58. Seb
SEB
Despite it being the last day of the semester, a surprisingly festive mood permeated the alchemy lab. Chant had scheduled them for class despite having already administered a written final followed by a practical exam over the preceding two classes, promising that he would make it up to them today.
Even for those who were upset at having to stay all the way to the last possible class of the year, the grumbling had ceased when they’d walked into lab and been greeted by holiday décor and mulled cider and wine simmering away on Chant’s desk.
He’d very pointedly not noticed Seb getting two mugs of mulled wine and depositing one in front of Lily.
Chant passed around plates of exquisitely iced holiday cookies, which he seemed to have baked himself, before getting started on teaching them how to turn water into wine.
“Lest you get too excited about the level of irresponsibility I’m displaying in teaching a gaggle of twenty-somethings how to get drunk for free, rest assured that this transmutation is more difficult than it’s worth, requires ingredients that I keep under lock and key, and that the quality of the wine is rather lacking. ”
At the last, Asher had sighed in deep disappointment.
The second surprise had been their first lesson on turning lead into gold. They were only completing the first of thirteen steps today, because it was a lengthy process requiring that the results of the day sit untouched in the crucible for a full lunar cycle.
Next to him, pressed hip to hip, Lily leaned on her elbows, munching the tips off an iced snowflake, watching as their lead melted behind an enchanted glass bell that siphoned off hazardous fumes.
Seb craned over her shoulder, and she held up her cookie.
He took a bite, a silver sugar ball crunching under his molars.
“I think it’s almost ready to add the tincture.”
“I’ll get it.” Lily swept crumbs onto the floor.
At the front of the classroom, Asher was deep in discussion with Chant about how to better improve the transmuted wine and a debate on the merits of cardamom in mulling spices.
“The whole function of the tongue is taste!” Asher shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense to include an element that numbs your tasting organ.” He took another sip of the mulled wine, despite its apparent inclusion of cardamom.
Chant tried to keep a straight face. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
Seb’s gaze slid past them to the normally locked supply case, where Lily was picking up their tincture.
Gemma was there, back to Lily, and Seb understood what was happening a moment before it actually occurred, but too late for him to do anything about it.
Lily collected their stoppered bottle, and Gemma turned, bumping her.
Something spilled from Gemma’s hands—something that hissed and smoked as soon as it made contact with the air.
Lily looked up, making wide-eyed contact with Gemma.
Her gaze followed the spill from Gemma’s beaker.
Seb lunged, shouting her name, knocking over a stool, but still the compound splashed over her arm, belching out a great gout of acrid smoke as it ate through her sweater before moving on to her skin and muscle.
Gemma shrieked. Lily stared, gasping silently, at the place where skin and muscle had once covered her bone, too shocked to scream.
Chant turned at Gemma’s screech, immediately abandoning his cider and shoving past Asher into the warded pantry.
Seb vaulted the fallen stool, threading between desks, moving faster than he’d ever done in any bout.
He caught Lily as she staggered backward, clutching the remains of her wrist and dragging in ragged, hyperventilating breaths.
Where she still had skin, it bubbled up into enormous, translucent blisters.
Between her feet, there was a smoking hole chewed through the wood.
Gemma turned, vomiting on her own shoes.
“Everybody back!” Chant shouted as he emerged from the closet, wearing spelled gloves that encased his arm to the elbow, and slamming an expanding toolbox onto his desk. “Sebastian! Careful!”
He looked down, narrowly avoiding stepping in one of the splashes, as he dragged Lily backward into a chair, placing her ruined arm on a desk.
The color had drained from Gemma’s normally rosy cheeks, and she shook silently.
If he hadn’t been holding onto Lily, he was fairly certain he would have slammed Gemma’s head through the glass door of the cabinet.
“Lily, I need you to let go of your wrist,” Chant coaxed, sinking into a desk facing her and spreading his supplies on its surface. “It will be better soon, but I need you to do this.”
Lily, her eyes still unblinking and white all the way around, staring at nothing, didn’t move. Her teeth chattered, and Seb could see every single muscle and tendon in her neck, each of them popping tight as a winch.
“She’s in shock,” Chant said, glancing briefly to Seb. “Help me out, Sebastian.”
He slid around behind her to kneel on her other side, reaching carefully underneath the desk for her free hand.
“Here, Lily, hold my hand.” He worked his fingers into hers. “You can do it. Just look at me, don’t look at your arm.” Her whole body spasmed. “Just breathe. Just ten deep breaths.”
He pressed his forehead into her trembling shoulder and inhaled. Her fingers—slick with sweat and other things he didn’t want to think about—slipped into his.
“Look at me,” he said quietly. Jerkily, she turned.
Her face was damp and gray, eyes wild with pain. Unconsciously shed tears coursed down her face. Behind her, Chant nodded tersely and began to work, pulling out a vial of fine, shimmering powder.
“I need you to be strong, Lily,” he soothed. “This first part will hurt, and then it will get better.” His hands were steady, even as Seb could hear the tremor in his voice. “Ready?”
Still sipping in tiny breaths through her nose, Lily nodded. She clutched Seb’s fingers more tightly, her nails digging crescents into his skin.
“Alright,” Chant said, steeling himself. He pulled the stopper from the vial and sprinkled it liberally over her arm.
The scream that Lily uttered was unlike any sound Seb had ever heard before: raw and ripped out of her so violently that she immediately went hoarse.
Sobbing, her whole body bucking from the pain, she buried her face in his neck, her teeth grinding into his shoulder.
He wrapped his free arm around her, locking her into place, pulling her against him.
A chorus of gasps and sobs echoed around the previously silent lab.
“That’s it, Lily. That’s the worst part—good girl.” Chant’s voice trembled and sweat beaded at his hairline.
He pulled a small sphere from his kit. It was roughly the size of an egg, and beneath its translucent surface swirled a substance that looked like silver-blue mercury.
He cracked it against the edge of the desk, then twisted it apart over Lily’s arm.
The substance spilled out like dry ice, liquefying as it hit her skin, still covered in powder, and moved with intention, seeking out all the ruined parts of her.
It slid from the back of her hand up her wrist to the elbow, with the scent of a fresh spring rain.
As it traversed her arm, the blisters shrank and new muscle fibers began knitting themselves over the bone.
Against his neck, her breathing slowed to something almost normal, but she shook convulsively.
“Sit for five minutes,” Chant told him. “Then take her to the health center.”
He turned to Gemma, his face contorted with black fury. “You.” His anger momentarily swallowed his ability to speak, and he stood, breathing sharply until he could gather himself. “You’re going to face an academic tribunal for this.”
As Seb stared past Lily’s head at Gemma, a thin shred of his anger faded. She was as horrified as any of them. She’d meant to fuck with Lily, clearly, but she didn’t look like she’d planned on truly hurting her.
“It was an accident!” she wailed.
Chant’s voice was stone. “What explanation could you possibly have for taking alkahest from the supply case, opening it, and pouring it on another student?”
Gemma flailed for an explanation. “I was distracted! The—the party, and—”
“That’s enough. Get out of my classroom. Don’t bother coming back next semester.”
“But—”
“Get. Out.”
Weeping, Gemma collected her things. Seb’s timer buzzed. Lily had stilled in his arms.
“Hey,” he whispered to her as Chant directed the rest of the class to clean up. “Let’s get you to the health center.”
She mumbled vaguely into his shoulder.
“Come on.” He tried to help her up, but she flopped back into the desk, completely wrung out. Shiny, raw muscle stretched tight on her arm. He wondered if her freckles would come back. “Okay,” he said to no one in particular, then hoisted her up into his arms and walked out of lab.