Page 70 of The Alchemists

Tori looked up from her book. Seb tossed her the disc and she snatched it from the air easily with one hand. Lily stared. She didn’t know Tori had once played Cantrèa, had once had a different name on her license.

“Nice weight to this thing. No clue what it is.” She tossed it idly, then threw it back to Lily.

Seb peered over Lily’s shoulder. “Shit,” he sighed. “I think we only have part of it.”

“What?” Lily slumped.

“It feels…incomplete. What’s this design on it? Why the hole?”

Lily hefted the disc and held it up, squinting through the center at the foggy night, and made a noise of surprise. “What if it shows us something? Like a hag stone? Those are real, right?”

The suite went quiet. Lily’s face froze in the frown that Seb was learning meant her brain was working furiously.

“What if,” she said quietly, “what if we are missing a second piece? Either it has a missing half that fits this hole, or looking through it in the right place—or with the right object—will reveal something otherwise hidden?”

She looked around the room as if she were worried about them mocking her. The smile crept onto Seb’s face slowly, starting in the corner of his mouth before spreading widely.

“No wonder you got her help on this instead of ours.” Asher pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned deeper into his nest of pillows.

Tori turned to Seb. “You’re lucky she’s not in our year.”

“Why?” Lily asked.

“Because then he wouldn’t be valedictorian.”

Asher blew on his mug of tea, catching Seb’s eye in that slow, knowing way he often did when he was about to say something horribly obvious that Seb hadn’t considered yet.

“You know only one of you can win, right?”

“I was thinking,” he said later, tugging the collar of Lily’s coat snug around her neck and leaving his hands there as she tipped her gaze up to him, bangs parting on her forehead. “If we find it—when we find it—it’s yours. The prize. Whatever it is.”

Lily didn’t react like he’d expected; in fact, she didn’t react at all.

“No,” she said simply.

He sighed, his breath turning to mist between them. He wasn’t surprised she’d turned him down but hadn’t expected such bluntness.

“You’ve done most of the work, you’ve earned it more already. Besides, I’ve already won twice. I don’t need it.”

“Nobody needs it,” she scoffed. “I already told you I don’t want it. You do.”

“How can you know you don’t want something when you don’t even know what it is?” He pressed his forehead to hers, exasperated, pulling her toward him by the collar.

“How can you know you do?”

“Simple.” He laughed. “I have a compulsion to prove myself. I don’t want everything handed to me. I don’t want to be an asshole.”

“But everything has been handed to you!” She looked suddenly very tired. “I’m not saying that you don’t work hard, but you haven’t just made good choices—you had good choices.”

He released her then, let his arms fall to his sides, and stared over her shoulder. He could almost be angry if she weren’t right. Her words didn’t shock him; they emptied him. He felt her eyes on his face, but he couldn’t meet them. Inside her words he could feel the opposing truth, about herself.

“Then how am I supposed to do it? Earn my life?”

She laughed bitterly. “You don’t. You just have to deal with your privilege.”

He bit his tongue as he looked down at her shoes, well-worn canvas high-tops.

“Take the Elumnara,” he said, filled with desperate conviction. “When we win. Take it.”