Chapter 2 #2
I stepped out of my room expecting a torchlit hallway. Instead, I found myself on a broad landing set into a spiral-shaped stone staircase that curved both upward and downward from where Desmond stood. Behind him, the expected torch was mounted to the wall, flickering with a warm golden glow.
Despite the daylight shining into my room through the open shutters, this spiral stairwell was a nest of shadows that trembled with each flicker of the torch, ebbing and flowing without ever truly receding from places the light couldn’t touch.
Mine was the only room that opened onto the landing, but when I looked to the right, down the stairs, I saw an identical torchlit landing and an identical door, which rose in height to the middle of my own.
I frowned for the moment it took me to understand. “The rooms are offset. They climb the tower just like the stairs do.”
“They’re each offset by half, vertically, following the curve of the tower staircase,” Desmond confirmed. “One dormitory room on every landing, half of those with a stunning view of the ocean. But the towers are only for Mastery-year students.”
“How many of us are there?”
“Twelve, to start,” he said. “Six women in this tower, and six men in the tower on the other side of the Dormitory. The wings that connect the towers house the Fundamentals-year students on the first floor, and the Proficiency-year students on the second floor.”
“Fascinating.” I stared up the staircase at what I could see of the landing above mine. “But more whimsical than efficient. What floor am I on? Er…what half floor?”
“Yours is the fifth room up. That one is the highest in the tower,” he added, pointing at the upper landing.
Which meant the footsteps that had passed my door belonged to whoever occupied that room. Though I could have sworn I’d heard more than one set of feet…
“Are you ready?” Desmond asked.
I nodded and followed him down the dark, quiet spiral staircase, counting the four doors below mine as we went.
On the ground floor, the stairs deposited us into a round stone-tiled foyer.
To my left, a gracefully pointed gothic archway opened into a long corridor lined with closed doors, which could only be the Fundamentals-year dormitory rooms. Torches were mounted on the wall between them, flickering with that same warm reddish- yellow light.
A second, identical archway led from the round foyer into a shorter door-lined corridor running perpendicular to the first, and I surmised that the Mastery towers stood at the corners of a U-shaped building, connecting the long center wing to the shorter wings on each end.
On my right, opposite the longer corridor, stood a single richly carved door echoing the shape of the gothic arches. Desmond opened that door and led me out of the dormitory onto its broad side lawn, which sloped gently up until it dropped into nothing over the cliff. Into the ocean below.
“An island…” I murmured as a memory surfaced—not of being here, but of hearing about this place. “The Alchemary is on an island.”
“Indeed.”
Directly ahead, the glittering ocean stretched into infinity, and on my right, the women’s residential tower rose toward the sky. At my back lay the rest of Alchemary Island: a campus—and a life—I could not remember.
I stared out at the ocean, letting the cool, salt-scented breeze lift the ends of my hair.
But Desmond turned as if the view meant nothing to him and marched away from the cliff.
I followed him along the short wing of the building, and when we rounded it, I discovered that as I’d guessed from inside, the Dormitory, a masterpiece of dark stone and gothic arches, was shaped like a rectangle missing one long side, with a tower shooting up from each corner.
Its central wing, perched on the very edge of the cliff, was twice as long as the two side wings, and the windows were constructed of multiple panes of clear glass, joined by lead seams.
The Dormitory was extraordinary: symmetrical and grand, yet with a warm and quite solid feel, thanks to the sheer volume of stonework and the three-tiered fountain at the center of an interior courtyard that opened directly onto the rest of the campus.
It was a marvel of design and construction, and given that I’d been raised by a master stonemason, it should have been indelibly imprinted upon my memory from the moment I’d first seen it. Yet I could not remember ever laying eyes on the building before that morning.
With a sigh, I turned from the Dormitory courtyard to face a long, neatly manicured quadrangle and the rest of the campus. “Let’s go,” I said.
And with that, I set off down the lawn, leaving Desmond to follow.
“And you’re certain you didn’t hit your head?” Dr. Winhoof asked for the second time as he ran his hands over my scalp and through my hair, destroying my braids. His touch was professional and thorough, but not what one might describe as tender.
He pressed too hard again, forcing my head forward, and I turned sideways on the table, dislodging his touch. My fingers began winding strands of hair back into my braids as I glared out at the room—a cold space full of hard surfaces, stocked with aggressively sharp and pointy medical…tools.
This place and its equipment felt entirely unfamiliar and disconcerting. The marble slab examination table leached ice into my bones through the thick material of my dress, and the unyielding attention of three different men—Wilder had rejoined us—made me feel like a lab specimen in a jar.
“I have not hit my head that I can recall,” I said. “But, to reiterate, the problem is that I cannot recall much of anything.”
“But there’s no swelling?” Desmond said from one side of the table. “No obvious…depression?”
The only pain in my head was from the frustration of their interrogation. That, and the glare of half a dozen lanterns against the white marble walls.
“I’m fine!” I snapped. “I can’t detect any physical ailment or injury,” I clarified.
“I know who I am and where I’m from, and while I don’t know how old I am, precisely, I know when I was born and I’m perfectly capable of doing the math, and given that this is evidently the first day of my third year at the Alchemary—”
“You turned twenty-two three months ago,” Wilder confirmed from the wooden stool across the room where he had perched after telling our instructors to expect our absences today. “Though you refused to indulge a celebration.”
I frowned at him, momentarily distracted from the problem at hand. We’d always celebrated my birthday with a simple fruit-filled flat cake and, as we’d gotten older, a few sips of whatever ale or wine we could procure. “Why wouldn’t I want a celebration?”
“You were busy.” His gaze flicked toward Desmond, and I couldn’t interpret the unspoken communication. “Studying.”
“Well, this is fascinating,” Dr. Winhoof declared as he stepped back from the table to better assess me, wispy strands of his straight white hair stirring with the motion.
“Total loss of all recent memory, with no known injury or illness. Was there any sort of shock, perhaps? Psychological, or…traumatic?”
I blinked at him, unsure how I could be expected to answer.
Dr. Winhoof laughed, thin arms practically flapping at his sides, billowing his long black robe. “Why in the heavens am I asking you?” He turned to Wilder and Desmond. “Well, did she suffer any sort of physical, mental, or psychological shock last night?”
The Gregory brothers shared a meaningful glance, but I couldn’t tell whether it indicated an unspoken question or a silent admission.
Maybe they were thinking—as I was—of the fact that Wilder and I had woken up in my bed, indecently dressed, and that Desmond had seemed wholly unprepared for that sight.
Which seemed to imply either that I hadn’t informed him of the nature of my relationship with his brother, or that the nature of that relationship had changed too suddenly for disclosure.
But would that have been enough to shock my mind into abandoning every memory I’d formed in adulthood?
“I can’t think of anything that would account for this,” Desmond finally said, arms crossed over his gray tunic. “But then, I wasn’t with Amber when she lost her memory.” He turned a pointed scowl upon his brother.
Wilder stared back almost defiantly. “As far as I know, she did nothing last night that she hasn’t done many times before.”
My face burned hotter than the lanterns positioned around the room.
Desmond shifted—a subtle realignment of his entire form, without moving an inch from where he stood—and the effect was like storm clouds rolling across the sky. A threat gathering on the horizon.
But before the storm could break, the door behind him opened, and the fraternal tension was dispelled.
A young woman stood in the threshold, holding a stylus and a wax tablet. She wore a student’s uniform identical to my own, except that beneath her gold-trimmed black cape her frock was a deep blue, belted at the waist with an embroidered rust-colored fabric.
I stared in surprise for a moment. Was gray not the standard color?
The student was my age, with brown skin, a pouf of shoulder- length reddish curls, and smoky-gray irises ringed in a striking darker shade. Her gaze lingered on me for a second, brows dipping almost imperceptibly. Then she stepped back to hold the door open.
An older woman stepped into the exam room, her distinctive black robes almost shimmering in the glow from the lanterns.
Her elaborate gold-embroidered collar trailed to form stiff, thick, formal lapels among copious folds of a fine material.
Her dark eyes stood out against pale skin, her cheekbones sharp above gaunt shadows.
“Thank you, Cressa,” she said, nodding at the student aide, who stepped inside and closed the door behind them.
“Bluehelm.” Dr. Winhoof’s small, mildly amused smile blossomed into a tooth-filled half-moon that took up the lower third of his face. “How wonderful of you to drop by. We have the most intriguing case, involving one of the Seminary’s most accomplished pupils.”
“So I’ve heard.” The Bluehelm’s voice was soft and rich, yet unquestionably commanding.
Though I could not have said whether it was from a latent memory or logical deduction, I understood that she was head of the Alchemary, in charge of the Seminary and its students as well as of the Conservatory and its researchers.
Given how busy she clearly was, I could not imagine how or why my condition had drawn her attention.
“Amber Fallbrook,” the Bluehelm said. “I understand you’ve come down with a peculiar ailment.”
I nodded, unable to tell from the greeting whether or not the Bluehelm and I had met before.
Dr. Winhoof stepped in front of me to address her. “Catastrophic memory loss. No known cause, including injury, trauma, or illness. We were about to assess the scope of the loss, but I expect that to be a lengthy process.”
The Bluehelm placed one hand on the doctor’s shoulder and firmly directed him to the side. Training her dark-eyed gaze on me, she asked, “What is the most recent thing you remember, before you woke up this morning?”
“It’s not that simple a process, I’m afraid,” Dr. Winhoof interjected with an animated one-handed gesture. “We’ll have to—”
“This will suffice for an initial estimate.” The Bluehelm’s focus held mine. “Amber?”
“I’m not certain,” I admitted with a frown.
“I woke up with no idea where I was or how I’d gotten there, but I wasn’t surprised to be there.
I cannot remember most of my adulthood, but neither do I feel like a child.
There is no one distinct memory I can identify as the most recent I can recall.
It isn’t as if I went to sleep in my childhood bed, then woke up at the Alchemary. The reality is less clearly defined.”
“What is it like, precisely?” she demanded.
Nearby, Cressa waited with her stylus poised over the wax tablet.
I closed my eyes, trying to collect my thoughts, suddenly afraid that my future at the Alchemary might be determined by what I said next.
What was this like?
“It’s like walking around in a room after someone has blown out the candle,” I said at last, opening my eyes again to find the Bluehelm waiting expectantly. “I know that if I move about, I’ll find a table or a chair or a desk, because the furnishings are still there, even if I can’t see them.”
Her gaze narrowed on me, and vaguely, I was aware of everyone else watching in absolute silence, breath practically—perhaps literally—held.
“So, your memories are still there?” the Bluehelm said, her brows arching only slightly with the question. “Like hulking shapes in the dark?”
“I can’t say for sure, obviously. But I certainly feel like knowledge has been cut off from me. Not destroyed. Just…obscured by a fog, or locked behind an iron door in my mind.”
And in that moment I understood one thing for certain: If that were the case—if my memories were imprisoned in a cell of my mind’s own construction—I would find the key to that door. Or, if need be, I would take a battering ram to the whole damn thing.