65. Lily
LILY
They emerged into a white-washed world, all shades of milky gray and slate-blue shadows.
It wasn’t late when they crept back to the main floor of the library, but it felt it, partly for their time spent underground and partly because the snow had fallen so thickly that the sun was a distant memory.
It piled in furious drifts, so sticky that it clung to the great leaded windows in the foyer, dampening the light. The librarian had gone home.
Back in the tower room, they sat on the floor and Lily unwrapped the thick packet of letters with trembling fingers.
One at a time, they scanned the letters with Seb’s phone, cataloguing them on their laptops, trying to sequence any dates with corresponding letters of Windermere’s.
Then they began to read, dividing the letters between themselves.
“This is killing my eyes,” Lily said, squinting at her screen, some time later.
“Then read the actual letters.”
“They’re artifacts!”
Seb sighed thoughtfully, pulling the pile over to him. “These actually look like they’re in pretty good shape. Windermere probably put a preservation spell on them.”
“Maybe.” She was doubtful.
“Besides, you’ve earned it.”
Lily accepted the stack. Selene’s handwriting couldn’t have been more different from Windermere’s; where his was a thoughtless scrawl, hers was careful and cramped.
There were frequent blots on her letters, as if she’d clutched the pen with complete concentration.
Lily could see the effort that had gone into every word.
They devoured the letters, passing them back and forth, reading aloud when they found something especially salient.
The afternoon slipped away, and evening crept in.
Snow whispered against the windowpanes. In Selene’s letters, Lily felt like she was finally meeting a friend she’d known her whole life, as if she’d been waiting all along for this moment.
Selene was eager and bold. With every inch Windermere gave her, she took a mile, no apologies, sometimes outstripping his theories by leaps and bounds.
The college, Lily realized, hadn’t just been for his estranged daughter, but for Selene—for any adolescent sparking and humming with “AEtheric tones,” as Windermere put it.
The very library she sat in was a testament, a monument, to one French Huguenot woman from the hills overlooking the Hudson Valley, who had the audacity to challenge Cornelius Windermere.
“What’s your opinion on The Tempest?” Lily yawned, stretching backward over the arm of the couch, some time later. “Because Selene is Not A Fan.”
“Well, it’s not Shakespeare’s strongest work.
” Seb yawned himself, then rolled across the floor, groaning.
“What time is it? I’m starving.” He jumped to his feet and padded to the window.
Lily watched his face fall as he squinted.
“Looks like we’re snowed in. I’d be shocked if we could even get to my dorm with those drifts. ”
Lily’s heart tripped pleasantly. “There are worse places to be snowed in.”
“Not without dinner.”
“Actually,” she said, carefully casual, “I’ve already thought of that. Go…I don’t know, go to the bathroom. Just be elsewhere for five minutes and then come back.”
Seb lifted his eyebrows. “What are you planning, you devil?”
Lily rolled her eyes. “It’s clearly meant to be a surprise.” She shooed him, and obediently he went.