34. Seb
SEB
Lily’s text came while they were at a late dinner, polishing off a bottle of mulled wine and a crock of ratatouille.
The pink and red rope lights around the ceiling of the dive bar pulsed slowly with the music, casting everything in luscious womb tones.
The windows had fogged over with the heat of the bodies inside.
Seb was warm and full, pleasantly tipsy, full of French. He always spoke French better buzzed.
His phone vibrated against his thigh, and he fumbled it out, swiping the text open, not quite believing his eyes. Squinting, he enlarged the photo of the letter, scanned it through quickly, once, twice, in disbelief.
“Q’est que?” Tori asked. He looked up, shutting his mouth.
“I—it’s Lily.”
“Everything okay?” Asher frowned.
It was the opening he’d been waiting for. He had just enough liquid surety to take it.
“Lily’s not just my lab partner,” he gulped out.
“Aha!” Tori nearly knocked over her mug of wine. “I knew you two were f—”
“It’s not like that,” Seb cut her off. “We’ve been working on some projects together.”
Asher took a slow sip of wine. “Projects?”
Seb braced for impact. “The Elumnara.”
“The Elumnara!” The betrayal was written all over Tori’s face. “What the hell, Sebastian?”
“It just happened, believe me. We were the last people at the Revelation.”
“And you didn’t tell us?”
“I was distracted. By…everything.” He gestured broadly. “I’d honestly forgotten, and she brought it up while we were doing our homework.”
“What’s the other project?” Asher’s eyes narrowed in thoughtfulness.
This was the more difficult one. Maybe because there was an intimacy to it that he had a hard time admitting, even to himself; maybe because it was nice to have something that was just his—well, theirs—with no expectations on it.
“It’s a dance.”
“You’re dancing again?” Asher looked pleasantly taken aback.
Tori, who’d never seen him dance, cocked an eyebrow. “What kind of dance?”
“Contemporary, I guess.” Seb ate his wine-soaked orange slice to mask his flush.
“Are you good?” Tori asked.
“I think I’m okay. She’s great, though. Why?”
Her face was screwed up in thought. “I’m just imagining the possibilities for a photoshoot. Perkins is cute—slap some contouring on her, do anything with that hair and it could be epic.” She pursed her lips. “Her curse aura doesn’t show on film, right?”
Asher, suddenly engrossed, turned to her, ignoring Seb completely. “Up by the herb gardens, maybe? That symmetry.” He turned to Seb. “Can you lift her up?”
Tori whipped out her phone and started typing furiously. “Do you have videos? We could—”
“Stop, stop—you’re not upset?”
Tori shrugged, spearing a piece of tomato. “I wish you’d told us earlier, but no, not upset. Especially if you make it up to us with a spread.”
“Us?” Asher rolled his eyes, then faced Seb. “I’m thrilled that you’re dancing again—you never should have stopped. But yes, a shoot would be very cool.”
“I’d have to ask Lily. I don’t know that she’d go for it.”
Tori narrowed her eyes. “I’m not above bullying. So, what have you found out about the Elumnara?”
Seb topped off his wine and told them.
The weekend passed in a blur of half-frostbitten hedonism.
The wind shrieked mercilessly off the St. Lawrence and into every crevice of their coats.
When their legs were too frozen to keep walking the steep hills of Old Québec, they ducked into restaurants for poutine and cider spiked with brandy.
They browsed overpriced shops; Tori bought bespoke mittens; Asher bought a set of tiny brass scales etched with hieroglyphics.
On their second night, cozied up into a leather booth in a stone-walled restaurant, it started to snow. They took a cab back to the apartment and watched the snow fall like shards of stars, caught in the black-and-white projection running on a loop against the wall of the library across the street.
The next day, as the snow fell thick and unrelenting, they piled into the car and drove, wipers sweeping frantically, across the Pont de l’?le as the crosswinds slammed them from side to side.
Seb held his breath the whole time, clenching the wheel in a death grip, until the front tires touched down on ?le d’Orléans, the rural island home to a thriving viticulture and Savarelle.
They spent the morning sampling cider and cassis on the northwest side of the island before risking the five-mile drive on one of the isle’s only crosswise roads, a narrow track through cornfields and stands of sugar maples.
When they got stuck in the snow halfway across, it took three cantrips to free the car, and then Asher insisted on taking photos in the whipping snow as the cornstalks bent sideways in the gale.
Even though he was wet and wind-raw, Seb had to admire Asher’s eye, especially when he placed Tori in profile, her scarf and long dark hair unfurled like twin banners behind her.
Seb heaved an audible sigh of relief as they passed under the grand wrought-iron gate of Savarelle and parked the car among the austere brick buildings that had stood against the brutal winters for two hundred years.
They warmed themselves with cantrips and cocoa and ate lunch with Tori’s cousin and the few friends she’d retained since her transition.
When they returned to the apartment in the afternoon, the snow fell more thickly still, and they drank tea while taking turns napping and shooting pensive photos sitting in the window, watching the snow as dusk gathered in gray folds around them.