Page 114 of The Alchemists

She’d given him something approximating a smile. Her eyes stayed serious.

“I know it’s not a fair thing to put on your shoulders.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because you’ve shown me that you’re strong enough to bear it.”

“Will you be disappointed in me if I don’t?”

She laughed her therapist’s laugh.

“I thought we already discussed your need for external validation. Who gives a hoot what I think, Sebastian? The question is—will you be disappointed in yourself?”

He’d known the answer before she was done asking the question, and he thought of it now, his back pressed into the divoted bark, the sun suddenly slipping through the trees. Above him, his oak’s enchanted leaves were skipping winter, marbling straight from scarlet fall to spring green.

“What do you want with me, Conrad?” He kept his voice even, his weight in his toes. “Are you trying to intimidate me? Get me to stop working on the Elumnara? What? What the fuck were you doing at Dunmoody?”

Conrad actually looked dumbfounded. “I want what I’ve always wanted.”

“Which is what? Exactly?”

Dismay cut a river through his face, making Seb temporarily question his own sanity. “You, Seb. I miss you. I’ve missed you all fucking year.”

He reached for his arm and Seb pulled away. Conrad had the gall to act hurt.

“You’ve missed me.” His voice was flat.

“We were going to be friends—at least, I thought. That’s what you said. But instead you’ve spent all year avoiding me. And then it’s like you’re doing it on purpose, to throw it in my face.” Unbelievably, Conrad’s voice cracked.

Reality flipped. Seb was too lost in it, too desperate for answers to questions he hadn’t realized he had, to walk away now.

“Throwing what in your face?”

“Her!” And just like that, he was afraid again. “Hooking up with Leper Lily! What the fuck is wrong with you? I know you wanted me to come out and I wasn’t ready, but Jesus. How twisted can you get? You made your point months ago.”

What.

What.

What.

Seb couldn’t believe it. Actually couldn’t. He stood for what felt like an eternity in a second, trying to understand what he must have misheard. Where was the truth, the beating heart of it? Where was the night of the bonfire? Where was Conrad pinning him down with his Words?

“Lily has nothing to do with you,” he said coldly, the best he could muster. Her name was the only port in this squall that had kicked up. “And if you think she does, or that attacking us, assaulting her, would change my mind, you’re a bigger sociopath than I thought.”

“Assaulting her?” Conrad laughed, then his face fell as he found his amusement unreflected in Sebastian’s face. “Seven curses, you’re serious. I was just trying to get her to give it up. She shouldn’t even be at this school. Are you insane, Sebastian? What would your father say?”

A cold knot formed in his stomach. He knew exactly what his father would say, but in a few months it wouldn’t matter.

“Are you insane, Conrad?” He echoed the words back, his heart jackhammering. “Because we stopped being friends when you raped me.”

“Rape?”

“I told you my Words. You used them against me.”

“I wasn’t⁠—”

He turned to go, couldn’t possibly look at Conrad’s face, but he caught Seb’s sleeve. Reflexively, he turned, rage pumping through his arteries. He punched Conrad in his Grecian nose. The adrenaline had him so much by the throat that he didn’t even wince at the cracking throb in his knuckles or the crunch of cartilage beneath his fist.