131. Lily
LILY
Someone had cursed her again.
It should not be possible for time to move this fast.
Minutes slipped away like seconds. Seconds were memories before she’d even realized they were happening.
Hours no longer existed. She’d stood in front of the mirror in her room that morning, in the dusty pink lace dress she was wearing to graduation, just trying not to scream, wasting whole minutes.
Stop, stop, stop.
She was wild with fear, adrenaline zipping up and down her veins all day, as she whirled from activity to activity.
The night before—her last night, like a prisoner on death row—had been a quiet one at home, just her, her mom, Gran, Seb.
Favorite dinner—just like death row. Seb had slept over again, though neither of them had slept.
All night they’d lain awake, crying, kissing, clutched together, trying to memorize each other one last time.
When the hazy morning light began sliding between the blinds, they’d driven to campus and sat in the wet grass of the orchard in their pajamas. They watched the sun rise above the foggy lake, as the geese towed their downy yellow-brown goslings in a bobbing line.
They’d kissed, and kissed, and kissed, until their lips were bruised as ripe plums, and then they’d done more than kiss, as the dew and their fingers trailed over bare skin.
Lily had driven home, since it was her last chance, and then they’d sat in front of her house for a long time, unable to speak. She’d been back before breakfast.
She’d sat underneath a scorching white sun on Graduation Hill, surveying a bobbing sea of navy mortarboards with golden tassels, trying to find her friends.
She watched someone else give the valedictorian speech that should have been Seb’s, but that had been given away on the basis that he’d been exempted from final grades, even though he’d finished every paper, sat every test. He didn’t seem to care.
Lily watched the trees move, zoning out through the commencement speaker who went on and on about the future and doors swinging open, the obligation of honor and privilege and Magic.
She stared at the ants marching over the grass between her feet as they held an endless minute of silence for Tripp Braithwhite.
Her heart burst in complicated fireworks as Seb strode across the stage and accepted his diploma, his shoulders wreathed in cords and scarves that displayed his objective excellence for all to see.
She smiled for real as he hugged her to his side while Asher’s mom took pictures with brisk efficiency.
Now, she sat backstage at the Revue, Seb’s hand squeezed tightly in hers, as her heart tumbled in her chest. Even if her emotions could have sorted themselves out enough for her to cry, it wouldn’t matter.
Tori had enchanted her makeup, and it was never coming off.
She could feel Seb’s nerves through his palm and the shaky magic coming off him in waves, sharp-edged and silver.
Neither of them had eaten at dinner, and she regretted it now.
Asher paced in front of them, pushing his hands through his tightly coiled mop until it was frizzy. Absently, Lily threw some magic at it.
“Vis,” hissed the stage manager. “You’re up.”
Asher nodded shortly, his warm skin graying, and shook out his sleeves. He was wearing the same plum velvet jacket he’d worn to the Cantrèa gala. Seb gave him a thumbs up as he and Lily snuck into the audience to watch, crouching on the side.
The lights bathed the stage in a purple glow.
On three floor-to-ceiling screens a monitor pulsed, asking for input.
Asher walked across the stage, his long limbs pulled in, and sat down at his AEtheric Synth.
It looked like a large-ish keyboard, but there were several small monitors above it, and a touchpad attached to either end of the keyboard.
Below it sat a barrage of pedals and pressure pads.
Cords, tightly cabled, trailed from all of it across the stage like black roots.
Asher turned to the audience and inclined his head slightly.
The audience clapped. Asher graced them with a crooked smile and raised his hands, casting.
Very suddenly, Lily went deaf. Panic rolled through the audience, then settled as Asher pressed a button on the synth, and text scrolled across the three screens: Your hearing loss is only temporary.
Around her, people had reopened their programs, finally reading the long block of text that accompanied the title of Asher’s performance.
Roots: A Tree – an original composition by Asher Vis
He sat down and began to play.
For a moment, there was nothing, and then she felt it, deep in her bones, buzzing in her teeth and her skull.
Light and color, summoned by the synth, matching whatever Asher was playing, splashed through the air.
His hands moved to the far range of the keyboard, and her nerves sang with the high notes.
Her chest throbbed as the magic swirled, giving shape, size, depth, to the music she couldn’t technically hear.
But with the display, with the AEtheric Synth, it didn’t matter.
Music, Asher said, was so much more than sound, and now Lily understood, finally, what he meant.
On the screens, images played—a patchwork of a year.
There was Seb, hair tousled, glasses sliding down his nose, reading in the suite’s window seat.
There was the Equinox bonfire, cantrips and sparks exploding in the sky, including one reading “Professor Chant can get it.” There was their trip to Québec, rendered in flushed cheeks and massive scarves.
Her chest twitched as the three of them posed in front of a gilded mirror, dressed as dead poets on Halloween.
And there was Daphne, held lightly in Seb’s arms, dressed as a muse.
Lily hadn’t seen the costume before; she looked lovely.
And then, suddenly, there was Lily. She blinked at the footage, confused—since everything so far had clearly come from Tori and Asher, and this had decidedly not.
She stood in Studio C, moving through a very early idea of a phrase.
Seb joined her, catching her, swinging her low, ending in a dip, their faces hovering inches apart.
She didn’t remember this footage at all, and it took her until the end of the clip to realize that it was from Seb’s phone, that he’d been filming to see how it looked, and that was the day she’d mistakenly thought he was asking her to the dance.
She looked at him as the video moved on, and he looked back. They looked so different, just months ago. Younger, unsure. She’d had no idea.
There was the photoshoot that Tori had bullied them into.
And there was the Caribbean, her and Seb in the surf.
There was Tori, hunched over her computer, working on her blog.
There was Daphne at the gala, framed by champagne flutes and honey light.
There was all of them—Seb, Asher, Tori, Lily, Daphne, Liesl, the Méridas—a constellation of chaos, making their way to the Manuscript for dinner, shot from Tori’s phone, as she passed it around.
Roots, a tree.
Lily could hardly breathe.
As Asher’s long fingers lifted from his keyboard, Lily’s hearing returned. The applause that followed was deafening, only in part because she’d been deprived of sound. She and Seb returned backstage to wait.
She held up her phone so that Seb could see. 11:52 p.m.
Eight minutes until moonrise.
Seb drew her in, pressing his forehead against hers.
“It’s going to be okay,” he murmured.
She pressed her eyes closed. “I love you,” she whispered.
His Opus, she realized in that last moment, sat untouched on her desk. She’d been waiting to have the time to read it properly, and now she never could.