60. Seb
SEB
Conrad was sitting on the hood of his car.
He stopped, suitcase in hand, and regarded his former lover.
They stared at each other for a long, silent moment—Seb because he was desperately trying to use the few tools he’d acquired in therapy to stop himself from murdering Conrad right there, and Conrad because he was too busy smirking.
He closed his eyes and let himself picture all of Conrad’s very straight teeth and a lot of his blood spattered over the windshield.
Imagined murder was decidedly not one of the coping mechanisms that he’d discussed with Dr. Metcalf, but it managed to uproot him from where he was growing into the asphalt.
“Get off my car,” he said evenly.
“Heard your charity case had a rough afternoon.”
Without his consent, his hand released his suitcase with a clatter and lunged forward, grabbing Conrad by his scarf and dragging him off the car. Conrad grinned, even as he hit the ground.
“Ooh, touched a nerve? What are you going to do, Sebastian? Murder me?” In the lamplight his eyes were violet, but the smile on his lips never reached them. “She’s really worth getting expelled over?”
Seb released him, tossing him backward into the headlights. They cast all sorts of horrible shadows around Conrad’s body.
“You two must have thought you were so clever, breaking those wards. It’d be a shame to get eliminated from the running because you felt the need to prove some sort of chivalrous bullshit.”
This is what he wants. He stepped back, his breath slipping toward a normal rhythm. Crossing his arms over his chest, he tilted his head and regarded Conrad.
“You’re right. At least you had the good sense to attack us off campus. I’ll make sure to drag you outside the gates when I murder you.”
Conrad laughed. “You always were so dramatic.” He dusted his pants off as he straightened. “Give your mother a kiss for me—I know she’ll be missing me terribly.”
He pushed past Seb and disappeared into the darkness. Seb counted to one hundred. Only a few other cars lingered in the lot, and the campus night was still and lifeless, cold and empty under the new moon. He got into his car and gunned the engine.
The whole drive to Falconstone, he ran the latest clue over in his mind:
With oblivion the past deceives
The mirage of a soul, presumèd known;
Trace light to dark between the sheaves
In a labyrinth of fallen leaves—
A legacy of shame to bear
Revealed by only those who dare—
In ink, and blood, truth shall be shown
And with the Chalice, claim my heir
Down where the spirit meets the bones.
He thought about the disc and the map that was of the library—but not of the library. It didn’t quite make sense, in the same way the whole Elumnara thus far hadn’t quite made sense.
The three previous games that he’d participated in had been nothing like this.
There had been no signet rings in bonfires, no alchemical compounds, no treasures hidden in the walls.
They had been a series of riddles, designed to test one’s mettle and command of Latin.
The most illegal thing he’d done was some light after-hours trespassing.
Three hundred years ago, Windermere had planned for this.
What was so important to him to have hidden it such that centuries of students would never find it?
What was so important that it needed to be revealed now?
He couldn’t even begin to comprehend the amount of foresight and power necessary to make this year’s Elumnara possible.
It was almost as if this year’s Elumnara was a completely different event, with a completely different aim from the others.
This year it was impossible for every participant to stand on equal ground.
How could it be, when its completion relied on gaining possession of singular objects?
He wondered which was the true Elumnara and which was the sham, and he thought about Lily, back at Windermere, alone.