Page 128 of The Alchemists

He’d thought it all the way to Lily’s house and back to campus. Adriana had eaten the dessert on purpose. She’d seen him floundering, seen Hawthorn Bellarius headed after him. She’d put herself in death’s sight lines for him, not even questioning why. So had Asher. So had Chant. All of this for one person.

But it’s Lily.

The two realities butted up against each other ceaselessly, looping in an ouroboros of unequivocal truths that he couldn’t reconcile. It was a mistake. One life wasn’t worth many more. But it was Lily, and she was worth everything to him. He would give up anything to cure her—even his magic, which he loved most of all. But it wasn’t just him anymore. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t asked any of the others to help. They had, and now their lives were balancing in his ledger.

“What now?” he said to the Æther as much as to Chant, shivering with internal chill.

“Now you go win this tournament.”

Seb winced. In the commotion of the night, he’d forgotten the whole reason he’d been at Hawthorn Hall in the first place. In less than twelve hours, Seb faced Pavel Elkton, of British Columbia’s Mistvane Institute. He hadn’t even begun prepping spells for his foil.

He pressed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose so he wouldn’t cry. He would give anything to sleep. Even just two uninterrupted hours.

He could sleep when he was dead.

Normally, he’d be glued to the Cantrèa ring all day, for the entire week of the tournament. Normally, he’d be studying all of his potential opponents, but not this year. This year, Seb made a cursory appearance for the opening bout, solely for the purpose of being seen. Lily was there, sitting with Asher and Daphne. He waved at them from across the ring, and then he went and slept in Equipment Room D, on top of a pile of mats hidden behind a row of plastrons.

When he fought Pavel Elkton, he did it positively medieval in style—nasty, brutish, short—and without any of his usual fire. Pavel was not a worthy opponent, and Seb made no pretense that he was. Seb played like he was in a linebacker’s body, plowing through the bout.

He hated it, knew that in the upper stands, Lily hated it too, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care that hundreds of spectators were analyzing this lapse in play style. Let them think it was a gambit meant to throw them off in later bouts. He didn’t care that the match was so short as to be unsportsmanlike, in the way its brevity would embarrass Pavel. Let them think this was a new Sebastian, one thirsty not just for glory but for dominance.

He hated it, he hated it, he hated it.

He felt like the curse had made it into his bloodstream and his sweat, just from seeing it.

He took a sleeping pill at eight p.m. and slept for twelve hours.

MORTIFICATIO

Mortificatio and Putrefactio are overlapping aspects of the same operation—Nigredo—and in Mortificatio we find the death that brings the rot, which itself creates new life. Mortificatio is the necessary darkness that begets only truth. There must always be a sacrifice.

Diana Atwood

Alchemy Made Metaphor

LILY

On the second day of the tournament, Lily exhaled the breath she hadn’t quite realized she’d been holding for days. The day before, in his single match, Seb had played atrociously. Not atrociously, normally. He’d been all power and no finesse, and he wasn’t big enough to get away with that for long.

She hadn’t said anything, partly because she didn’t know what she could possibly say without sounding like an asshole, and partly because he hadn’t said anything, had barely seemed capable of speech. He’d shambled zombielike out of the locker room, grabbing her hand on autopilot, a gesture that would have been touching in its thoughtlessness if it hadn’t been so robotic. The skin under his eyes was bruised with sleeplessness, and she wondered what had been keeping him up. He hadn’t even watched the rest of the matches.

Today, though, he was himself. He beat his opponent from M&M⁠* graciously, making a match that should have been short and straightforward slightly less short and decidedly more elegant. Then he joined her in the stands, hair damp and towel-fluffed, to watch Adriana Mérida play her first bout. Like Seb, she seemed to suck all the noise out of the stands and suffocate it with her presence. She pulled light like a magnet, radiant in her marigold uniform with its teal accents. Somehow, as she put on her face guard, her hair stayed flawless. Maybe it was a spell or maybe it was practice, but either way, standing there, foil and Orb effortlessly at the ready, Adriana looked like a new sort of god.

Seb leaned forward in his seat. Lily leaned forward in her seat. The entire stadium leaned forward as one, breath held. Adriana grinned at her Savarelle opponent, their sleek gray-and-white uniform suddenly dreary. The match began.

Adriana was fast. Faster even than Seb, the fastest player she’d ever seen. She moved like liquid gold, dodging and spinning around attacks in a continuous spiral. Lily, no stranger to centripetal force, grew a little dizzy watching her. At one point, her opponent summoned Ascalon,⁠* which quivered in the air, bloodthirsty and eager. The shining spear shot at her, sparking and hissing with divine rage that would have turned Lily’s insides to liquid, but Adriana neatly shoulder-rolled under it across the sand, coming up lightly on her toes, Orb intact, grinning.

Lily turned to Seb just as he was turning toward her, her face a mask of shock. “She’s incredible.”

“I know.” He shook his head. “God, she’s gotten good this year.”

“She might be better than you.” Lily couldn’t keep the worry from her voice.

“Yeah.” Seb grinned. “She might.”

He was smiling. Lily’s heart stopped for a moment, until her brain caught up. He wasn’t nervous; he was excited.

After the tournament was over for the day, the lesser players culled from the pack, they went to dinner at the Manuscript. The Méridas joined them, and Tori and Asher, and Liesl and Daphne.