38. Seb
SEB
It was a mistake. He knew it as soon as he saw Gemma, swathed in soft folds of silver gauze.
She was gorgeous, impeccable. She looked exactly like what he should want.
Instead, all he could think of was that her outfit reminded him of Dream-Lily.
Dream-Lily, who paved a bone-white road across the lake and drowned him in the most benevolent way possible, all while ringed by a nimbus of glittering moonbeams.
Gemma was even wearing a halo crown. There was a nonzero chance of him losing an eye tonight. He stared blankly at her for a moment, sure that he either talked in his sleep or that she had secretly attained PhD-level prognostication skills. Both seemed equally plausible.
“Wow,” he said, because he had nothing else to say.
“You ready to go?” she said from beneath endless silver-black lashes.
“Y-yeah.”
He stared at the folds of her robe. They were translucent, slipping around her curves, enchanted to protect what modesty she wanted to hold on to. His cravat felt suddenly tight. He loosened it with a finger and turned to the apartment.
“You guys ready?”
Tori whistled as she saw Gemma. “Let’s get fucked.”
The dance was in the campus center, beneath vaulting glass ceilings, closed in by brick walls.
The round tables that normally flocked the first floor were gone, replaced by refreshment stands and ringed by elaborate candlescapes.
Artificial stars hovered near the ceiling. The bass throbbed steadily.
Seb slipped Gemma out of her coat, deposited it, and returned with drinks.
As they clinked glasses, Gemma fixed him with a hunting look and his stomach twisted.
He was stupid, so fucking stupid, and he didn’t know how to fix it.
Of course there was no fixing it now, only damage control.
He dragged her over to Asher and Tori, joined by her date, an underclassman.
Asher handed him a flask full of O Muse, and Seb drank gratefully. Anything to avoid the truth. Where was Lily now, he wondered? In the faded Victorian on Fountain Avenue? Somewhere on campus?
The thought of her on campus, within reach, was almost unbearable.
Once it entered his mind, he couldn’t dislodge it.
He needed to get away somewhere he could text her.
Ever since that first night in Québec, the letter had been running through his head, one line in particular: Yet somehow Fate, that slow weaving, merciless and merciful mistress, has thrown us together, like twin opposites, into the alembic.
Twin opposites.
Fate.
The alembic.
Chant had said that alchemy was the study of that which is commonly held between two things, no matter how disparate they may seem. There was a thread, invisible, running between him and Lily Perkins. If you boiled them down to their essence, that thread would remain.
“We should have done a couple’s costume,” Gemma said, her voice low.
Seb said automatically, “We always go in a group costume.”
She shrugged, and he didn’t quite know how to read it. He found, more than anything, that he was upset that she was taking up space in his thought process when there was only one thing he wanted to think about.
“Here, Asher, take a few of us?” Gemma thrust her phone at Asher, whose sudden wide eyes rendered him a pretty passable, extremely tan Percy Shelley. She draped herself over Seb’s shoulder. “At least our costumes don’t clash.” Her crown stabbed him in the ear.
“Let’s make the rounds.”
He nodded, trying to keep the building hysteria at bay. Eventually she steered them toward her sister and a group of her friends, dressed as the Muses, and Daphne glowered at him, or her sister, or at them together—he wasn’t sure which.
Gemma signed something at Daphne, and Seb cast a somesthetic cantrip so that he could understand. Daphne, holding a lyre, tipped her head and smiled at him.
“Terpsichore?” he asked, remembering that she could read lips to some extent.
She smiled wider and turned away from her sister.
“Do you dance?”
“I wish,” she signed, and Seb marveled at the things magic could do as the understanding slotted into his brain. Lily knew sign language; apparently, that was how she and Daphne had met. He pressed his eyes closed.
“Right now, I mean. Do you want to dance?”
Daphne beamed beneath her crown of laurel and peonies and thrust her golden lyre at her sister, whose nostrils flared.
Seb offered his elbow and led her into the center of the floor.
She looked lovely. Her soft peach-pink robes complemented her honey-colored hair and brought out the creaminess of her skin.
As he guided her in a simple step, her lavender eyes sparkled with pleasure.
It was hard to believe, as they danced, that she and Gemma were sisters. Place them side by side and it was obvious enough, but Daphne was spun of softer stuff. Beneath Gemma’s pliable curves was a core of willful steel.
“You’re a very good dancer.” Daphne paused momentarily, the movement of her hands thoughtful.
“Thanks.” Then, “How do you say ‘thanks?’”
Daphne showed him. He returned the sign. She smiled.
Gemma cut in, shoving Daphne’s lyre at her. The sisters glared at each other for several long moments, and Gemma seemed to win the match as Daphne slunk off toward one of the refreshment tables.
“I thought you were going to dance with her all night,” Gemma groaned, pressing herself against him.
“She doesn’t have a date.”
“That’s her problem.”
Seb rotated them, looking for a new way out, looking for someone he knew he wouldn’t find.
Across the dance floor he saw Asher talking with his evocation professor and subtly maneuvered Gemma in their direction.
Almost an hour they’d been here, and he had yet to see any sign of Conrad.
Maybe he wasn’t coming. A slight weight lifted from his chest.
“Does she date much?”
Gemma snorted. “What do you think?”
He fell quiet as movement caught his eye near the far entrance and resolved itself into Professor Chant, not in costume.
He wore trendy black-framed glasses and a searching look, his body filled with coiled tension.
Seb frowned. He thought again of Lily. Every time they turned, he thought he saw her, off in the crowd, just out of reach.
“Hello? Sebastian?”
He blinked as Gemma waved her hand in front of his face. For a second, in his daze, he’d thought the silver being in his arms was Lily.
“Did you even hear me?”
“What?”
Gemma rolled her eyes. “About brunch.”
Seb stared at her, through her, and then he broke.
“I’m sorry—”
“You should be.” She grinned slyly. “I’ll have to—”
“No.” He released her. “I’m sorry—I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“It’s over.” He swallowed. A sail snapped free, catching the breeze. “Between us. Whatever it was.”
“Over?” Gemma stared at him, stunned.
I’m such an asshole.
“I’m so sorry.”
He took a step backward, then turned and pushed his way through the crowd, pulling his cravat loose, raking a hand through his hair.
“Sebastian!”
He whirled furiously, ready to throw off whoever was trying to stop him, and found himself face to face with Professor Chant. They stared at each other with equally wide eyes.
“Professor?”
“Forgive the forwardness, but have you seen Mr. Hawleyhurst tonight?”
“Conrad?” Seb’s mind skidded out. “No, why?” He only vaguely registered the strangeness of Chant asking him about Conrad, about what that asking meant.
“He hasn’t been here at all?”
“Not that I’ve seen. He could be dressed as any—”
“A vampire. Lestat, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Oh.” Seb took a beat to process that. He was pretty sure Lestat was gay. When he looked up, Chant was still frowning. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m not sure something is right. Have you been in contact with Lily at all?”
“I was just going to go and find her.”
“Ah,” Chant exhaled. “Good, yes. Do that. She was just leaving the Metaphysics Library when I saw her last.” He patted Seb forcefully on the shoulder, propelling him toward the door. “Off you go.”
He didn’t need a second invitation.
Seb tugged up the high collar of his coat and jogged into the night.
Outside, he could finally breathe. He pulled in half-frozen air through his nose and exhaled it in great puffs of haze.
The Metaphysics building was dark. He stopped, puzzled. Turning in a slow circle, he took in the other two buildings on the quad. Both Paracelsus and Taverner had lights on—dim security lighting, but still.
When had Chant seen Lily? Maybe she’d already gone home.
But he knew, in his gut, that it was impossible. Whatever it was that tied them together, that had kept them running against each other until they started to twist like saplings around each other, striving for the same sun, told him she was here.
Above him, the Reaper’s Moon throbbed, huge and almost full.
The moon.
He remembered his dreams. He pictured Gemma dressed almost like Dream-Lily. He recalled Cornelius Windermere calling his Selene, whoever she was, “that which is above.” Saying that she was “born of heaven and walked in starlight.”
He sprinted across the academic quad and down the hill.