105. Lily
LILY
Lily’s pulse thundered in her ears. She’d been scared a lot in her life—a healthy sort of fear based in calculated risks—but the fear she felt now washed over her, primal and acrid.
She had not realized before, with Seb’s breath on her shoulder and his hand clasped in hers, their twin footfalls, how terribly silent the tunnels below campus were.
Every so often she reached for the lifeline of her phone and stopped herself. Seb had texted her several times before concrete and dirt had swallowed the signal. Most of the texts were sloppily spelled variants on Where are you? How are you? Why aren’t you here?
More than anything, she wished he were here. More than anything, she knew this was something she had to do alone. The surety of it reverberated up her spine with every step forward she forced herself to take.
She spooled out a cantrip of golden thread like a reverse Ariadne to lead her deeper into the labyrinth.
Selene’s letters were a tether drawing her back toward that door.
Not infrequently, she dreamed of Selene, of that door, had dreamed of it opening under her touch.
The dreams always faded before she could see what was on the other side.
As she walked, she tried various strategies to push back the fear.
Humming didn’t work, because the catacombs threw her voice back at her in an eerie facsimile.
Neither did total silence. Eventually, she settled for playing their dance music on repeat.
She stuffed her phone in her bra and as Tori’s husky voice rasped quietly over Asher’s score, she imagined that all three of them were there with her.
The song made her feel all sorts of pink and purple, and orange-edged emotions that pushed back against darkness.
When she heard it, she could taste rosé and saltwater; she remembered being rocked by a benevolent sea, felt Seb’s heartbeat against her back.
It was all of that, and everything after, everything the two of them were weaving together with skin and sweat.
The song helped too because the lyrics were her Words.
They’d been her Words since that first sunset when Asher had pulled out his guitar.
Before, Lily’s Words had never been all that significant, because she had a cheat code.
She’d never been overly precious about them, and they’d changed with relative frequency.
Her Words did not at all mean the same thing to her that Seb’s meant to him.
They were not a holy thing. Except that now they were, and she knew, finally, what they meant.
They would never change again. She suspected it would be true even if she were to live for many more years.
Her Words cast themselves out against the darkness pulling around her. She was not like Seb, but she could feel the Magic building in her with each turn of the chorus.
Her thread of gold faded as she reached the door, and she paused to collect herself, silencing her phone. In this moment, she would give anything to have Sebastian by her side. He was going to be so hurt that she did this alone. She could only hope he’d understand.
Until she stood in front of the door, she had given almost no thought to the question that the rest of campus was obsessed with—the clause of the heir.
She thought about it now. Would claiming the Chalice decide Windermere’s heir, or could it only be claimed by the heir?
What did that even mean, practically? She thought about it now because she was alone, in the vast catacombs beneath Windermere’s Work, and only a door separated her from victory.
She thought about it now, because she had been very sure of the meaning behind the final riddle for weeks.
Lily shrugged off the pack and pulled out Seb’s multi-tool and one of his fancy pens. Messily, she wrote her name on her hand. The ink spiderwebbed through the creases of her palm, and she blew on the ink to dry it. She approached the brass plate on the door and recited:
“With oblivion the past deceives
The mirage of a soul, presumèd known;
Trace light to dark, between the sheaves
In a labyrinth in fallen leaves—
A legacy of shame to bear
Revealed by only they who dare—
In ink, and blood, truth shall be shown
And with the Chalice, claim my heir
Down where the spirit meets the bones.”
Then she slashed through her name on her palm with the knife attachment of the multi-tool.
It hurt. A lot. A stinging, singing, bright kind of hurt.
It took long seconds before the blood seeped up through the cut and started to run down her wrist. Breath held, she pressed her hand to the plate.
She could sense the Magic in the door feeling her out, as though it was contemplating whether to admit her or not. It swung open.
Lily stepped into darkness.