Chapter 12
“This place is stunning,” my father admitted, staring down the length of the quadrangle. “You were right about that.”
From our bench in the Dormitory courtyard, we could see most of the campus, and our view of the Alchemary was much more peaceful than my experience of it had been over the past few days.
As we approached the end of the school day, students milled on the grass in the shade of shrubs shaped like animals and gathered on the steps of the Seminary, reading from their notes or chatting with friends.
Professors ambled down the cobblestone walkways in pairs or walked alone but with purpose, distinct from the students even at a distance, for their brightly trimmed regalia.
“I can see why you like it here.”
But how could he, when I couldn’t even remember what I’d liked about this place, other than my studies?
“Amber.” My father’s hand covered mine, and I turned from the view of the quadrangle to look at him. “Are you happy here?”
“I don’t know. I’ve told you, I can’t remember anything. How can I know if I was happy?”
“Are you happy here now?” he clarified. “Without your memory. Because you can always come—”
“No.” I sipped cooling tea from my mug and leaned back, grateful that we had the courtyard to ourselves, at least until my classmates headed toward the Dormitory to rest or study before the evening meal.
“Desmond says they don’t know what happened to you. I will admit, I am concerned. I’ve seen firsthand this new pestilence. The Crown seems…troubled. They’re keeping it quiet, of course, but more than one citizen of Innswood has been taken away in the dark of night, for quarantine and treatment—”
“Father—”
“—stiff as stone, skin tinted an odd flaxen hue. As if they were jaundiced. The gossip calls them aurums, and there seems no cure.”
“I’m not sick. You have my word.”
He nodded, silver hair gleaming in the sunlight. “Desmond agrees. He says they’ve found no evidence of injury or illness. Nor any indication that you did this to yourself. In the lab.”
I turned to him sharply. “Is that what you think? That I’m so incompetent as an alchemist that I…obliterated my own memory?”
“Of course not.” He turned to face me more directly, and I felt the full weight of his attention.
“I don’t know what kind of alchemist you are, because I haven’t seen you since you left home.
But I have never, since the day you were born, known you to fail at something you set out to do. And yet something must have happened.”
“I am not immune to curiosity on that subject myself,” I mumbled, frustrated to realize that several students were headed our way from the quadrangle.
“Neither is Desmond.”
Exasperation burned deep in my throat. “Why are we talking about Desmond Gregory?”
“He’s worried about you.”
“And…?” I demanded. “I assume there’s more to that?” Based on a tone of voice I remembered quite well.
“And…he wrote to me personally, apart from the official communication from the Alchemary. His letter arrived first. He must have paid to have it expedited by direct rider, and if I’d been home when it was delivered, I’d have left before the official correspondence even arrived.”
I sat silently for a moment, letting that tidbit ricochet through my thoughts. Hoping it would settle somewhere logical. “What did his letter say? Only that I’d lost my memory?”
“He didn’t mention your memory.” My father’s voice felt still and heavy, like fog clinging to my mother’s grave.
I turned to look at him again, at a loss for why Desmond would write to him without mentioning my amnesia.
“His letter was more of a note. It simply said you are in danger.” My father smiled at two Proficiency-year students as they passed us on their way toward the fountain, gazes lingering on his brown leather coat, cut in the distinctive Toolkeepers’ style. “And that I should take you home.”
I huffed, irritation tightening my grip on my mug as I lowered my voice. “If I am in danger from anyone, it is from him and his ego. He isn’t worried about me. He’s angry with me.”
“Why would that be?”
“I haven’t the slightest clue. Perhaps we had a falling-out. Or perhaps our friendship failed to thrive in a university setting. Maybe we are academic rivals—”
“He isn’t a student.”
I threw one arm up in frustration and could practically feel gazes turning my way.
“Then maybe our personalities are immiscible, like oil and water,” I whispered.
“Like molten silver and lead. Regardless, it is not Desmond Gregory’s place to decide where I should be.
He does not speak for the Alchemary. And he certainly doesn’t speak for me. ”
“He only wants to help—”
“He wants me sent home.”
My father sighed, watching a cluster of Fundamentals-year students as they settled onto the lawn nearby with textbooks and cloth-wrapped snacks. “Well, I cannot say I disagree with him in that regard.”
“Why do you hate this place?”
He chuckled. “Do I need a reason, beyond the fact that it’s stolen my daughter’s life from her?”
“You hated the Alchemary long before my amnesia,” I whispered, boldly meeting the stare of a boy in a rust-colored vest.
“I said nothing about your memory, Amber. I said it stole your life. Just like—”
“Don’t,” I snapped softly, pivoting back to my father. “Don’t conflate me with her. I am not my mother. And it wasn’t the Alchemary that stole her life.”
It was the fever.
And before that, it was him.
“Amber, my dear,” my father began, and there was an odd deliberation in his voice. As if he were, for the first time I could remember, hesitant to speak his mind.
What could possibly be the root of that development? The alchemy students eyeing my Toolkeeper father as if he were trespassing on their hallowed campus? Or some desire to repair the distance that had grown between us?
“If there are no signs of illness or injury,” he continued, “and if there was no accident in the course of your research…there are few explanations left for what could have caused your memory loss. Nor can we be entirely sure that amnesia was the intended result of…whatever happened.”
“Father—”
“But we can be certain that something happened. And as I’m sure you would agree, as a scientist, things do not happen spontaneously. There must have been a cause. A…catalyst?”
A sick feeling churned deep in my stomach. “What are you saying?”
He twisted to take my hands in a warm, iron grip, but his gaze skipped across the other forms now populating the courtyard, staring cooly at us even as they maintained their distance. “Someone has done this to you, my love.”
“No—”
“Someone here. At this institution,” he whispered. “Someone has hurt you, and we don’t know that the threat has passed. And you can’t remember what happened. You can’t remember who means you harm.”
“A scientist would not assume a scenario and look for evidence to support it. They would assess the evidence first, then draw a logical conclusion.”
My father frowned. “Is my conclusion not logical?”
“It is,” I had no choice but to admit. “But it isn’t the only logical conclusion, so it cannot be assumed.
Even if someone has done this to me—and I’m not prepared to say that is the case—we don’t know the intent was to hurt me.
It’s entirely possible that the goal was to eliminate me as competition.
Or to drive me from the Alchemary. Or simply to even the odds for one of my competitors, as I’m forced to spend time recovering my memory rather than preparing for the trials and maintaining my class rank. ”
“But—”
“You’re biased, and you’re letting that bias cloud your perceptions. You’re letting it lead you to conclusions that would give you what you want from this scenario.” My return to Innswood. “And there are plenty of people here who want the same thing. Any one of them could have been responsible.”
He leaned closer, lowering his voice even further. “Why would you want to stay here, if that’s a possibility?”
“Father!” I blinked at him, stunned by how hard he was working to resist comprehension.
“If someone resorted to sabotage in order to neutralize me as a competitor, I must be fierce competition. I must be truly gifted as an alchemist. And that makes me even more determined to stay here and face my enemies. To accomplish what I came here to achieve!”
I ignored all the students pretending not to stare at me, clearly trying to hear our argument over the flow of water from the fountain. I had eyes only for my father as I searched his gaze for some sign that what I wanted from life actually mattered.
“I understand that. But if I am right…” His forehead crinkled, his lips pressed thin. “If this place is as much a danger to you as it was to your mother—”
“I am not my mother.”
“And I thank the cosmos for that every day. It would break my heart if—”
“Don’t,” I repeated, sharper this time. “You don’t get to talk about her. You gave up that right.”
“Amber. My dear.” He exhaled slowly. “I didn’t leave because I stopped loving her. I never stopped loving her. Love was not our issue.”
“I know. It was just the wrong kind of love.”
He nodded. “She was my best friend. We were confused for a while about the nature of our relationship, but I won’t be sorry for that, even if we both got hurt, because we got you out of it.”
“I know.”
And the truth was that as angry as I was about the dissolution of their marriage, even a decade later, I would not begrudge him Martyn. And I would not deny Martyn my father.
It was not Martyn’s fault that my father left us. That his love for my mother was of the wrong sort to support marriage. I wasn’t so much angry at my father as I was angry for my mother.
“But that doesn’t change anything,” I continued. “She’s mine now. Whatever is left of her. Not yours.”
He nodded slowly, and I chose not to see the pain in his eyes.
“If that’s the way you want it.”
“It isn’t an issue of what I want. That’s how it is.”