Page 35 of The Alchemists

LILY

She found her mom folding laundry and watching TV in the sitting room. Slinging her bag to the ground, she collapsed next to her on the striped loveseat. Magnolia glanced at her and wrinkled her nose before picking a leaf out of her daughter’s hair.

“Sorry. Woods.” She picked up the remote and paused the show, pulling a pile of towels into her lap to fold.

“I would have gone hiking with you if you wanted to get outside. Gran too. I feel like we’ve barely seen you since the semester started.”

It was true, Lily realized, with a pang of guilt. She’d been so caught up in classes and alchemy and—a snide voice in her mind noted—Allsaires. No, Sebastian. This was perfect hiking weather, some of the last she’d have with her mom.

“Let’s go tomorrow. Hike and lunch across the river?”

“It’s a date.”

Lily warmed inwardly as she saw the pleasure run through her mother. Magnolia took the towels from her lap.

“So, what do you want?”

“What?” Lily said, faux-innocent.

“You only ever help with laundry when you want something.”

“Only information.”

“Only information,” her mom mimicked. “At least you’ve stopped asking for a pony.”

Allsaires probably has a horse. Several. Falconstone, the Allsaires estate, was farther upstate, though she knew he’d gone to prep school in the City.

“Did you go to school with anyone from House Allsaires?”

Her mother froze. Lily’s brow puckered in surprise.

“Why do you ask?”

“Uh, Allsaires—Sebastian—is my lab partner for alchemy. I was just wondering.”

“You should get a new partner then.” Her mom’s voice was carefully even, too even.

“Why? What happened?”

“Wasn’t he the one who pushed you and broke your laptop?”

“Oh, yeah.” Somehow, impossibly, Lily had forgotten. She wondered if she needed to entirely reevaluate that interaction. Probably.

“That family is rotten. Growing up, I was actually betrothed to Reginald Allsaires.”

“What! His brother?”

“Uncle.”

“Huh?” She’d thought that Sebastian’s father had been an only child.

“You know how sometimes the Houses will make matches? Well, your grandfather and that boy’s grandfather thought to join their houses. The two oldest Great Houses in America coming together had been something they’d been angling at for ages, and when I was born, they could finally make it happen, so they entered Reg and me into a betrothal.”

“And then you met Dad?”

“And then Reginald died.”

Lily gaped. “What? How?”