Page 72 of The Alchemists

“And then what?”

“Like, do you expect something from me in return for lunch?”

“Yeah,” he said, and the baldness of it shocked her. “I expect you to snoop around Cornelius Windermere’s historically preserved winery with me and spot all the clues I’m too dumb to find.” He looked at her sideways. “And then make out a lot, after. Only if that’s something you’d be into, of course.”

She grinned slyly at him. “I think that’s something I’d be into.”

She’d be into it now if it wouldn’t crash his stupid car.

Seb had his journal open on the table, and she winced at their notes covered in greasy thumbprints as she sipped her drink.

“At least wipe your hands if you’re going to multitask,” she said, shoving a napkin at him.

He shot her a faux-hurt look and maneuvered his chair around the high top so that they could both look at the notes right side up. Lily gazed down at the second clue in Sebastian’s near-illegible scrawl.

All of that which time conceals

Memory alone revives.

The name alone may break the seal

To heedful minds admit archive.

Let not the game ferment your mind

Though all you seek is hid ‘twixt stone

The rouge, the blanc shall be refined

But leave behind an empty throne.

“So, if the first clue is a general instruction on how to approach the quest, then I think we can assume that the following clues give specific directions on how to complete it.”

Lily nodded vaguely, her eyes still fixed on the second clue. “‘But leave behind an empty throne.’” She shook her head. “I feel like the first three lines are so concrete and then there’s…this. He can’t possibly be serious about the heir?” She frowned at him. “Do you think we’ll run into anyone else out here?”

“We should be prepared.” His face darkened. “Everyone knows Windermere made his fortune as a vintner. Our school crest has a goblet on it, for Christ’s sake.”

“It’s a chalice, but sure.” She shivered, thinking again of the Halloween dance and Hawleyhurst’s hips crushing her tailbone into the floor.

Seb slipped his hand into hers where it was pressed between her legs. He’d done it absentmindedly, but the warmth of his fingers splayed on her thigh, where no one could see them, made her shudder pleasantly. He looked over at her and stilled.

They hadn’t done anything besides make out furiously and often, whenever they had enough privacy, but Lily’s stomach twisted into knots thinking about sex, thinking about all the things he’d done that she hadn’t. He’d slept with Gemma casually, as a distraction, admitted as much, albeit sheepishly. He’d been with Conrad for years, though both of them had pursued, or seemed to pursue, flings while they were together. Before that, who knew? Maybe Sebastian had had sex with more people than she’d ever even imagined kissing.

She wasn’t scared of sex, though the thought of it did make her stomach fluttery and awkward, and the idea of someone seeing her naked—of her looking at someone else naked—filled her with a sort of abstract horror.

She was scared of wanting sex. She was scared of what it would mean, afterward, to her, and what it might not mean to him. She was scared that she would really like it, and that it would make the fact that she was going to die in seven months that much more unbearable. She didn’t really want to die a virgin. She really didn’t want to die knowing what she was missing out on. He pressed her hand, drawing her back, offering her a smile so incongruous with the boy she’d thought she’d known.

It was nice, shockingly nice, venturing off campus with him. It made whatever was happening between them feel both more unreal and more solid at the same time.

“Hey.” He pulled his hand, and hers with it, onto his lap. “You okay?”

“Y—yeah. This is pretty research-y for a date. Is this what you do with all your paramours? Buy them lunch and make them solve riddles?”

“Pretty much.” He grinned. “But I was thinking…there’s a museum down the road. Wanna check it out?”

“The Huguenot Museum?” She blinked at him.

“Yeah, ever been?”