Page 40 of The Alchemists

He shrugged. He’d told Lily why he and Con had broken up, and he hadn’t even told Tori that. Both his brain and his heart were proving to be less logical than he’d taken for granted. “You’d like her, if you got to know her.”

“Not until I know what her curse is, and if it’s contagious.”

“It’s not contagious.”

“Did she tell you that?”

He sighed and stared at himself in the mirror on the inside of the door. There were circles under his eyes.

“I believe her. She’s interesting. She knows all sorts of neat places on campus and history and stuff.”

“Speaking of history.” Tori pulled out a shirt for him. “You haven’t started working on the Elumnara yet?”

His stomach squirmed unpleasantly. Just last night he and Lily had started putting together their scanning spell, though it would be at least another week before they were ready to try it. The many “if, then” hypotheticals were proving difficult to condense into verbal components straightforward enough to summon Æther. Seb was primarily responsible for the incantations and had pages and pages of discarded attempts.

He shrugged. Not a lie.

“Well, if anyone can make sense of the Nursery Words, it’s you. Best get cracking.” He paused with the shirt over his arm. “Where are you going with Gemma?”

“The Manuscript.”

“I thought you didn’t want to date her.” Tori gave him a keen look.

“I don’t,” he sighed.

“Maybe you should. Blow off steam, be casual.”

Seb slipped the shirt over his head and turned to Tori for assessment.

“I don’t do casual.”

“That’s why you should try.” Tori shook her head and pulled out a new shirt. “Take her for a drive in that stupid car of yours. Get fucked. Lord knows the flesh is willing.”

Maybe Tori was right. Casual could be good. Casual meant not getting your heart ripped out of your chest. Gemma was good-looking and not subtle about her desires. Their hookup had been fun, if sloppy.

He meandered to the bathroom to put in his contacts, Tori following him. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Heading to Sibelius to put down some vocals for Asher’s thesis.”

Inwardly, Seb sighed. His roommates were two of the most creative people he’d ever met and all he was good for was writing essays. Tori flexed her best friend telepathy.

“Don’t look so glum. We’ll need someone to analyze our genius in glowing think-pieces eventually.”

“Will you also need someone to analyze what it meant when I walked in on you masturbating to yaoi fanfic?”

Tori glared, turning on her heel. “I know much worse about you, Sebastian, and don’t you forget it.”

The Manuscript was a cozy nook of a restaurant on the quiet street bordering the northwest side of campus. Modeled after an old-fashioned library, it was the preferred hangout of after-hours professors and upperclassmen playing at adulthood. It had been Gemma’s pick. Seb walked the two minutes from Millay Tower with his hands in his pockets, nose buried in his collar against the growing nighttime chill.

He saw Gemma coming long before she reached him, ten minutes late. Swathed in her favorite red trench coat, heels clicking on the sidewalk, she stuck out against the early dusk. She pushed her soft, tawny waves out of her eyes, drawing attention to her fresh manicure and scarlet lipstick. The resistant part of him, the part that knew this would lead nowhere good, rolled over. He held the door.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said over her shoulder, in a way that implied a total lack of remorse.

“It’s fine.”

The waiter seated them in a booth near the back, one of those that had thick velvet drapes you could close for privacy if a quick dampening cantrip wasn’t sufficient. Seb hung his coat on a brass hook in the mahogany-paneled wall and helped Gemma out of hers. The table was small enough that their knees pressed together underneath it.

“Scotch or Pinot?” Gemma asked him, opening the leather-bound menu.