Page 76 of The Alchemists

Transference—channeling magic or specific spells into objects was commonplace, a fundamental practice. He did it every week for Cantrèa, after all. To channel all of one’s magic, though—he couldn’t even begin to imagine. If the Tribunal found out, death would be generous.

“Jesus.” Seb slumped against the wall, pushing his hands through his hair. “What a fucked-up world we live in.”

Lily pushed herself off the sink and sandwiched him against the wall. “It’s not all bad.”

“This way,” he whispered, checking the map on his phone and following the hooking tug in his stomach. Her illusion spell made them unnoticeable, if not truly invisible, and he’d cast a tracing charm they’d prepared over the last week, meant to draw them toward anything that resembled the symbols they’d found in the library or the disc they’d made on the night of the dance.

The winery was a full of odd passages and rooms, something only a Magician could have built. Half the corridors they’d walked down weren’t even on the floor plan he’d found online, invisible to the mundane eye.

“I think it’s close.”

They were deep in the belly of the complex now. Seb held Lily’s hand tightly as he pulled her down a narrow hallway behind an arched wooden doorway that they had to crouch to get through. They came out in one of the stone silos with stacks and stacks of barrels lining the walls.

“This is crazy,” Lily whispered, casting her phone flashlight up into the darkness. “Are all wineries like this?”

“Not to the best of my knowledge.”

His insides flipped in a way that had nothing to do with the charm leading him by the stomach. As they wound down stranger and darker corridors, it hadn’t taken long before the sneaking stopped feeling like a game. His phone was slippery in his clammy hand.

Lily pointed. “I think there’s another passage behind those barrels—look.”

The stones froze against their palms as they felt their way forward, the gloom swallowing Lily’s light in a way that did not particularly mesh with what Seb knew of physics. They came out into another, larger tower filled with barrels in neat rows.

“It’s here.” Seb’s heart released as they separated to search.

“Found it!” Lily whispered excitedly. She was crouched against the far wall where one of the stones had been etched with Windermere’s Chalice. Seb flipped open his knife and dug it into a space between the stones.

They took turns scrabbling the mortar away with the knife. After long, finger-stiffening minutes and raw fingertips, the stone slid forward and thunked onto the floor. Lily scanned with her flashlight, grinning, and stuck her arm in up to the elbow, emerging with a leather roll protecting something inside, looped many times over with a long cord. She was just opening it with cracked and bleeding fingers when he heard the noise. He placed a stilling hand on her arm.

“What is it?”

He put his finger on her lips, straining to hear. It sounded like music. Lily’s eyes cut sharply to him as she picked it up. With agonizing slowness, she replaced the stone soundlessly and gestured him back toward the first passage, nestling the roll in his bag. The music grew louder, joined by footsteps.

She was just pulling him into the dark passageway they’d come through when he heard it fully, when the familiarity clicked into place. It had been six months since he’d heard it last, on that night in June. He’d listened to that song, loved it to death a thousand times, and for one brief moment he was shocked that he’d forgotten it.

The tunnel started closing in. No, he realized, panicky—it wasn’t the walls, it was his throat. It was swelling, and he couldn’t breathe. He reached for his collar, yanking it open with shaking, worthless fingers. His heart raced like he’d mainlined pure caffeine. Each fast slam of it inside his chest was tight and agonizing.

Heart attack.

He was having a heart attack at twenty-two.

So much for cardio, his brain laughed as it uncoupled from the present.

“Seb?” Lily hissed, crouching next to him.

He barely knew she was there.

How could she be there, here?

The window was open, the spring breeze fluttering the shade. The darkness pressed away and everything washed out in the melt of butter lamplight. He could see it out of the corner of his vision, a way out, impossibly close, impossible. His heart was going to explode, his lungs crushing, face shoved into a pillow. I can’t breathe. Sweat slipped on his back. And that song, the endless final chorus, never stopping, elongating to match the moment. He couldn’t move, and

and, and, and

LILY

“Seb?” She dropped to her knees on the freezing stones. “Seb!”

He didn’t glance at her when she shook his shoulder. In the light from her phone, his pupils were black holes, even when she shone it right in his face. His pulse raced, throbbing beneath her fingers as she worked his hands away from his throat. Even in the cold, his skin was slick with sweat.