Page 127 of The Alchemists

He slumped back against the wall, his drink sloshing, hair wild. Lily caught another whiff of soil off him.

“I shouldn’t have made you go. It was selfish.”

She slumped against the opposite wall, unwilling to absolve him, but her anger ebbed away. She took another sip of hot toddy. They stared at each other, separated by three feet of hallway, antique carpet, and their own intransigence. They were both right. They were both wrong.

“I liked dancing with you,” she said quietly, staring at the faded pattern of twining roses between her feet. “I liked getting dressed up with you.”

A hint of a smile traced Seb’s lips. “I liked that too.”

With a sigh, she peeled herself up and settled next to him, their sides pressed together. She dropped her head to his shoulder. He exhaled and finished his bourbon, setting the glass on the floor, against the wall. Lily copied him.

“Let’s just go home.” He sighed. “This tournament hasn’t even started, and I’m already sick of it.”

“Let’s check on your friend first.”

She hung behind as Seb knocked on the door to the twins’ room. Past his shoulder, she saw Adriana, swathed in a voluminous bathrobe, huddled in the corner of a chintz couch. She was still pale, cupping a mug of tea in her long fingers. Rafael, clad in expensive jeans and a Vadoria sweatshirt, rose from his bed, placing his book on the duvet.

He and Seb embraced in another long hug, speaking quickly in Spanish. At something Seb said, Rafael glanced at Lily, and she felt a prickle of anxiety between her shoulder blades. He released Seb and made for her.

“You saved my sister’s life,” he said, gazing intently at her before pulling Lily into a crushing embrace. “We owe you a great debt.”

Lily had nothing to say to that.

“What happened?” Seb asked Adriana as he settled close to her on the couch. “Didn’t you tell them about your allergy? Did they tell you there were nuts in the dessert?” His brow knitted with concern, with the sense of an injustice that needed righting.

Adriana replied in quiet Spanish. Whatever she said clearly shocked and infuriated Seb, and he shot back in his own low, urgent tones. Lily fidgeted with the seam of her coat sleeve.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lily; I’ve heard many things about you,” Rafael said, both rescuing her and steering her away from whatever was happening on the couch.

Lily grimaced nervously. “Only decent things, I hope.”

“Only the best of things.”

“That seems like an exaggeration.”

Rafael shrugged, his brown eyes gleaming. “I’m greatly looking forward to this week.”

“And why’s that?”

“Two reasons: I look forward to getting to know you, and I look forward to stripping Sebastian of his title.”

Seb appeared at Rafael’s shoulder, quickly pulling his usual mask over flashing anger. “We’ll just have to see about that. Come on, Lily, let’s go.”

SEB

He didn’t sleep.

After dropping Lily off, he’d gone straight to Paracelsus Hall, where Chant waited with the plant. He let Seb in through a side door and led him to a basement that he hadn’t previously known existed, but that Lily probably did.

They entered a warded lab that only Chant had access to. The plant sat on the soapstone countertop, darkening the very air around it. If he only glanced at it, it looked normal enough, albeit a bit strange. The more he studied it, though, the more wrong it became. Its twisting geometry was as unnatural as a perfectly triangular lake; its velvety leaves reflected the light from the bare bulb above it in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Its dark coloring shifted like an oil slick.

Seb felt the wrongness as a prickle on his skin, slow venom creeping into the folds of his mind. Just being near it made him queasy, and he couldn’t bring himself to touch even the pot. He was equal parts shocked and impressed that Asher had managed it.

“That’s a nasty piece of work,” Chant said. “I can’t imagine what keeping it in your office does to a body.”

Seb had a few ideas.

Behind his glasses, Chant looked as exhausted as Seb felt. His anxiety, held at bay all night by the immediacy of enacting a plan, rose in his chest, unfurling to fill all the space in his body. His brain and his skin itched with a single, imperative thought: this is a mistake.