Chapter 7 #2
“My point,” Keryth continued, “is that Yoslyn’s parents might disapprove of alchemy specifically, given her native land’s affinity for aromatics.
” An incense-based rival art of alchemy.
“But Toolkeepers reject all of the arcane studies.” She turned to Yoslyn.
“So if anyone understands how it feels for your family to utterly reject your life choices, it’s Amber Fallbrook. ”
“And before the midterm exam, I expect you to have memorized all of the advanced formulas and to have come up with—and had officially approved!—a Mastery-year field of study in general as well as a specific project thesis. This can be an improvement upon an existing theory, an attempt to disprove an existing theory, or you may—the more ambitious of you—come up with an entirely new premise. Any questions?”
Half of the class scribbled anxiously on loose sheets of parchment; the sound of quills scratching felt both familiar and soothing. As did the knowledge that while they were all taking notes about how to begin their independent research projects, I’d been working on mine for at least a year.
As it turned out, the copious notes on my independent study were not standard among our cohort. I truly had been an extraordinary student, it seemed.
That knowledge would have brought me more comfort if I could remember any of the work I’d done. Any of the progress I’d made. If I could make even the slightest sense out of my own notes.
While she waited for replies, Professor Edmiston slid one hand into her tangle of dense silver curls and fluffed them at the root, a gesture that seemed more habitual than truly functional.
Her hair did not lack volume.
I stared at the sheets of parchment on the table in front of me. I’d taken extensive notes for two straight hours, covering a shameful amount of expensive parchment and draining half of the inkwell set into the front edge of the table, equidistant from my side of the shared surface and Wilder’s.
I glanced at his notes and was unsurprised to see that he’d barely covered the front side of one sheet.
But his work was not a proper bar against which to measure my own.
As a child, he’d done the bare minimum expected of him in nearly every endeavor.
He’d been forgiven for shoddily performed chores because of his charming smile, and he was generally gifted enough, academically, to perform at an average level with no effort whatsoever.
A prospect that used to infuriate me on two levels.
First was the fact that since he never really studied, he had far more leisure time than I, and far more than was good for him, truth be told. And second, I found it scandalous how accomplished he could have been at just about anything, if he were to ever actually put forth a respectable effort.
I found it equally scandalous how little he cared about that.
Wilder had glided through life as an ardent underachiever, and I couldn’t imagine that had changed in the past two years. Though he’d clearly performed well enough to stay at the Alchemary.
While Professor Edmiston answered questions and restated the hours when she would be available to students in her office, I glanced at the table to my left, where Keryth sat with that same young man from the quadrangle.
The one with light brown skin and dark, slicked-back hair.
I hadn’t caught his name during class, and I couldn’t see his work from where I sat.
But Keryth had taken thorough notes, and the volume of her writing—though it was not as great as mine—set me at ease a bit, as it cast my own work as not entirely unreasonable.
As, perhaps, reasonable for a star student who had not lost her memory.
I did know the name of the quiet young woman seated in front of me and next to Yoslyn.
Cressa, the Bluehelm’s student aide, still wore the blue frock and rust-colored belt I’d noticed when she’d stepped into Dr. Winhoof’s office that morning.
She’d hardly glanced at me before taking her seat at the beginning of class, but Wilder had whispered to me that her surname was Baxter, and that she and I were acquaintances at best.
The impression I’d gotten, more from his tone than his words, was that neither she nor I was exactly considered sociable.
Cressa Baxter had taken consistent but sparse notes, and she clearly had no trouble keeping up with Professor Edmiston’s lecture.
I, on the other hand…
I sighed softly as I stared at my parchment again.
I’d scribbled madly, writing down nearly everything the instructor had said so I could study it later.
So I could compare it to the notes on my desk and hopefully decode the advanced concepts, based on the more basic ones I’d taken notes on two years before.
Or maybe I could talk Wilder into explaining some of it to me.
I’d understood generally what Professor Edmiston was talking about. I knew all of the words, and I knew how to spell them. But my rudimentary understanding was insufficient to allow me comprehension of advanced-level theories.
I was quite simply not up to this level of alchemy.
And yet, as soon as I’d seen the symbols for salt, and copper, and sulfur, and lead, I’d recognized them. Writing them had felt familiar, and my hand had moved all on its own, forming curves and slashes on the page in a distinctive style that I recognized from a few of the symbols in my journal.
Signature notation.
Double entendre aside, my swirls really were tight. Learning to make them quickly had likely taken months of practice.
“Amber?” Wilder said, and when I looked up from the desk, I found him standing over me, his chair pushed back, his “notes” folded and tucked beneath his arm.
He hadn’t bothered to bring a satchel.
“Are you ready?”
Professor Edmiston was gone, as were half of the students.
Cressa glanced at me, tight reddish ringlets swishing around her head as she slid her own materials into her bag, and though a couple of our classmates seemed to be watching me curiously, she volunteered nothing of what she knew of my condition.
Instead, she slung her bag over her shoulder, offered me a quick, lukewarm smile, and marched out of the room.
“Amber?”
Dread pooled cold and thick in my belly as I turned left to find Keryth frowning at me from across the center aisle, her blond braid draped over one shoulder.
The young man stood at her other side, clearly ready to leave, and now that I could see him up close, I noticed his slight scruff of a beard and bright green eyes.
“Yes?” I slid my notes into my bag, careful not to crease the parchment.
“Are you well?” Keryth asked while I clawed at the brick wall of my memory, desperate to carve loose a chunk with her companion’s name on it. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so quiet in class. You didn’t even correct Edmiston when she pointed to that vial of cinnabar and called it colcothar.”
“You’re criticizing her for not being rude to our professor?” Wilder asked, one brow lifted in her direction.
“Of course not,” the young man behind her said. “But you must admit it’s out of character.” He turned to me. “And you skipped class this morning entirely.”
“I’m fine,” I said, wondering if it sounded awkward that I hadn’t yet used his name. Panic had left me adrift in everyday conversation, trying to recall how often, under normal circumstances, people said each other’s names. “I…overslept.”
Judging by Keryth’s shocked expression, complete with an openmouthed stare, I could not possibly have come up with a less believable excuse. “You overslept? By two hours?” Her hazel eyes narrowed. “It certainly wasn’t a hangover. You didn’t even come to—”
“Are those the trousers you wore last night?” the green-eyed boy interrupted, and I followed his gaze to the left hem of Wilder’s slacks, where it brushed the top of his shoe beneath his unfastened cloak. “They’re still stained from the ale you spilled at the Dusty Beaker.”
Keryth’s shock melted into a scandalized understanding as her gaze slid from Wilder to me. “Overslept, indeed? I’ll trade my notes from this morning for your notes from last night,” she said to me with another suggestive glance at Wilder.
She reached across the aisle as if she’d tuck her arm into mine and drag me off for some gossip.
“Sorry, Keryth.” Wilder tugged me closer, subtly pulling me away from her. “We have plans for the afternoon.”
“Plans.” Keryth’s smile made intimate assumptions. “Well, when you’re done, you let me know if either of you want my notes.” Then she tucked her arm into the green-eyed boy’s arm instead and pulled him with her into the hall.
Leaving me alone in the classroom with Wilder.
I spun and punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow!” He frowned. “I just saved you from being interrogated by Keryth Malcom, who would have figured out within minutes that you have absolutely no memory of her.”
“She’s going to figure that out anyway. I’m assuming that none of the twelve students who’ve made it to Mastery year are complete idiots, though I am starting to wonder about you!”
“That’s uncalled for. I am both blatantly brilliant and entirely underestimated, which is a rather difficult combination to maintain.”
“You made salacious implications to Petyr, and now you’ve given Keryth the impression that you stayed the night in my room,” I hissed, glaring up at him as I lifted the strap of my satchel over my head and onto my opposite shoulder. Innuendo between the two of us was one thing, but—
“I did stay the night in your room,” he mock whispered.
“And that secret was never going to keep. Keryth’s room is the only one above yours.
She clearly heard us talking this morning, then she saw me come out of the ladies’ dormitory tower.
And my room is right below Lennox’s, in the gentlemen’s tower, which means he probably knows I wasn’t there last night.
Eventually they would have put those two pieces of information together.
And by ‘eventually,’ I mean in the next half hour.
Because what they think we’re sneaking off to do is what they’re actually sneaking off to do.
And have been doing for a year and a half. ”
I had to think about that for a second. “They’re a couple? Keryth and…Lennox?” I put the names and faces together in my memory and waited for some sort of mental click to lock them in place.
It did not come.
“Keryth Malcom and Lennox Pettifog. They’re what you might call on again, off again. And they’ve been on again since they came back from the summer break. Somewhat exuberantly, based on what leaks through the top half of my dormitory wall.”
“And us?” I glanced at the doorway to make sure no one was hovering in the hallway, listening. “Are we on? Or was last night…an anomaly?”
Being with Wilder felt familiar and comfortable, and there was definitely chemistry. But the surprise from our classmates—and from Desmond—made me wonder if this shift in our relationship was recent.
His gaze held mine, but I got the distinct impression that his hesitation wasn’t simply an effort to get the phrasing right. Rather, he seemed to be trying to assess whatever he saw…in me.
Finally he smiled, his expression taking on a playfully ribald tone. “Last night was definitely…anomalous. One might even call it a deviance.”
“Is it a family trait of the Gregorys to refuse to answer a question directly, or is that specific to you and your brother?”
His smile faltered. “What did you ask Desmond?”
“I’m not answering your question until you answer mine. Are we together, Wilder?”
His sigh seemed to carry the weight of the world. He sank into Keryth’s chair, and when I remained standing, he took my hand. For a moment, he only stared at my fingers, running one thumb over them.
I focused on the sensation. Of the feel of his skin against mine. Trying—desperate—to remember it.
“Amber, do you recall anything about last night? Anything at all? Even just an image or an impression?”
I looked up from our hands to find him watching me with his heart in his eyes, and it hurt me to answer. But I owed him the truth, if I was going to ask him for the same.
“No. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember a thing, as badly as I’d like to.”
The sadness echoing behind his eyes gutted me.
“Was that our first time?” I asked, still trying to draw the memories out. To trigger recollection with fact. “Are we a couple? Or was that just…the human version of a chemical reaction?”
Wilder laughed, and he looked as surprised by his own amusement as I was. “A chemical reaction?”
“You know…two reactants introduced into the same space, resulting in a change of energy or yielding a product. Or a…clearly defined result.”
His smile grew. “Oh, there was a result. And I’d call it pretty clearly defined.”
I pulled my hand from his and smacked his shoulder again, but I couldn’t resist a smile.
“If last night was a chemical reaction, it was definitely exothermic,” he continued.
My smile grew. “So…it was hot?”
“Exothermic as hell,” he confirmed with a shameless grin. But it faded quickly. “Though…that doesn’t matter. None of what happened between us before this morning matters, Amber. It…can’t.”
My frown came unbidden, the strength of my disappointment unexpected. “Why not?”
“It doesn’t matter because you don’t remember it.
So, to you, it didn’t happen. And I can’t in good conscience go forward as if everything is the way it was yesterday, when you have no memory of how we got there.
I…” He cleared his throat and settled his gaze firmly on mine.
“Until you recover your memory, what matters is what happens going forward. There may very well be another chemical reaction, but first, we’ll have to”—he shrugged—“set up the whole experiment again. We can’t just repeat it, when you don’t understand all the ‘preparation’ that went into it in the first place. ”
“When did you get so good at logic?” I demanded, finding it shockingly difficult not to pout.
Wilder laughed as he stood. “I told you. Blatantly brilliant and entirely underestimated.”