44. Seb
SEB
He tugged Lily’s collar up around her chin as he helped her into her coat.
It was a habit already forming, born out of an impulse that he couldn’t—didn’t—want to stifle.
There was something about the way she looked from that angle, with her sharp chin tilted up and her deep brown eyes meeting his, the feeling of her breath on his hands, that turned his insides into nectar.
It filled him with an ache so acute that he almost wanted to die.
She hadn’t objected, and so he let himself, again, again, again.
He stuffed their entwined fingers in his pocket.
It was impossibly nice, being out here with her, walking around not caring about who could see them because they didn’t know anyone.
On campus she was flighty, acting as if everything was the same between them as it had been weeks ago.
He’d told her he didn’t care who saw, but she did.
He didn’t understand why, couldn’t pretend it didn’t sting, especially since she knew about Conrad, but Lily Perkins was a terribly complex being, with many secrets yet to learn.
She was a book he wanted to read every page of and commit to memory with perfect recall.
He trusted her, and if she wasn’t ready, he could be patient.
They stopped outside a row of crooked stone houses, older than the country they lived in, and turned in a slow circle, taking it in.
“This is crazy,” Seb said. “All this history, just…sitting here in the middle of town.”
Lily grinned. “You’re such a dork.”
“Sorry.”
She tugged him closer by the elbow. “I like it.”
“Good. I’ll take you on more nerdy dates. We’ve been together over a week already and we haven’t even…” Next to him, Lily stiffened at the word “together.”
“Are we?” she asked. “Together?”
His heart entered free fall. This was the moment where he exposed himself as a lunatic.
“Oh.” His face burned. “I mean. It can…we…this can be whatever you want. If you’d prefer casual—”
Blessedly, she cut him off. “You don’t? Want casual?”
“I…” He stared at her, trying to figure out how to explain himself without scaring her away.
God, she looked perfect here—a stroke of warmth against a gray day; her eyes could melt the world.
“No. I don’t. I suck at casual,” he admitted, looking heavenward, pulling on his Words for strength.
“I pretty much just want to spend all my time with you. I’m sorry if that sounds insane. ”
“Oh, it does.”
Fuck.
When he summoned the courage to look at her, though, she wore a coy smile that touched only the corner of her mouth.
“It makes literally no sense why you, of all people, would want to spend all your time with me.” She bit her lip, looking up at him through her lashes. “I wake up every morning and I think I’m dreaming. So…if you want to spend all your time together, I’m not going to object.”
He exhaled the sigh he’d been keeping in for days and dragged her into him, lowering his forehead to touch hers.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my life,” he whispered into her hair.
She huffed a silent laugh. “I know I’ve never been this happy in my life. Come on.” She tugged his hand. “Let’s check out this museum.”
“Lily,” he whispered, leaning closer to the glass as his heart beat a tattoo in his chest. She wasn’t there.
He turned. She’d wandered across the room to frown at an exhibit on women’s roles in the home.
“Lily,” he hissed, even though there was no one else there. She looked up and he waved her over. “Look.” He pointed at the parchment beneath the glass, his finger shaking.
Lily leaned in to peer at the page from the ledger. It was a bill of sale to one Cornelius Windermere from a Jean Bevoire. She glanced sideways at him, not comprehending his manic look, then followed his finger to the explanatory panel. Her eyes bugged and she clutched his elbow.
“Oh my god. It’s her.”
Cornelius Windermere had bought ninety acres for a vineyard from a local farmer, Jean Bevoire, father of Pierre, Marie, and Selene, the youngest of whom developed a “unique” relationship with Windermere and assisted him at the vineyard.
Fifteen minutes later they were in the cramped museum office, pestering the archivist and begging him to email them anything he could find on Selene Bevoire and her relationship with Windermere.
He seemed endeared, more than anything, by their enthusiasm and promised to see what he could do.
Their Windermere emails had been plenty of explanation, and Seb experienced that brief shock that he sometimes felt when the Magical and normal worlds collided, before he remembered that Windermere wasn’t a secret.
In the mundane world it was just another fantastically expensive school that almost no one could afford to go to without old money, old connections, or both.
“Can you believe it?” Lily hopped along the street next to him, the wool sleeve of his jacket fisted in her hand. It almost certainly wasn’t good for the coat. “We found her. She was right here! Working with him! Do you think the whole family was magical?”
He just grinned at her. There wasn’t anything else to do.
“And he educated her. I wonder if that means he taught her to read, or magic—”
“Or sexually,” Seb offered, boldly.
Lily punched him in the arm, then looked pensive. “I mean…he was definitely in love with her.”
Seb grimaced. “She was like, half his age, I think.”
“Who knows. Things were different then. I read that the average life expectancy for a man was thirty-eight. I wonder if there will be anything about her on the tour.” She turned to him.
“I wish we had her letters. It’s so weird that all we have are his.
Why did he have his own letters? Did she give them back? ”
He’d assumed they were working toward a complement to the disc, but—“Maybe that’s what we’re going to find.”