Page 101 of The Alchemists

He woke up knowing that something was wrong. It was too early. The snow had stopped, but the clouds still hung close and gray. He was too cold, too empty, too light, and as he turned on his side, blinking as the room resolved itself, he realized—Lily was gone.

LILY

She’d walked home before the sun, but then the sun hadn’t come. Silently, she’d gathered her clothes, carrying her boots by the laces until she got to the library foyer. Nothing was plowed yet, and it took her forever, sliding along the sidewalks, face pink and raw from the cold, the tears freezing on her cheeks. She was dripping and shivering when she got home and stumbled out of her wet clothes and into the shower. Even Gran wasn’t awake yet.

The shower hissed out steam, and she bore the scald until it wasn’t hot anymore and her teeth chattered from the chill. The night came back to her in flashes, like a bad dream she was only just remembering, except that it hadn’t been a nightmare at all. It had been perfect. It had been exactly how he’d promised—what was it? “Sweeping and epic?” No, not epic—“rapturous.”

“It matters. With you.”

Those words, too, kept coming back to her. She knew why it mattered.

How can you be so cruel?

She wished it had never happened. She wished she had never met him, that Chant’s stupid spell hadn’t cast them together. She wished she’d never come to Windermere, she…

No. She didn’t wish that at all. She just really, really wished she wasn’t going to die a month after she turned twenty.

She sat wrapped in a towel on the floor against her bed until her hair dripped dry, until her skin felt like it was going to crack and peel off. As she heard her mother’s footsteps downstairs, she put on clothes, and then she sat at her desk, staring out the window.

He called. He sent text after text. They cascaded in, a torrent of concern. She wanted him to stop. She wanted to throw her phone through the window. She wanted him to forget about her. She wanted him to love her forever.

White entombed the world outside, everything still and silent except for the occasional cardinal. Not even a plow scraped by. It was like the entire planet had ceased turning. Lily blinked at something coming down the street, leaned forward on her elbows until she was sure.

Sebastian Allsaires was running down Fountain Avenue. Well, not running exactly, but slipping dangerously with intended forward momentum. He stopped just outside her house, catching his breath, tucking his nose into the collar of his sweatshirt to keep his lungs from exploding with the frigid air. As he stepped out of view under the porch roof, she sat back and buried her head in her arms.

Even bracing for the doorbell, she cringed, squeezing her eyes shut.

The seconds ticked by endlessly, and then, inevitably, her mother shouted for her up the stairs. Her mother had met Sebastian. Had seen him in the flesh. Had spoken to him.

He stood on her porch. She hadn’t let him in and gave Lily a look that was equal parts “are you okay?”’ and “what the hell have you done?” Lily set her chin and nodded. Her mother placed a hand briefly on her shoulder.

Once she was safely in the kitchen, clattering out of earshot, Lily steeled herself and opened the door.

Sebastian stood there, his face as pale and drawn as hers, except for his cheeks, which were red from the cold and the run. He was soaking wet, quaking on her doorstep. His hair was as wild as his eyes beneath his glasses. He stared at her.

“Are you okay?” he shuddered out finally, his eyes asking a thousand questions she couldn’t answer.

SEB

He’d never felt like this before, simultaneously burning up and cold to his bones. When she hadn’t answered the phone, he’d beaten a path back to Millay Tower, changed, pulled his contacts from their dry grip on his eyeballs, and grabbed his keys, only to find that his car was buried under a mountain of white and that nothing was plowed anyway. So he ran.

And here was Lily, blocking her doorway, not inviting him in, staring at him like he was an alien. Something was wrong. He’d done something wrong, and now he had to figure out what it was and atone appropriately.

It hadn’t seemed wrong. It had seemed perfect, as close as you could realistically get when faced with the unsexy reality of condoms. Nothing, really, compared to it. Even the best with Conrad wasn’t anywhere near the same stratosphere. Looking back, he could see now how young, how idiotic he was—how much he’d been in love with the idea of Conrad, of what he wanted Conrad to be.

But Lily…he’d marveled at her softness and warmth, the way their bodies fit together, as if ordained by Magic itself. It had been so good—all of it—not just the sex, and it was made better by the fact that it would only get better as they learned how to turn each other into putty beneath the other’s hands.

“Okay?” she repeated after him, like she’d never heard the word before.

“Why’d you leave?” Desperately, he took a step forward; she took a step back. “Was it…bad? Did I do something wrong?”

His chest ached. His heart knew better than his brain to start cracking open. He didn’t know what was happening, exactly, but heartbreak was clearly the inevitable outcome. He was going to get dumped on her porch, right after the first time they had sex. He was going to cry. He was going to break apart and blow away with the next strong breeze.

“Come on,” she said, stepping back, and for a moment he was relieved, until she slipped on her boots and led him down the hall and through the kitchen.

He tried not to stare as she led him down the oak-trimmed hallway, past the strangely grand staircase and the oddly long living room, into the shockingly small kitchen, where all three of them—him, Lily, Lily’s mom—pretended not to notice each other. In the way of most Victorians, the floor plan made no sense for modern living. It was all stuffy, empty grandeur and weird spots to hide the servants.

Seb followed Lily into a backyard bigger than he expected, covered in drifts of white. She trudged to an old swing set, flipped the swing’s seat, then brushed away the remaining snow. He stood in front of her, waiting. Hands fisted in her sweatshirt, she grabbed the chains and began to sway idly back and forth.