Page 55 of The Alchemists

Selene had been the Greek goddess of the moon. Selene, if that was her real name, had to be the Argent Lune—the tone matched, and the alchemy, oh the alchemy, that matched too. Windermere referenced, sometimes overtly, sometimes obliquely, the chemical wedding: the Conjunctio, the great alchemical uniting of opposites in balance, to create a “third which is not given.”

The Conjunctio was often the final stage of the alchemical process, the goal of the Opus. It was frequently depicted as Sol and Luna uniting in naked bliss, or as a red king wedding a white queen. The sun represented gold, fire, the body. The moon was silver, water, the unconscious—together alchemists believed they encompassed all; together they created all.

“I shall content myself with your spirit, for I would rather possess that which is intangible, and Ætheric of you, than none of you.”

The lines etched themselves into her core. They were almost exactly what she’d told herself over and over the last few days. She’d rather have what was Ætheric of Sebastian than nothing at all. Maybe old Cornelius Windermere knew more than she had given him credit for. He was certainly turning out to be more interesting.

Selene—who was she? A female alchemist, the object of Windermere’s affection, a silver ghost. Certainly, Lily knew who she was not—his estranged French wife who’d taken their daughter to her home country. The lack of an Ætheric educational system in what would become the United States had been what had driven Windermere to found his school.

She laid the letter on the bedspread, smoothed it, and took a photo. Heart racing, she sent it to Sebastian, accompanied by only two words:

Found her.

SEB

Lily’s text came while they were at a late dinner, polishing off a bottle of mulled wine and a crock of ratatouille. The pink and red rope lights around the ceiling of the dive bar pulsed slowly with the music, casting everything in luscious womb tones. The windows had fogged over with the heat of the bodies inside. Seb was warm and full, pleasantly tipsy, full of French. He always spoke French better buzzed.

His phone vibrated against his thigh, and he fumbled it out, swiping the text open, not quite believing his eyes. Squinting, he enlarged the photo of the letter, scanned it through quickly, once, twice, in disbelief.

“Q’est que?” Tori asked. He looked up, shutting his mouth.

“I—it’s Lily.”

“Everything okay?” Asher frowned.

It was the opening he’d been waiting for. He had just enough liquid surety to take it.

“Lily’s not just my lab partner,” he gulped out.

“Aha!” Tori nearly knocked over her mug of wine. “I knew you two were f⁠—”

“It’s not like that,” Seb cut her off. “We’ve been working on some projects together.”

Asher took a slow sip of wine. “Projects?”

Seb braced for impact. “The Elumnara.”

“The Elumnara!” The betrayal was written all over Tori’s face. “What the hell, Sebastian?”

“It just happened, believe me. We were the last people at the Revelation.”

“And you didn’t tell us?”

“I was distracted. By…everything.” He gestured broadly. “I’d honestly forgotten, and she brought it up while we were doing our homework.”

“What’s the other project?” Asher’s eyes narrowed in thoughtfulness.

This was the more difficult one. Maybe because there was an intimacy to it that he had a hard time admitting, even to himself; maybe because it was nice to have something that was just his—well, theirs—with no expectations on it.

“It’s a dance.”

“You’re dancing again?” Asher looked pleasantly taken aback.

Tori, who’d never seen him dance, cocked an eyebrow. “What kind of dance?”

“Contemporary, I guess.” Seb ate his wine-soaked orange slice to mask his flush.

“Are you good?” Tori asked.