Chapter 9
“What do the colors mean?” I asked Wilder as we stared out at the quadrangle from a bench in front of the Refectory.
He reached into my folded-handkerchief pouch and plucked out a dark morsel of dried fruit.
“In this state? Not much, really. I can hardly tell any difference between the cherries, the cranberries, and the currants. And the smaller prunes.” He tossed the morsel into his mouth.
“Cherry. Though I’d have guessed it was a currant. ”
“Not these colors. Those colors.” I gestured toward the quadrangle again, where a couple dozen other students milled in groups of two or three or sat studying on benches artfully positioned on the edges of various flower beds and pathways.
“If the Alchemary uniform is a gray frock and a black cloak, why do so many of them wear blue belts, green ribbons, and rust-colored…cuffs? And headbands? And…laces? I’ve even seen frocks in those colors. ”
Wilder followed my gaze. “Oh. The Alchemary provides a standard gray frock, for you ladies, and a gray vest for the gentlemen. But students are welcome to wear frocks and vests of the Alchemary style in any color, if they provide the clothing for themselves. As for the choice of colors…” He shrugged.
“They’re just declaring their affinities. ”
“Affinities? For blue, and green, and…brown, with a bit of red stirred in?”
He chuckled. “For various mineral resources. Mined from water, or vegetation, or from the earth itself. For instance, an alchemist with an earth affinity would use salt mined from deposits in the ground, while someone with a water affinity would prefer salt evaporated from seawater.”
“How would you get salt from vegetation?”
His brows arched, giving him thoughtful expression. “Usually, that means salt of—”
“Tartar,” I finished. “Which is produced as a calcination of tartar, which is a by-product of winemaking. Which involves grapes, which are, of course, a plant.”
“Precisely. You are a very quick study, Amber.”
He looked proud, and I could not resist a smile.
“Salt can also be extracted from the roots and leaves of certain plants, especially during the growth phase. But that’s a huge effort, and it depends, somewhat, upon how much salt is present in the soil and in the water source.
Fortunately for those of us who wear the green”—he tapped on the moss-colored leather scabbard attached to his belt—“having an affinity for one kind of mineral source doesn’t mean you can’t use the others. It just means you have a preference.”
“And people who wear multiple colors have multiple affinities?”
“Exactly.”
“Is one affinity better than the others?”
“Yes, of course!” Wilder grinned. “Botany affinity is obviously the best.”
I rolled my eyes.
He laughed. “Everyone will say their own affinity is the best, naturally. But that’s no more accurate than when we used to say that Innswood’s alewives were the best in all of Aethermere.
They said the same thing down the road in Kingswallow, and who’s to say who was right?
Or that any of us were right. At the end of the day, everyone gets drunk on their favorite ale.
It’s a matter of preference. But it’s also a bit of…
an identity. I know I have a preference in common with anyone out there wearing green.
And if I run short of some ingredient, those are the people I’d turn to for help, and the ones I’d help in return.
Because we prefer—and prepare—the same kinds of source materials. ”
“What about those who wear no colors? They have no affinity?” No…identity?
He shrugged. “Or they prefer all of the mineral sources. Which is essentially the same thing as preferring none.”
“Minerals for what? As ingredients in alchemical formulas?”
Wilder nodded. “Yes, as base-level ingredients. But also as a source for beyn.”
Beyn. The distillation of the natural element of change, and a key ingredient in any alchemical compound.
“We all start off in Fundamentals year using one of the basic formulas for beyn. There are several associated with each affinity, and several known as balanced formulas, which use sources from all affinities. But as we learn, we begin to…experiment. To decide what works better for us, as individual alchemists, and to customize our recipes. By the time an alchemist reaches the master level—not the Mastery year, as a student, but the true master level of alchemy—they’ve developed their own very specific and personal beyn formula, and they usually guard it as a secret. ”
“But…alchemy is about making a better world. For everyone.” I twisted on the bench to face him. “Why would they deny others a better way to do that, if they have it?”
Wilder gave me a sad smile. “The ideal doesn’t always line up with the reality, Amber. Not just in alchemy, but in life.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“Alchemists here do their work on behalf of the world at large. They’re just often unwilling to disclose how that work gets done. Operations at the highest level have become a bit…proprietary.”
I frowned out at the quadrangle, squinting against the afternoon sun. “I don’t understand that.”
Wilder snorted. “You certainly did last week.”
I glanced sharply at him. “What does that mean?”
He sighed. “You’re…different now. More like you were when we first got here, I guess.”
I thought about that for a second, fighting a tight discomfort in my chest. “If you didn’t like me before, why were you in my bed, Wilder?”
“Oh, ouch.” He laid one hand over his heart and gave me a dramatic pout. “That’s a bit…reductive.”
“How so?”
“Well, first of all, I did like you.” He took my hand, winding his fingers between mine.
Stroking his thumb over my knuckles. “Never doubt that. Second, even if I hadn’t…
” He shrugged. “You don’t have to enjoy someone’s company in a conversational sense in order to enjoy it in a…
physical sense. Some ingredients complement each other on a dinner plate. Others combust upon contact.”
“Some couples are comfort food, like sautéed carrot with parsnip,” I said, “while others are saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal?”
“Precisely.” He grinned, squeezing my hand. “Incidentally, I’m making note of the fact that you listed three ingredients in that last scenario.”
I huffed at him. “Saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal are the primary ingredients in black powder explosives, Wilder.”
His right eyebrow hooked upward. “Oh, I know.”
I tugged my hand gently from his grip, despite my reluctance to lose the warmth of his touch. “And my affinity?” There hadn’t been a single scrap of color in my wardrobe. “Do I prefer none of them or all of them?”
Wilder snagged another bite of fruit from my pouch.
He frowned at it for a second, clearly trying to identify the dried morsel.
Then he turned that frown upon me. “Honestly, I have no idea. You were always very…circumspect. With your formulas, I mean. And your ingredients. In fact, your recipe for beyn was such a jealously guarded secret that you would only make it in private.”
I blinked at him. “Was I a master alchemist?”
He laughed. “No. You were a student.”
“Just like everyone else.” My face flamed at my own presumption. At my own ego.
“You were a student,” he said. “But not like the rest of us. That’s why she let you stay.”
“The Bluehelm?”
Wilder nodded. “She isn’t willing to let you go, if you could possibly recover your memories—your skill—because of what you could contribute to this place as a researcher.
Because any success you—and Des, truth be told…
” He shrugged. “Any success you two bring to the Alchemary would become part of her legacy.”
A bittersweet relief washed over me. My accomplishments should be part of my own legacy. But if the Bluehelm’s personal ambition was the only thing keeping me on the Alchemary campus—giving me a chance to recover my memories—so be it.
“You’re not the only one, though,” Wilder said as I fished the last dried cherry from my pouch. I gave him a puzzled look. “You’re not the only balanced affinity,” he clarified. “At least, I assume you’re balanced. I’ve never seen you show any preference.”
“Who else?” I asked around the last sweet, tart bite of cherry.
“Cressa.”
“The Bluehelm’s student aide?” I pictured her tight reddish ringlets and gray-ringed eyes. “Come to think of it, she does wear all three colors.”
Wilder shook out my empty handkerchief and folded it on his lap. “Some people say there isn’t really any such thing as balance. That everyone prefers one option at least a little more than the others, and anyone who claims otherwise is lying to themselves.”
“And what do you say?”
He smiled and pulled his cloak back to reveal a subtle row of rust-colored buttons on the asymmetrical line of his vest. “I say it doesn’t matter.
And it’s none of anyone else’s concern whether I have as much earth affinity as botany affinity, or which of those I choose to wear.
If at all. And the same goes for you. You like what you like. ”
I smiled and leaned left to bump his shoulder.
As we stood from the bench, a sudden commotion from the quadrangle drew my attention.
Five black-clad men ran along the southernmost of the long cobblestone paths stretching from one end of the quadrangle to the other.
They were headed east, toward where the Dormitory sat perched on a cliff, looking out over the sea.
As I watched, two students scrambled, startled, from the path to let them pass.
The men ran in unison, at a pace that did not suggest any urgency. In my experience, the only people who ran were children on an errand, adults responding to an emergency, and…
“Soldiers?” I asked as the men moved rapidly closer. “They’re…training?”
Wilder nodded. “The Crown stations a small number here, for emergencies. There are always two at the gate and two at the dock on the south side of the island, when a delivery is expected. A few more roam the campus, to ‘keep the peace.’ ”
I hadn’t noticed. Of course, I hadn’t been to the bridge or the dock, and I’d been too busy studying and avoiding my classmates to spend much time exploring the campus.
“That seems a bit—” My mouth snapped shut as the soldiers crossed in front of us on the path, and I realized with a start that the fifth, who ran at the tail of the formation, without a partner, wasn’t a soldier at all.
He wore a black tunic and loose, dark trousers that were similar but not identical to the others’, and his dark hair shone with caramel undertones in the sunlight.
“That’s Desmond,” I whispered, gripping Wilder’s arm. “Why is he training with the soldiers?”
Wilder huffed. “He’s picked up some strange habits in pursuit of apotheosis. But that one is beyond me.”
I could only stare as the runners passed us, and I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted that Desmond did not look my way. That he did not, in fact, seem to know I was there.
He ran with no visible effort, every stride long, and smooth, and strong. He was in total control of his form—of every joint and every muscle. Each movement seemed the perfect fusion of grace, coordination, and power.
Was this how he’d crossed my room in the blink of an eye, to avert my fall? Was he simply so in tune with his own physical form that it obeyed his impulses before they were quite fully formed?
Had Desmond begun his quest to perfect the human form…with his own?