Page 142 of The Alchemists

SEB

“Hey!” He put on a burst of speed as he caught sight of the scarlet trench coat ahead of him. “Hey! Gemma, stop.”

Gemma halted below one of the wrought-iron lamps. It turned the pouring rain to sequins bouncing off her large, clear umbrella. As she picked Seb out of the darkness, she tensed, looking like she might turn and run off. She pursed red lips as he drew up to her. Unlike everyone else on campus, she was dry and seemingly sober. Either her night hadn’t started yet, or it had already ended, which was a grim thought.

“I don’t want any trouble, Sebastian. I⁠—”

“It’s not like that,” he said quickly, out of breath. “I just wanted to ask—have you seen Lily?”

Gemma’s expression darkened. “Perkins? No.”

He sighed, turning away, but that same niggling anxiety pulled him back. “Sorry, just one more thing.” He reached out for her arm, and she narrowed her eyes.

“What?”

“You haven’t seen Con—Hawleyhurst anywhere, have you?”

“I haven’t talked to him in months.” She looked like she wanted to punch him.

“I know, I just—” He must have looked truly pathetic then, water sheeting off him, ready to get down and beg, because her face softened.

“I was just getting some coffee.” She hoisted her takeout cup. “And I passed them by the mailboxes. They were talking about the library.”

Seb was already sprinting toward the building as he called a “thank you” over his shoulder.

His heart shuddered as he ran.

Please.

Please.

Please.

From everywhere, from nowhere, a deep bell rang out across campus.

The Elumnara was over.

LILY

It was a tomb. No, “tomb” wasn’t it, though it was clear the room housed bones. “Temple” was closer. “Shrine” was better, Lily realized, as she swept the flashlight across the walls of the circular room. She spooked as the light caught a statue, flawless white marble, in its beam. Lily had never seen a painting of Selene van Bergen, but this exquisitely carved likeness had to be her.

Windermere had her rendered as a goddess of the moon in sweeping robes, whose folds were so convincing that Lily had to reach out and touch them, marring them with a smear of her blood. She wore a crown of stars and reclined on a crescent moon, chin tilted to the sky. If her face and the proportions of her body hadn’t been so full of human realness and imperfection, Lily might have thought she was a nebulous stand-in.

But Selene’s forehead was a little big, her chin a little weak. She had a straight nose, and even in marble, her eyes were a challenge. Lily felt the urge to get on her knees and supplicate.

She examined the rest of the room. The walls were intricately carved with alchemical scenes and processes. The frieze above the door depicted the alchemical wedding, and Windermere’s seal was carved into the floor. Flanking Selene, there were two marble braziers that seemed never to have been used. On a short pedestal below Selene’s dais, there was a marble sarcophagus roughly the size of a toaster oven.

With shaking hands, Lily set the flashlight down and knelt before it. The lid was heavy but slid off easily. Inside the sarcophagus were two things: a wooden box and a large chalice. The chalice was silver, maybe, and deeply tarnished. No jewels encrusted its surface, only an engraved line of alchemical symbols spiraled around the circumference of the chalice. She wanted to examine them; she didn’t have time.

As Lily reached down and picked up the chalice, her blood seeping into the symbols, a gong sounded.

SEB

He pounded up the granite steps, his wet shoes slapping and sucking. He was ready, prepping a spell, but the library door swung open under his touch. Someone was already here, but of course he already knew that. It was a strange thing, to be so frantic, for something that was already over, but here he was.

The Cantrèa championships were over, and he had lost.

The Elumnara was over, and he had lost.