Chapter 10 #2
Eldon and Avalona were carved in extraordinary detail, his arm curving around her back, both claiming and guiding her while she stared up at him adoringly, her right hand lightly clasped in his.
The famous Avalona Emerald on her finger had been stripped of its celebrated color by the marble, but not of its distinctive shape.
I stared up at the statue, stories from childhood swirling through a fog of nostalgia in my mind, until a familiar, bright male voice rang across the open space at my back.
“With funding contributed almost equally from the generosity of the Crown, alumni largesse, and profit from the Alchemary’s services to local communities, we are able to take on every student fortunate enough to be admitted at no cost to the pupil.”
I turned as Lennox Pettifog came to a stop in front of the Seminary, his short, dark curls fluttering slightly in the breeze, and a dozen other people stopped with him. Facing him.
He was leading a tour group.
I’d taken a tour of the campus myself once. The Gregorys had been kind enough to let me tag along, back when we were yet adolescents with ambitions of being admitted to the most prestigious alchemy institution in the world.
“As you can see, while the Alchemary is comprised of several buildings, the primary structures are the Conservatory, where our staff researchers work, developing new theories and techniques and exploring our three core disciplines.” He gestured across the quadrangle as he spoke.
“The Seminary, where instructors teach our student residents, the Dormitory, where our students live, and the Refectory, where we all take our meals. I’m going to take you— Oh!
” Lennox turned to face a young woman who had raised her hand. “Yes, there’s a question?”
“Where do the teachers—the professors—live?”
Lennox smiled brightly, his freckled cheeks bunching with the expression.
“Most of the support staff have homes and family across the bridge in Saltstrand, but the resident members of our faculty—including most of the professors and researchers—are housed in separate apartments at the rear of the campus, where they have the space and privacy befitting permanent members of the Alchemary. That building is not on our tour.”
In the four days since I’d woken up on campus, I had yet to see the faculty apartments, though I knew they were tucked just on the edge of the forest, beyond the south side of the quadrangle on the path toward the southern beach and its dock.
The tour continued and I turned toward the Dormitory, but before I’d made it more than a few steps, purposeful footfalls drew me from my thoughts.
I looked up to find Professor Bollinger, my Ethics and Advancement of Alchemy instructor, deep in conversation with Professor Edmiston, her mass of silver curls almost tamed by a cobalt kerchief draped over them and tied at the base of her skull.
They came from the direction of the Refectory, each holding a cloth-wrapped bundle mottled with damp spots that could have been either grease or juice leaking from their lunches.
Both of my current professors—each of whom had asked me to come see them at my earliest convenience—were headed right for me, when I’d been avoiding them for a full day.
I was planning to meet with them. They’d been informed of my condition, and I owed them a conversation. But I wanted to have a better grasp on the basics before being ensnared in a private discussion with two experts in the field.
I swiftly rounded the royal statue and kept myself out of sight until I heard them ascend the stairs of the Seminary, still deep in conversation.
When I was sure they had disappeared into the building, I stepped out from behind the statue, clutching my satchel as I waited for my pulse to slow to its normal pace.
Unfortunately, I found myself staring into a set of deep brown eyes, irises so dark they looked like the depths of my morning cup of tea.
I recognized the young man from class—the chin stubble he’d regrown by nine in the morning was difficult to forget—and though I’d caught him looking at me several times, we had yet to exchange a single word. That I could remember, anyway.
“Amber Fallbrook,” he said.
“Pryce Wishart.” I was unreasonably pleased to have a name to throw back at him.
One bushy brow hooked steeply over a tea-brown eye, one corner of his mouth teasing upward. “Were you just concealing yourself behind Queen Avalona’s marble skirt? From our professors?”
“I— No. Of course not. I was just…looking for something.”
His grin widened. “And would that something happen to be your dignity?”
“No, I—” I sighed as his other brow rose to mirror the first. “Well, I suppose it might be dignity-shaped, at least.”
Pryce laughed, his head thrown back to reveal two rows of perfect white teeth. “Why would you, of all people, be hiding from the faculty?” When I had no answer, he leaned in to mock whisper, “They know where you reside. They will discover you.”
I blinked slowly, struggling for a reply. “I’m not hiding. I’m just…delaying the inevitable, I suppose. They’ve both asked to see me, and I don’t really want to meet with them. At the moment.”
Pryce only watched me, clearly waiting for more.
“I’m a little behind, academically,” I finally admitted.
He rolled those dark brown eyes, skepticism on display. “How is that possible? You’ve gone through an entire inkwell in two class periods. You’ve taken more notes than Professor Edmiston even brings to class, so—” He bit the words off, gaze narrowing on me. “Unless you’re not taking notes at all.”
Pryce stepped back, crossing his arms over the front of his blue vest, his gaze lingering long enough to discomfit. “You’re behind because you haven’t paid a single bit of attention, have you? You’re working on your research project in class, right there in front of the professor.”
It wasn’t a question. He’d drawn what must have felt like an iron-clad conclusion.
Pryce leaned closer, his boots grinding in the bed of crushed marble. “When are you going to tell us what you’re working on?”
“I…cannot.”
He scoffed. “You’ve been saying that for a year. But truthfully, Amber, there are no hard feelings, at least on my part. You can tell me what you’re up to.”
I blinked at him, and he mistook my confusion for surprise.
“Honestly.” He laid one thick hand over the front of his vest, ostensibly covering his heart.
“I was furious at first, obviously, but you were right. I overcame the passion of my anger. And I’d truly love to know what you’re working on.
And where you’re working. Have you been allotted a private lab? ”
“A private…?” What in the name of mayhem was he talking about? Why would the Alchemary award private lab space to a student?
He shrugged. “Well, you’re obviously not set up alongside the rest of us.”
“Oh. I—” I had no answer for that, and the faint shine of envy in his eyes triggered an uncomfortable itch beneath my skin. “I swear to you that I’ve not been afforded any resources denied the rest of the class.”
“Oh, I know. You’ve earned everything you’ve gotten, haven’t you?” He was still smiling, but his words sliced with a blade’s edge, though I couldn’t quite fathom the meaning.
“I have to go.” I stepped around the nearest curved bench onto the lawn, more unnerved than angry, though I felt like I should be angry.
I marched down a cobblestone path in a random direction, my stolen textbooks forgotten until I’d managed to collect my thoughts, several minutes into the unnecessary detour.
Frustrated, I turned to find that Pryce had perched himself on the front steps of the Seminary, a book open on his lap, where he was now talking to Keryth Malcom. Both of them watching me.
I couldn’t suddenly reverse my course without practically admitting that I’d had no destination in mind when I’d fled Pryce, and that I had let him fluster me to the point of a mental fog.
The only logical way to save face was to keep marching forward, as if I’d intended to head straight for…the Conservatory. Its smooth, hulking exterior rose before me, sunlight glaring off the gray-veined white marble.
Surely I could sneak out the back and go the long way around the quadrangle, headed east behind the Refectory, and approach the Dormitory from the southern side.
Arrogantly determined, I marched up the front steps and into the atrium of the Conservatory, my heels echoing on the smooth, slick stone.
Other than a few benches built into the walls and a commemorative plaque hanging near the base of the staircase, the atrium was empty.
It was brutally austere, in stark contrast to the inviting wood panels and well-worn rugs of the Seminary.
Even the torches hanging at fixed intervals on the curved walls shone brightly, their flames unnaturally white.
The atrium—and presumably the entire building—felt cold and bare. Harsh and unforgiving. Unwelcoming.
Why, I could not help wondering, had I been so determined to earn a place here, when this building felt like a terribly unpleasant place to work?
Shivering more from the ambience than the temperature, I glanced around in search of some obvious path toward the back of the building, but the round front chamber offered only two possible routes forward.
The broad staircase curving along the rounded left wall or a set of doors at the back of the atrium opening into the Panacea wing and the infirmary.
I would not go unnoticed in the infirmary.
Which left only the front door, which represented a total retreat and admission of defeat, and the stairs: a deeper commitment to my own fraud.
I exhaled as my gaze traced the staircase, rising in graceful curves past the second floor and up to the third. The atrium stretched that entire height, and…
I blinked, a gasp slipping from my throat into the weighty silence of the imposing space, as my gaze found the ceiling.
“Oh my…”