Page 86 of The Alchemists

C texting. Looks serious.

Leaving library. Go now!

Get out of there.

Then came the texts from Daphne and Tori.

“Shit,” Seb whispered into the darkened bedroom. “He’s got an alarm on his bedroom.”

Of course he did, the absolute piece of shit. That was the thing about Hawleyhurst—he might not be particularly book-smart, but he was clever when he cared to be, and that made him unpredictable. It was much more fiendish to alarm his bedroom than three sets of wards—to let them think they were in the clear. The tendril stretched, wavering, halfway across the room.

“Get out of here,” he said, his face set. “I’ll deal with this.”

What a beautiful idiot he was.

“I’m not leaving you. Not here. Not anywhere. Not with him.” She crossed the threshold of the room and stood next to him. She stared down at the map. Their phones buzzed again.

“Gemma’s at the steps.”

“Fuck Gemma,” Lily said. “She’s probably wearing heels. I’ll break her other arm if I have to.”

She summoned her Words and pressed her hands to the map. The magic flared, deepening in hue, washing the room in unholy magenta, and then the tendril became a vine, thickening and surging forward. It planted itself against a wall.

They exchanged a panicked glance. Seb shook his head and strode over to the wall, mouthing his Words as he went. He raised a fist and banged the side of it against the plaster. The illusion cracked open. Shouting came from the road. Housemates. Seb stuck his hand into the wall-which-was-not-a-wall and pulled out the disc.

“Time to go.”

“The wards⁠—”

“Doesn’t matter anymore.” He made to roll up the map, then stopped and stared at her. “Lily. Your nose!”

She looked down. Now that the magic had dissipated, she could see it—several drops of dark blood on the map.

“Doesn’t matter,” she echoed. From below: voices and the clicking of a key in the lock. She grabbed the map, rolling it hastily. “Go, go, go.”

They sprinted down the stairs, reaching the main floor just as the door crashed open. Seb hurled Rusalkan Tresses at the door, slamming it shut as he pulled her toward the main-floor bedroom.

“Window,” he gasped.

They hurtled into the bedroom, and Seb leaped onto the bed in one smooth motion, his fingers fumbling on the window latches. It slid open with a great creak. He kicked out the screen, and one after another they tumbled through onto the frozen ground, and then they were running, running, running, into the sleeting night.

SEB

Lily was athletic, but she didn’t have his stamina, wasn’t used to going full bore for sometimes hours on end. By the time they were halfway to Millay Tower, they were both soaked and he was dragging her. When he looked back, her face was ashy in the sidewalk lights. He turned sharply, pulling them off the path, toward Coleridge House.

“Seb!”

He didn’t respond, just led her to the great weeping beech that kept window-gazing students from getting too dreamy in the language hall. Needles of sleet pelted the tree’s waxy leaves, but nothing breached its concealing canopy. The tree was supposedly a favorite spot for semi-public coitus, something he confirmed as he stepped over a used condom.

“What are you doing?” Lily’s teeth chattered as he cast a warming cantrip around them.

“No one’s following us anymore.”

“You don’t know that!”

He shook his head, amazed as always by her stubbornness. “It doesn’t matter. What are they going to do? Fight us on campus? Even they’re not that stupid. Stealing the disc back was fair play.”

“He’s going to make the next month hell,” she said quietly, the fear audible in her voice.