100. Seb
SEB
The Sebastian who’d entered the arena through the tunnel was a different person than the one who left by it. He was dizzy with elation, floating on an ebbing current that he could suddenly see with perfect clarity all around him.
Magic, he thought.
Magic had chosen him, was still choosing him.
He could feel it, see it sloughing over his skin as he showered.
He let himself linger under the hot water, the steam, and AEther curling around him.
He pressed his skull against the tiled wall, closing his eyes as water rushed over his face.
He thought of Lily, waiting for him, but he also thought of the hangers-on, and sycophants, and worst, Hawthorn Bellarius standing with his parents.
He let himself slide down the wall until he was sitting, his head tipping forward onto his arms, letting the water wash over his neck until his heartbeat approached something normal.
He had won a bout that Conrad—no, multiple people—had tried to make sure he lost. But even that feeling was nothing compared to the Magic rushing around inside his blood. They had tried to shut him out, and Magic had cracked the world open for him instead.
He was so grateful to it, he wanted to cry.
He did cry, because there was no one there to judge him.
With this kind of Magic, he could solve Lily’s curse.
He would solve Lily’s curse.
That thought was the one that got him up.
As he shrugged into his favorite Windermere sweatshirt, the pain returned.
One moment, he was thinking about how he wished he’d brought a different outfit, with his parents here, and the next, he was doubled over, clutching the bench for support, his breath gasping as pain exploded in his side.
Seb staggered to the nearest mirror and gingerly lifted his shirt, wincing, both at the pain and the sight of his ribs.
He’d forgotten about it. Lily must have taken all of the injury because his side, which had been welted and red earlier, was a gruesome, puffy purple. Multiple ribs were definitely broken.
This is too much.
As he braced his hand against the mirror, wishing he could heal himself, he felt the current of Magic around him shift. It whispered his words back to him, in a silent language that lived halfway between thought and emotion.
“Can you heal me?” he whispered back, even though Magic was not a person, an entity to be bidden.
The current hissed in his brain. He could only understand it when he let himself slip out of thought.
He focused on his Words, pulling them into him, and warmth blossomed on his side.
He watched as the skin softened back to the same color as the rest of him, as the agony dulled into an ache, and then nothing.
That was when he realized the enormity of what had actually happened, how alien it was. If anyone outside his circle found out, he would be burned at the stake.
They were all waiting for him in the atrium.
Everyone. The entire tournament, it seemed, had packed itself into the echoing space.
Instantly, the Magic fled him. He had already tamped it down, but suddenly he was empty, exhausted.
He wanted to find Lily and drag her back to the suite, drink the wine he’d been saving in the event that he won the tournament, and fall asleep by nine.
He scanned the crowd, found her hugging a wall, and made his way toward her. Their eyes found each other a second before his parents found him. Hawthorn Bellarius sauntered over to join them. Desperately, he signaled to Lily. She pressed her back further into the wall.
“Mom, Dad—I didn’t know you were coming. I thought you only came for the finals.”
They didn’t look excited for, or proud of, him. Not that he expected them to.
“Hawthorn said it was quite the set lined up today,” his mother said. Not, “We wouldn’t miss it.”
“What was that, out there, Sebastian?” His father demanded.
“What do you mean?” Seb only partially feigned confusion. There had been so much happening in that half hour that he had no idea which part of it his father was upset about.
“Your magic. Where were your spells? Where are your Words?” His father’s voice pitched up, just slightly, and Seb realized that he was terrified.
“Couldn’t you see?” Seb was incredulous. “There was something wrong with my equipment.”
He wanted to add, “And I still won,” but he didn’t.
“Wrong how?”
“I—I don’t know. It was fine before the bout.”
“You didn’t check it?”
“I did!” His temper flared, and he made a desperate bid to get it in check without resorting to excuses, for which his parents had no patience. “I had to step out and when I got back it was—”
“You stepped out? Before a match?”
Just like that, he wanted to scream.
“My equipment was tampered with,” he said through gritted teeth.
Bellarius stepped in neatly. “Surely you’re not accusing a fellow student.” His smile was thin.
He’s going to do it.
He looked between the adults, feeling like this was a nightmare he couldn’t shake. Then he turned.
“Sebastian!” his mother gasped, but by the time she’d opened her mouth, he’d returned, literally dragging Lily by the arm. He loathed doing this to her, but it was better to do it himself than let a hateful old man do it for him.
“There’s someone I want you to meet. This is my girlfriend, Lily.”
He watched his mother’s face soften in relief, then something approaching genuine pleasure as he pushed Lily forward, as she took in her pretty face, her intelligent eyes, her gender.
“Lily? I’m not sure I’m aware of you. Are you a Cert Year as well?”
It took a minute for it to sink in, in the bright lights of the atrium, for his mother’s graciousness to morph to confusion, and then thinly veiled horror as she first felt, then saw Lily’s curse aura.
“A sophomore,” Lily said through gritted teeth.
“I—oh. And what’s your last name, then?”
Lily had been staring at the floor, but now she looked up, fixing her grandfather with a granite stare.
“Perkins,” she said, not looking at Seb’s mother. “My last name is Perkins.”
Seb watched his mother’s heart stop. He watched his father’s rage swallow him whole.
His mother turned to Lily, speaking to her without looking at her. “Excuse me, dear, do you mind if—”
“I mind,” Seb said.
His father had no space left in him for faux niceties. He looked at Seb, his golden-brown eyes furious. “Don’t you dare speak. What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Then, to Bellarius, “Hawthorn, I apologize for the spectacle, I have no idea what’s possessed him—”
Lily cut in then, cold and furiously calm. Her face betrayed nothing, and her voice was the scales of justice, impersonal and bottomed out with steel.
“I think a more pressing question, actually, is what exactly would possess a member of the Tribunal, head of a Great House, to force a tournament member out of pre-match preparation after the locker room had been sealed? The timing is just terribly suspicious, what with the same student suddenly experiencing catastrophic equipment failure immediately after. I’d hate to have to bring it up to the Cantrèa Association.
I don’t think the security footage would do you any favors either. ”
Somehow, the air in their corner of the lobby deadened even more.
Lily looked straight at Bellarius. “I just don’t think House Bellarius could take another scandal, don’t you agree, Grandfather?”
Seb’s breath caught in his throat. Lily’s eyes narrowed. Hawthorn Bellarius froze.
“I didn’t think so. Come on, Sebastian. We’re finished here.”
She took his hand and led him away.