28. Seb
SEB
Something had shifted in the week since the first alchemy lab. Tori returned from Paracelsus alone, and he’d suspected the worst, especially when she claimed that Lily had gone home sick. But she’d started giving Lily a greeting nod when they got to class, which Lily mostly blinked at.
Things began slotting into place as he found something of a rhythm with his impossible schedule.
He was still exhausted all the time, but it was nothing coffee and selective waking cantrips couldn’t fix.
Gemma had become less pushy, less obvious, now that she felt she had something of a claim to him, despite several conversations confirming the contrary.
This thing with Gemma, whatever it really was, worked in its own way too.
Even through the exhaustion, there was a part of him that felt constantly wired, thrumming with pent-up energy.
With Gemma he could almost turn his brain off and just let go.
There was a part of him—a very deep, very unacknowledged part—that understood what was really happening.
That could make the connection between that jolting buzz and the evenings spent in Studio C, the impossibly late nights secreted in the library working on the Elumnara.
That part came out in strange dreams that woke him up sweaty, heart thumping.
They were getting so close; he could feel it.
Their sorting spell had worked, and now they searched painstakingly through piles of facsimile letters, looking for Argent Lunes and any mention of alchemy, the Words.
Standing on the precipice of knowledge drove him mad, was its own incessant buzz in his frontal lobe, or maybe that was just the gallons of Asher’s cold brew.
He placed his head in his hands and stared at the empty mocha cup that he was starting to regret.
They were in their usual spot in the archives, and he really needed to do better for dinner than stale scones.
Seb had no idea how Lily managed it. Gemma was expecting him later and all he wanted was to stretch out on the table and go to sleep.
Lily glanced at him. “Are you okay?”
“I feel like I’m losing my mind—like everything is alchemy.”
“What do you mean?” From this angle, she actually looked concerned.
“I can’t get away from it—it’s in my dreams—” he broke off, stopping himself before she asked what his dreams consisted of. He was too poor a liar, and she was too perceptive for that.
“My dreams have been pretty weird too. It’s hard not to read into them, with all the Jung and stuff.”
“Exactly.” He stared, frowning at a point behind her. “I—Lily.”
She started at her name, his tone. His heart raced as he realized what he was looking at. He lowered his voice to a bare whisper, and she leaned in, straining to hear.
“Look where I’m looking.”
She froze. Then, eyes narrowed, she craned her head and twisted as if she were cracking her back. Several pops echoed in the dim room. He knew the exact moment she found it, in the way her spine straightened, her neck tensed, and her jaw slackened.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, ducking in. “Oh my god, it was right there the entire time.” She pressed her eyes closed. “I feel like an idiot.”
“Then we’re both idiots.” Seb held the leaded-glass window, molded with one of the symbols from the ring, in the corner of his eye in case it decided to vanish. “I bet the other one is around here somewhere—we’ve got to look.”
Lily nodded, eyes glinting. “We can’t right now, people will see us.”
“We should come back when the library is closed, but—” Seb paused at the look on Lily’s face, the one she wore when she was fighting an internal battle.
“I have a way.”
Seb turned in a slow circle, taking in the secret room. He’d thought that having won the Elumnara twice, no one had more perfect knowledge of the hidden Windermere than he did, but here he was, in the tower of the library, in what amounted to an entire lounge of Lily’s creation.
He’d followed the instructions she’d doled out—her face and tone perfectly serious—to the letter.
A few minutes after she left, he casually made his way to a spiral stone staircase he’d never climbed, then to a locked gate where she waited for him, face tight.
She picked the lock on the gate as naturally as breathing, then cleared a protective field with magic he almost understood, before ushering him up ahead of her and closing the gate.
“What is this place?” he breathed quietly, looking at the mirrors, the lamps, the couch and desk, as indigo-wrapped midnight rubbed up against the windowpanes.
“It was storage, I think?” she said at a normal level, switching on one of the lamps. “Then I think it got forgotten.”
“Did you bring all this up here?”
The corner of her mouth quirked. “Over time. This is my favorite place on campus.”
“No kidding—it’s incredible.”
She ducked, hiding her face as she pulled her portable speaker out of her bag and switched it on.
“What are all the mirrors for?”
“Dance,” she said, looking at him like he had two heads. Then, “The library closes in thirty minutes, after that it’ll take security about an hour to lock up.”
“Won’t there be wards, and…I don’t know, lasers?”
“Lasers?” she laughed. “No lasers. Don’t worry, I’ll handle it. I’ve been sneaking around after hours for years.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” he said earnestly, “about this place.”
Lily gave him an odd look, but not an unpleasant one. “I wouldn’t have brought you up here if I thought you would.”
Seb looked around, then at his watch. “So, what should we do until then?”