43. Lily
LILY
“Ready to sample some assuredly mediocre wine?” Seb said in the Millay lot as she locked her bike.
“You do know that I’m not legally allowed to drink, yes?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “Give me your license.”
She obliged, skeptical. He framed it between his thumbs and forefingers, his lips silently working. A few jerky movements later, he handed it back.
“Basic illusion cantrip.” He grinned at her.
“This is a research trip, Sebastian.”
“Sure.” He pulled open the car door for her with comical bravado before slipping into the driver’s seat and gunning the engine. It roared, leonine, into life. He smirked genially as he pushed the throttle. Lily’s teeth vibrated inside her skull.
Charming.
A very small, drowned-out part of her hated that she was sitting in a stupidly expensive automobile with a stupidly wealthy young man.
Sebastian charmed her in spite of herself.
This world had pushed her to its outskirts her whole life, barely tolerating her existence, but now she’d fallen into the lap of it, and it was as thrilling as she’d feared.
Seb kept the car’s theatrics to a minimum as he slid onto the arterial and guided it across the Hudson. It purred as they glided along the river’s west bank. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing over at him, just to make sure he was real.
“Wait, you just passed it!” She pointed frantically at the sign for the winery, now in her side-view mirror.
Seb glanced over at her, bemused. “I figured we could get lunch in town first.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How much are you planning on drinking?”
“You have to pay for the tour. The wine comes free.”
“It’s not really free if you have to pay for the tour.”
“Either way, we have to pay if we want to get inside properly, so we might as well enjoy it.”
“Fine.” Lily slumped into her seat. “How much is the tour?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
She pursed her lips, worrying about it. There were twenty dollars in her wallet, and she could swing lunch on her debit card if they went somewhere cheap, but already this venture was full of expenses she hadn’t prepared for. Her neck felt hot and itchy beneath her scarf. She tugged it loose.
“Hey.” He moved his hand from the gear shift and fished for her fingers. “I was thinking this could be a date.”
“A date?”
“Like I…take you to lunch because I like you and I want to buy you lunch.”
“And then?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
“And then what?”
“Like, do you expect something from me in return for lunch?”
“Yeah,” he said, and the baldness of it shocked her.
“I expect you to snoop around Cornelius Windermere’s historically preserved winery with me and spot all the clues I’m too dumb to find.
” He looked at her sideways. “And then make out a lot, after. Only if that’s something you’d be into, of course. ”
She grinned slyly at him. “I think that’s something I’d be into.”
She’d be into it now if it wouldn’t crash his stupid car.
Seb had his journal open on the table, and she winced at their notes covered in greasy thumbprints as she sipped her drink.
“At least wipe your hands if you’re going to multitask,” she said, shoving a napkin at him.
He shot her a faux-hurt look and maneuvered his chair around the high top so that they could both look at the notes right side up. Lily gazed down at the second clue in Sebastian’s near-illegible scrawl.
All of that which time conceals
Memory alone revives.
The name alone may break the seal
To heedful minds admit archive.
Let not the game ferment your mind
Though all you seek is hid ‘twixt stone
The rouge, the blanc shall be refined
But leave behind an empty throne.
“So, if the first clue is a general instruction on how to approach the quest, then I think we can assume that the following clues give specific directions on how to complete it.”
Lily nodded vaguely, her eyes still fixed on the second clue.
“‘But leave behind an empty throne.’” She shook her head.
“I feel like the first three lines are so concrete and then there’s…
this. He can’t possibly be serious about the heir?
” She frowned at him. “Do you think we’ll run into anyone else out here? ”
“We should be prepared.” His face darkened. “Everyone knows Windermere made his fortune as a vintner. Our school crest has a goblet on it, for Christ’s sake.”
“It’s a chalice, but sure.” She shivered, thinking again of the Halloween dance and Hawleyhurst’s hips crushing her tailbone into the floor.
Seb slipped his hand into hers where it was pressed between her legs. He’d done it absentmindedly, but the warmth of his fingers splayed on her thigh, where no one could see them, made her shudder pleasantly. He looked over at her and stilled.
They hadn’t done anything besides make out furiously and often, whenever they had enough privacy, but Lily’s stomach twisted into knots thinking about sex, thinking about all the things he’d done that she hadn’t.
He’d slept with Gemma casually, as a distraction, admitted as much, albeit sheepishly.
He’d been with Conrad for years, though both of them had pursued, or seemed to pursue, flings while they were together.
Before that, who knew? Maybe Sebastian had had sex with more people than she’d ever even imagined kissing.
She wasn’t scared of sex, though the thought of it did make her stomach fluttery and awkward, and the idea of someone seeing her naked—of her looking at someone else naked—filled her with a sort of abstract horror.
She was scared of wanting sex. She was scared of what it would mean, afterward, to her, and what it might not mean to him.
She was scared that she would really like it, and that it would make the fact that she was going to die in seven months that much more unbearable.
She didn’t really want to die a virgin. She really didn’t want to die knowing what she was missing out on.
He pressed her hand, drawing her back, offering her a smile so incongruous with the boy she’d thought she’d known.
It was nice, shockingly nice, venturing off campus with him. It made whatever was happening between them feel both more unreal and more solid at the same time.
“Hey.” He pulled his hand, and hers with it, onto his lap. “You okay?”
“Y—yeah. This is pretty research-y for a date. Is this what you do with all your paramours? Buy them lunch and make them solve riddles?”
“Pretty much.” He grinned. “But I was thinking…there’s a museum down the road. Wanna check it out?”
“The Huguenot Museum?” She blinked at him.
“Yeah, ever been?”
There it was—under that perfect hair and athletic accomplishments and fast cars—the Sebastian that she’d only gotten glimpses of. An unmitigated nerd.
“I have not. But I just need to clarify that your idea of a sexy time is learning about French Huguenots?”
“I didn’t say anything about sexy, but we can make it sexy, if that’s what you want.” He pulled out his phone. “Look, they have period costumes. Maybe we can roleplay.”
Lily choked on her water. “I can’t think of anything less sexy than wearing whatever that is.” Seb thumped her on the back. “But yes, I will go to this weird museum with you.”