Page 11 of The Alchemists

He’d wanted oblivion and thought he could drink himself there. But oblivion had been a devil’s bargain, and he’d scrawled his signature on the dotted line, signing away more than he could have imagined for one senseless moment of relief. He was still fulfilling the fine print—would do so, maybe forever.

It’s not your fault, he told himself.

He took a drink.

How funny it is, he thought, to know the truth and be incapable of believing it.

Next to him, Asher stiffened slightly, and he followed his friend’s gaze past the Matter fire to the main conflagration. Conrad and his housemates—all lacrosse players and former friends of Seb’s—were carrying a hideous couch over their heads, arms extended heavenward, deltoids straining, like it was a precious gift for the gods. Which gods, though, Seb didn’t want to know.

They threw it onto the fire, where it landed with a great crack as it broke the weakening centers of several logs. A few nearby revelers screamed, then giggled as they realized that the danger had been a false alarm. Seb traced the great gout of sparks that erupted from the fire into the indigo sky until they disappeared against the smoky blue of the clouds.

When the earth drew his gaze, he caught Conrad’s eye. Conrad smiled at him from across two bonfires. Seb didn’t smile back.

He took a drink.

Tori maneuvered herself subtly—but not subtly enough for it to go unnoticed—between them, blocking his sight. She ran her hand down Seb’s shoulder, letting it rest on his elbow.

“It gets better.” The flames turned her irises to smoldering garnets in the darkness. “I promise.”

“I know,” he said.

He took a drink.

“That stuff is potent, Seb. Maybe take it down a notch.” Asher grimaced.

Seb turned on them, quietly seething. “You two made me come out. Don’t tell me how to enjoy myself.”

Both of them were too smart to react to his outburst. Asher jerked his chin toward one of the other satellite fires. “Come on, let’s go get some quality cantrips going at the Metaphysics fire. This is pathetic.” He and Tori started away and then turned back. “Coming?”

Seb spoke to the flames, “Cantrèa tomorrow.”

“We’ll find you later.”

He turned back to the fire and sank onto a hay bale, letting the heat glue his eyes open, letting the fire draw him in. The embers of it—a writhing mass of black, white, orange—flickered in his own heart. He realized his flask was empty and got a cup of terrible beer from the nearest keg.

He was just drunk enough now for his anxiety to grab the wheel with both hands and start replaying everything he wanted to forget on an endless loop.

Don’t think about it: The way he’d come across Conrad that night—a smear of gold in the pinprick of his darkening vision, his head thrown back laughing, his arms steadying Seb, even though those were the same arms that had tipped the gravity of his world off its axis.

Don’t think about it: The way he’d leaned into Conrad’s warmth even as his single shred of remaining sense screamed at him, leave.

Don’t think about it: The way he’d realized he could barely stand on his own two feet.

Don’t think about it: His own Words, tripping between Conrad’s lips and into his ear, binding him to someone else’s intent.

Don’t think about it: The way he was suddenly in the foyer of Ashmole House—Conrad’s dorm—and not knowing how he’d gotten there.

Don’t think about it: The way the next thing he remembered was the scent of Conrad’s sheets, that beloved, now forbidden smell, tumbling against his cheek.

Don’t think about it: Their song, lulling him, suffocating him under thick waves of familiarity.

Don’t think about it: The way he’d fumbled out the words “I need to go home,” but his legs wouldn’t take him there.

Don’t think about it: The way Conrad had slid into bed next to him, even though it was never supposed to happen again.

Don’t think about it: The way, in between blackness, he felt Conrad’s hand slipping down his side, pulling Seb’s hips into him even as he tried to leave.

Don’t think about it: The way he’d whispered “Stop,” even as he knew it was too late, even as Conrad drowned him out, smothering Seb’s words with his own: “It’s fine, it’s fine.”