Chapter 12 #2
We sat in silence for several minutes, sipping lukewarm tea. Picking at the currant bread on the bench between us.
Finally, he sighed. “Desmond says the trials—”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Amber—” His voice broke on the second syllable, fracturing my name into a thousand shards.
A thousand pinpricks of pain. “I can’t lose you, too.
” He lifted a cloth to his eyes and swiped brusquely at them, as if the goal were to eradicate his tear ducts, rather than simply to absorb the moisture. “I won’t.”
“No,” I assured him. “You won’t.”
“You don’t have to do it.”
“Of course not.” I stared straight ahead, letting the students still milling about in the courtyard blur as my unblinking eyes went dry. “If I haven’t recovered my memory or relearned enough alchemy to give myself a fighting chance, I won’t do it.”
But it wouldn’t come to that.
“Promise me.”
“Father…”
“If you want me to leave you here—if you want me to give my word to Martyn that you are safe, and I didn’t just abandon you to the wolves that devoured your mother whole—you will promise me.”
“Fine. But that’s the last time you are allowed to wield either my affection for Martyn or my mother’s memory like a weapon.”
My father nodded, smiling tenuously. “That seems a fair exchange. Your word for my…laying down of emotional arms.”
“In that case, you have my word,” I lied.
My father swiped at his eyes one last time.
Then he pocketed his handkerchief and broke off another hunk of Martyn’s currant bread.
“Did you know that Toolkeepers laid every stone on this campus?” he said, plainly trying to change the subject to something less emotionally volatile.
He’d raised his voice, more than willing to educate Alchemary students on the illustrious history of his profession.
“One hundred fifty years ago, when we were all unified under one guild, but led by the—”
“Stonemasons,” I finished. I’d heard the story at least a hundred times, but he never tired of telling it.
“Indeed. We have always accepted the burden of leadership.”
“A selfless act, no doubt.”
He chuckled. “Toolkeepers’ legend has it that while the Crown commissioned the Seminary’s design from its own architects, the Conservatory was designed by the royal alchemist, Lord Calyx himself.”
I pictured the father of alchemy as he stood next to the emperor in the atrium’s stained glass. “Really?”
“That building was his passion toward the end of his life, when his scientific pursuits proved…fruitless.”
“They weren’t fruitless,” I snapped. “Calyx set the Alchemary down the path of its most noble pursuits; not every farmer gets to harvest the fruit of his own labors.”
My father’s brows rose. “It seems propaganda has proven immune to your amnesia. How much have you remembered?”
“None of it. Not a single day spent here, before this week.”
“I see.…” He nodded slowly, and I could tell from the tight line of his jaw that he did see.
I’d known the history of the Alchemary since I was a child, and it wasn’t from propaganda.
It was from bedtime stories.
Half an hour later, we’d spoken on topics that could be addressed and eschewed those that still could not, and though I couldn’t remember the absence from my father, I felt content for the moment to have him near, despite the gulf that lay between us.
Perhaps because of it.
With a sigh, my father set his teacup on the bench and stood, clearing his throat rather formally.
“Well, Amber,” he said, collecting his satchel from the ground as I stood.
“I do hope you’ll see fit to come visit this year.
You could travel with the Gregorys, or I could send a carriage.
Or I could arrange to have work nearby, around the time of your holiday, and fetch you home myself, if you wouldn’t entirely detest a couple of days spent on the road with your father. ”
I extended my hand for him to shake. “You have my word that I will consider it.”
My father’s palm slid against mine, his fingers gripping my own warmly.
He held my hand for a moment, looking right into my eyes.
“And should this entire proposal prove little more than an old man’s whimsy…
” A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth and at what had become, since I’d last seen him, a rather spectacular silver mustache.
“A simple correspondence from my daughter would not go amiss. I should dearly love to know when you’ve recovered your memories, and what astonishing feats this malady has hidden from you. ”
“Those would likely be alchemical feats,” I informed him. “And you have little stomach for the practice.”
“Indeed. But I have nothing in this wide world but affection and pride for my daughter. Even if her interests oppose my own.”
“In that case…” I took a deep breath. “There is a Family Weekend coming up soon. I hear there’s a festival on the first night. You would not be unwelcome, should you and Martyn choose to attend.”
My father leaned in and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I will do my very best.”
After he had gone, I turned to clear away our teacups, and I found his handkerchief lying on the bench, where it had fallen from his pocket.
For no reason I could understand, I picked up that handkerchief, still damp with his tears, and I stuffed it into the pocket of my frock.