Page 113 of The Alchemists

“What?”

He got it, immediately, her betrayal. It was the worst ending to the story, especially for her.

“She had a breakdown, apparently. Freer said he’d send her husband’s letters when he found them.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry.” He pushed himself upright and snuggled against her. She was as unyielding as he’d been moments ago. “She married Van Bergen to cover it up?”

Lily nodded.

“Fuck this.” He threw himself away from the wall, suddenly furious. “What the hell does he want?” he said to Lily, who blinked at him in confusion. “What do you want?” he shouted at the ceiling.

“Who?”

“Windermere! This isn’t an Elumnara. Not anymore, if it ever was. So what the hell does he want?”

“This,” Lily said slowly. “I think he wants this. For people to know the truth.”

“No.” Seb shook his head. “That might be part of it, but that’s not it.”

Lily didn’t say anything—she just let him rage himself out until he crashed, and then she curled around his back, like the only safe thing in the world.

“Have you figured it out, then?”

A shadow fell across his face, sucking the warmth from his cantrip. Conrad stood above him, the late afternoon sun lighting him from behind like an Olympian descending to earth. Seb had come to his tree to think, the unseasonably warm late-February day one you could pretend was spring with the right coat and the right cantrips.

“Figured out what?” He bristled, standing.

“Don’t play coy with me.” Conrad stepped toward him.

Seb pressed his back against the tree. Conrad stopped and regarded him, head tilted with curiosity.

“Are you afraid of me?”

He was, but he stared back with all of the derision and pretension he could muster. Everything Lily had initially hated about him, he sent toward Conrad.

Dr. Metcalf had mostly stopped talking about charges. The last time she’d brought it up she’d said she understood all the reasons he didn’t want to—that he wanted to move on and had started doing so, could even put the entire Atlantic between him and his past in September; that he was worried about his reputation, that he wanted to be remembered on campus as something winsome and winning, not as a rape victim; that he didn’t want to get tied up in hearings and maybe even a court case—she understood perfectly.

“But what,” she had asked, “if there were others?”

“Others?” He’d been genuinely confused.

“What if what he did to you was something he’s done to other people? What if it’s a pattern?”

Seb hadn’t even considered it. What if, in the most awful, skin-itching way, Sebastian was even less singular than he thought?

What if there were others?

He’d assumed—even though Dr. Metcalf had explained numerous times that it wasn’t, it was about power—that what happened to him was about him. His shame, when he’d stopped looking at the spot where the carpet was wearing thin between his shoes, was white.

“Do you think he did?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.” She’d taken off her glasses then. “But what if there are others, and what if those others can’t move on the way you’ve been able to?”

He was thankful to her then for not saying “privileged,” even though they both knew what she meant.

“What if they don’t have the resources to seek help? What if they can’t see a future to look forward to?”’

“You think if there are others, they might come forward if I did?”