Chapter 4
Wilder sank into the armchair in the corner of my small room as if he’d been there a thousand times, and I found myself envious of his comfort. In my private space.
“Where should I start?” he asked. “Do you want to hear about the brilliant essays and heroic works of admittedly novice alchemy that earned us our spots at the Alchemary? Or do you want to know about how respected you are as an academic and how beloved I am across campus for my jovial nature and my generous distribution of the hangover cure I developed one afternoon last year?”
One of us, evidently, was having a lot of fun on campus.
“You developed a hangover cure in a class lab?” I marched past him and threw open the shutters, letting in a glorious breeze and the salty scent of the ocean. “Using ingredients intended for student projects?”
Wilder snorted. “You said it just like that the first time. But no. I snuck into Desmond’s lab. In the Apotheosis wing of the Conservatory.”
“Apotheosis?” I blinked, a little surprised to hear what discipline Desmond had chosen. “The effort to transform people into their ideal and most perfect state?” The definition came unbidden, and the voice reciting the words in my head was my mother’s.
“Yes. My brother is trying to perfect the human form, both mind and body. Yet somehow, in that endeavor, he manages to seem even less human than he used to.”
“Certainly less kind, anyway,” I agreed, thinking of his effort to get me expelled.
Apotheosis was, in my opinion, the least interesting of the three disciplines.
Had my opinion changed during my first two years at the Alchemary?
Or was my academic disdain the reason Desmond was so eager to have me sent away, when Wilder, Dr. Winhoof, and even the Bluehelm had seemed willing to let me stay?
“I want to hear about all of that.” I stood in the center of the small, narrow space and glanced in turn at the wardrobe, the unmade bed, and the desk piled high with papers, unsure where to begin: the personal or the academic?
“But,” I added, “there are more immediately relevant bits missing from my memory. For instance…what classes am I taking? And what time do they begin, exactly?”
Surely there was a course list buried somewhere on my desk.…
Yet even as my attention narrowed on several stacks of parchment, the breeze from the open shutters sent them fluttering toward the edge. With a groan, I grabbed a wooden box from my nightstand and used it to anchor two of the stacks at once.
“All Mastery-year students take the same courses,” Wilder said.
“The Ethics and Advancement of Alchemy, and Advanced Alchemical Ethics and Advancement is from nine to eleven, two days a week. Theories is from two to four in the afternoon, those same two days. Which is nice, because during Fundamentals year we took five classes, and during Proficiency we took three.”
Two classes for my final year. That felt doable.
“And, of course, you’re a teaching assistant.”
“I…am?”
Wilder nodded. “You, and everyone else currently ranked in the top half of our cohort. Which—happily—means that my services are not in demand.” He frowned.
“I misspoke. My various services are quite in demand, on many corners of campus. But I am not required to grade papers for free on behalf of a Fundamentals-year professor.”
“What professor am I supposed to assist?” I asked.
“Robards. He teaches a couple of things, but I believe you’re only on the hook for Introductory Theories of Alchemy.”
“When does that meet?”
“Um…” Wilder rose and leaned over the desk, where he shuffled through the sheets of parchment and finally plucked one up.
“Here it is.” He scanned the text. “From one to two in the afternoon, three days a week. Starting today.” He handed me the paper, and I scanned a written schedule of my classes—the very information he’d just rattled off.
“And on the other days?” Tuesdays and Thursdays were blank on the schedule, as was Friday, outside of the introductory course.
“Any time we’re not in class, we’re expected to be working on our independent research projects or preparing for the trials.
Mastery-year students each have a dedicated lab space on the top floor of the Seminary, in the Advanced Studies lab.
Most of us moved all of our stuff in last night.
” Wilder grinned, looking almost sheepish.
“It was kind of stupid and ceremonial. But I admit, it was fun. We have access to professional-grade resources now, and to plenty of space.” He leaned closer to whisper, one brow arched. “And we’re largely unsupervised.”
“Most of us moved our stuff in?” My thoughts had caught on that word like a thorn in the hem of my skirt.
“You didn’t show up,” he admitted.
“Why not?”
Wilder laughed, but the sound lacked true amusement. “Amber, you have never been what one might call forthcoming.”
“But you’re my best friend.” At the very least. “Are you not?”
He nodded, vague frustration flickering across his expression.
“So…did you at least ask me?” I set the schedule on my desk, anchored beneath an empty inkpot.
“I didn’t get a chance. Last night got away from us both, and I was going to inquire today why the top student in our Mastery year would skip setting up her private lab space. But then…” He shrugged.
“Then I woke up missing two years of my memory.”
I thought about that as I began straightening the bedclothes, noting that they were not much different than the rough, unbleached sheets I’d slept on at home.
The mattress was a thin but sturdy woolen fill inside rough canvas.
The only real luxury was the frame itself, considering that I’d slept on a mattress on the floor until I’d left home.
Well, the frame, and the fact that every student at the Alchemary evidently had a private room.
Wilder was clearly no longer impressed by the facilities, but a space to call my own felt novel and special to me. Especially one with a vast view of the ocean.
“Is that normal?” I asked as I tugged at the wool blanket sharply, then let it settle smoothly over the bed. The motion felt practiced. “Did I often fail to show up?”
“For something school-related?” Wilder leaned back in the chair with his arms crossed over his chest, his cloak stretched taut across widely spread knees. “No. You skipped your share of parties, but in two years, you have never missed a class, a lab space reservation, or an academic consultation.”
“Until last night.” I tucked the blanket around the end of the mattress in two directions, executing a perfectly straight corner I could not remember learning.
“Until last night,” he agreed.
“But you saw me later. After the lab setup. Clearly,” I added, gesturing a bit awkwardly toward the freshly made bed.
“Yes. The rest of us crossed the bridge into Saltstrand for a drink afterward. One last hurrah to the end of break and the beginning of Mastery year.”
“And did I show up for that?”
Of course not. I could see the answer on his face.
“Hours later, I saw you as I was making my way to my room,” he said. “I was…a bit unsteady. You were kind enough to help me upstairs.”
“To my room?”
He only lifted one brow, which seemed connected to the matching corner of his mouth.
We would certainly be talking about that in more detail later.
But in less than two hours, I was meant to help a professor I couldn’t remember meeting with a class I couldn’t remember anything about, and despite my apprehension and need to understand as much as possible, as soon as possible, the rumbling of my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t yet eaten.
There didn’t appear to be so much as an apple core or crust of bread in my room.
“What was I researching?” I sank into the chair in front of the simple wooden plank forming my desk. There were so many stacks of parchment that I hardly knew where to begin. What to read first. Which was why it took me at least a minute to realize he hadn’t answered.
I twisted in my chair to find Wilder watching me with an oddly pensive look, and for a second, I was surprised by the strong resemblance to his brother.
Part of that was the silence. Even when we were children, Desmond had been much more likely to make me wait for his reply.
To give me a chance to think of an answer myself.
To almost demand that of me, without a word.
Wilder, though…He’d hardly had a thought that hadn’t spewed forth unbidden, whether or not it was suitable for whatever company we were in.
“What is it?” I finally asked, unnerved by his silence.
“I…” He exhaled. “I suppose I thought that if anything were likely to jog your memory, it would be your research. You were…ambitious.”
That felt true, and yet also a bit insulting. He said ambitious as if I’d been reaching for stars forever out of my grasp.
I was driven.
Yet I could not recall what I’d been working on. In fact, the harder I tried to remember, the further the information seemed to recede into the dark vacuum of my memory. But I knew that I’d been driven to get there. Wherever I’d been going.
Wilder sat forward in the chair. “So…you don’t remember?”
My huff sounded exasperated. “I suspect we’re both going to get very weary of you asking me that.
No,” I confirmed, looking up from the thin sheets of parchment in my hands—a fortune in paper, such as could likely only be afforded by an institute like the Alchemary.
“I do not remember, and the truth is that I can make neither heads nor tails out of anything written here.”
The individual words I understood. But the sum of them?
My complete incomprehension of what had clearly been my passion sent a cold shiver up my spine.
“Amber.” Wilder’s voice was oddly even, as if he were trying to imply neither approval nor judgment in whatever he was about to say. “You chose Transmutation as your discipline before we even started our Proficiency year. But…you…you were trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone.”