Page 52 of The Alchemists

She made a noncommittal sound, having completely forgotten about the annual dance. It was a big deal on campus, but she’d skipped it last year, because she skipped everything.

“Are you going?”

“To the dance?” Her eyes bugged.

“Yeah.”

Her heart galloped away at the question—at the way he looked at her when he asked.

Is he—no, don’t⁠—

But it was too late, her brain had shorted out. “I wasn’t going to, but if you wanted to go together—” She saw the words were a mistake even as she uttered them. His eyes widened, lips opening in horror, as mauve crept up his neck.

“Oh. I, uh…” He pressed his lips together, trying to spare her the embarrassment. “I’m going with Gemma.”

Lily was an expert at keeping her face blank, and she did so, even as her insides plummeted down an elevator shaft. Her voice came out fake. “Right, of course. I forgot you guys are together.” She huffed a stray lock of hair out of her eye.

“We’re not. I mean—I don’t know.” Sebastian looked like he was in acute physical pain.

“Cool,” she said dumbly, getting to her feet in something approximating the way a human moves. “Well, I’ve got to get home for dinner. Have fun in Québec.”

It took all her willpower not to sprint directly out of the studio. She was halfway home, breath ragged with shock and embarrassment, wishing horological magic was real so that she could erase the last hour, maybe even the whole year, when she realized she’d left him to clean up everything on his own.

SEB

“If you’re bringing that, you have to sit in the back.” Asher narrowed his eyes at Tori’s hard-sided suitcase.

“We’ll switch off,” she demurred, flipping down the passenger seat and shoving her bag in with a grunt.

“Like hell.” Asher looked to Seb for backup, but he gazed through the car at the trees beyond.

“Blame Sebastian—he’s the one whose penile compensation purchased this exercise in impracticality.”

Seb smarted. “I did not. You know it was a gift. Besides, it has four seats and a trunk. Do you know how rare that is in this kind of car? I don’t see either of you offering to do seven hours of driving.”

“I might after sharing the backseat with Tori’s bag.”

Tori rolled her eyes. “You don’t even have your license.”

“We ready to go?” Asher diverted as Seb slung his weekender into the miniature trunk alongside Asher’s.

“Yeah…I guess.” Seb looked around. It felt wrong, leaving, or at least leaving like this. He hadn’t talked to Lily at all since Sunday—he’d texted once, something innocuous, gotten no response. Sunday. Every time he thought about it his jaw hurt.

He couldn’t stop replaying it, saw it etched into his ceiling instead of falling asleep. Lily liked him. He’d had no idea, and now he’d probably ruined everything by bringing up the stupid dance. Or maybe she didn’t like him, but thought he’d been asking—no, she wouldn’t have run away otherwise. He’d beaten the possibilities to death in his head, stuck in the same ruts, overthinking, as usual.

What did it mean? Would she still work with him? Did she hate him now? He couldn’t bear the thought of losing everything they’d built over the last month because of the stupid dance, because of Gemma.

His mind ran in circles around every question except one, which it neatly avoided, moment after moment: would he have said “yes?”

“Seb?” He looked up. Asher leaned over the deep blue roof of the car, arms folded.

“Lily asked me to the dance,” Seb blurted, all the overthinking apparently having rendered him moronic.

Asher and Tori looked at each other. Tori raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“And I’m going with Gemma.”

“Too bad,” Tori said, pushing Asher toward the back seat. “Lily’s creepy. She would have made a great Mary Shelley.”