year.”
“Friends at Savarelle?”
“Tori’s cousin. He lets us borrow his apartment.”
“Sounds fun,” she said, trying to ignore the sudden gnawing in her stomach. She’d barely been anywhere, not even Savarelle or Dunmoody.
“I’ll bring the pages, don’t worry.”
“You don’t need to do that. Did you want to look at some of these lifts?”
“Yeah.” He slid to his stomach as she opened her laptop, both of them glad for the distraction.
As she hit play, she immediately regretted showing him one of her videos.
She should have found something else. Her Nutcracker video was two years old, and he’d think it was childish.
She half-watched him as it played, lip tugged between her teeth, but his attention was as serious and focused as it ever was.
“Wait,” he said, halfway through. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s—”
“That’s amazing.” He rolled slightly to look at her then, and something warm fluttered in her chest.
“Thanks.”
They watched the rest of the video in silence, then went back to the middle so Seb could rewatch a combo he wanted to try. It was one of her favorite parts of the dance, but she kept her pleasure to herself.
“Okay.” He jumped up, shaking his arms out. “I think I’ve got it. Slow?”
She nodded as they moved to the panel mat they’d laid down.
Seb extended his arm, and she gripped his forearm as she jumped and twisted, aiming her hips for his shoulder.
Instead, she landed on his arm like a sack of potatoes, her breath crushing out of her in a grunt. He flopped her back to her feet.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she laughed, partly at his concern, partly because she’d forgotten what it was like to work with someone new, partly because she’d suppressed the joy of throwing herself at someone knowing they’d catch her for so long. “Let’s go again.”
They did. And again, and again, moving on to new skills as they exhausted the current ones, until they were both damp and out of breath.
She’d worked with a handful of partners before, and she’d been nervous that she and Sebastian wouldn’t have the movement chemistry, the proportions, to make it work.
At first they were awkward and cautious with each other, leaving too much space, not quite committing—but now, with a streak of his sweat across her bicep and her breath on his neck, she knew.
Even with his lack of experience, working with him already felt more natural than anyone she’d danced with.
“Do you want to try that combo with music?” he asked as he grabbed some water. “We could add that sequence you showed me the other night.”
“S-sure.” She swallowed as her memory bounced back to that night in the library, Seb watching her in the darkness, his eyes hooded, profile sculpted.
She pictured him sleeping and vulnerable on her couch, remembering what that sight had done to the thing that lived in her chest. She pictured the antimony wolves, touching gently, nose to nose.
“Is this it?”
He traced his leg in a wide circle, bringing it forward before shooting back, letting the momentum pull him to the ground, then roll him back up over his shoulder. His shirt rode up as he spun, exposing an inch of flat stomach and hipbone.
“Yeah. That’s it.”
He nodded, grinning. “If we do it in opposite directions, we should meet in the middle, and then we can go straight into the lift combo. What do you want to put on?”
“Why not some of Asher’s music?” Sebastian looked pleasantly stricken. “He showed me what he was working on the other morning.”
She offered him the speaker and he paired his phone as he scrolled, trying out a few songs before settling on one with a sinuous beat and sparse arrangement.
Lily bobbed her head, getting the flow of it.
Sebastian snapped off the count, and they began, finding their shared rhythm as they went.
When Seb caught her gaze before she moved in for the lift, he might have been the center of the galaxy.
He tossed her up in a leap, throwing her higher than he had any time before, or maybe she’d jumped harder, but she landed softly before he spun her.
She went up and over his shoulder, twisting as she pivoted around his neck, before he guided her down to the ground, her hips pressed against his chest, her arms extended overhead, his hands clasped around her back.
They finished in a low dip, his nose an inch from hers, and she could see every shade of gold and green that made up the nebula of his iris.
For a moment, neither of them breathed, and she thought, for a single, insane second, that he was going to kiss her.
I want him to kiss me.
Not trusting herself with the realization, she rolled out of his arms, groping for her water.
When she could finally face him, he was still frozen in place, his expression inscrutable.
She tossed him his water bottle to break the trance, because she couldn’t look at him looking like that. Her skin was on fire.
He sank to the ground, drinking deeply. Say something, she thought, but she didn’t trust herself to say anything at all. When he pushed his hand through his sweaty hair, she closed her eyes.
“When do you leave for Québec?”
“Tuesday, but we’ll be back in time for the Halloween dance.”
She made a noncommittal sound, having completely forgotten about the annual dance. It was a big deal on campus, but she’d skipped it last year, because she skipped everything.
“Are you going?”
“To the dance?” Her eyes bugged.
“Yeah.”
Her heart galloped away at the question—at the way he looked at her when he asked.
Is he—no, don’t—
But it was too late, her brain had shorted out. “I wasn’t going to, but if you wanted to go together—” She saw the words were a mistake even as she uttered them. His eyes widened, lips opening in horror, as mauve crept up his neck.
“Oh. I, uh…” He pressed his lips together, trying to spare her the embarrassment. “I’m going with Gemma.”
Lily was an expert at keeping her face blank, and she did so, even as her insides plummeted down an elevator shaft. Her voice came out fake. “Right, of course. I forgot you guys are together.” She huffed a stray lock of hair out of her eye.
“We’re not. I mean—I don’t know.” Sebastian looked like he was in acute physical pain.
“Cool,” she said dumbly, getting to her feet in something approximating the way a human moves. “Well, I’ve got to get home for dinner. Have fun in Québec.”
It took all her willpower not to sprint directly out of the studio.
She was halfway home, breath ragged with shock and embarrassment, wishing horological magic was real so that she could erase the last hour, maybe even the whole year, when she realized she’d left him to clean up everything on his own.