Chapter 17
My gulping breaths reverberated around me in the narrow eastern stairwell as I raced down two flights of stairs, then down the central corridor and out through the front doors.
I burst into the quadrangle, gasping for air, tears burning in my eyes.
I slung my satchel over my shoulder, dimly noting how cold the wind felt against the back of my injured right hand.
Then I took off across the grass, with no destination in mind.
My feet moved of their own accord, my brain still mired in the shock of what I’d done as I weaved between hulking topiary sculptures that looked ominous, swathed in the moonlight, though they looked almost whimsical during the day.
I didn’t realize where I was going until I found myself in the first-floor atrium of the Conservatory. Why did my legs keep bringing me here, all on their own?
The scroll-shaped plaque by the stairs caught my eye again, and again Desmond’s name held my gaze. He would know whether I should formally apologize to Pryce and the school, offer to work off the debt, or just write to my father to come get me so I could slink off in quiet disgrace.
No.
My spine straightened, my fist clenching around the strap of my bag. I would not leave.
As scared and embarrassed as I was—as angry and flustered— that was not an option.
My head fell back, and the sight of the moon shining through the spiraling display of leaded glass overhead sent a wave of nausea through me. It was a stunning reminder of the art I’d just destroyed. Of why and how that had happened.
I swiped tears from my face with my left hand and turned toward the staircase, leaning for a moment against the wall to catch my breath, to breathe past the nausea, and when I straightened, I realized I’d left a smear of blood across one edge of the plaque bearing Desmond’s name, just below the top roll of the sculpted scroll.
Cursing softly, I wiped it clean with one edge of my cloak, then I took the steps two at a time, all the way to the second floor, racing through a rainbow of colors cast by moonlight shining through the glass panels in the ceiling.
I forced myself to walk down the hall like a sane person, instead of racing as if an entire pack of wolves were on my trail, and only when I stood outside of Desmond’s suite—his name still appeared alone on the slate—did it occur to me that there was essentially no chance he’d be inside at this time of night.
And even if he were, he was more likely to capitalize on the broken stained glass to get me removed from campus than to give me any true advice.
Dejected, I turned from the door without knocking and headed toward the stairwell, the back of my right hand pressed against my cape to keep blood from dripping on the white marble floor.
I was halfway down the hall when the squeal of hinges echoed startlingly all around me.
“Amber?” Desmond’s voice washed over me, and I froze. “What’s wrong?”
I turned to find him studying me from the doorway, most of which his broad form occupied. His gaze raked over my tear-damp face, and he frowned, a thunderous expression I couldn’t quite interpret.
Then he stepped to the side and held the door to his suite open. “This way,” he ordered.
As unreasonable as it felt, I wanted to object, more to his tone than to his offer. But considering how much trouble I was in…
Desmond’s office was a small, neatly organized lamp-lit room attached to his private lab space. He sank into his desk chair, the only one in the room, and motioned me forward.
My feet would not move. Not even the few steps from the doorway to his desk.
With a sigh, he stood and took my left hand, calloused fingers warm in mine, and tugged me forward patiently until we stood in front of his chair.
But instead of sinking into it, he gently lifted my satchel from over my head and set it on the floor, propped against his perfectly ordered bookshelf.
Then he lifted me by my waist, without even a grunt of effort.
I gasped at his touch and felt my face flush, even as I grasped at the slopes of his biceps to steady myself. Before I could form thoughts coherent enough to truly question what was happening, he turned and set me on his desk.
A soft sound escaped my throat, and though I could ascribe no specific meaning to it—no intent at all; it was pure reaction—Desmond’s mouth quirked into a private little smile that was gone almost before I’d seen it. That smile sent a shower of sparks to explode in my belly.
I clenched my teeth and avoided all analysis of what that might mean, other than that I was in shock and in pain, and nothing made sense at the moment.
He sank into his chair, which put him at eye level with my breasts and made me reluctant to breathe too deeply, even though he wasn’t looking. “Give me your hand,” he ordered softly.
“No.”
I don’t know why I said it. He was trying to help.
But I was angry at him. And not for any of the myriad reasons that could logically have justified the emotion.
Not because he wanted me gone, or because he’d written to my father without my knowledge.
Not because he’d met with my father in secret, where they’d discussed my future without my participation.
Not because he was clearly trying to remove me from authority over my own life.
I was mad at him—furious—on a deeper level, for some reason I could not remember. Was that obscure reason also the cause of his ire at me?
“No?” He sighed again and looked straight into my eyes.
The left side of his face was lit by the lamp burning on the desk, and the flicker of light and shadow only emphasized the strong, well-proportioned features he shared with Wilder—and the coloring he did not.
“Why won’t you give me your hand?” he demanded in a soft, impatient growl.
“Because I’m angry with you.”
Amusement flashed across his expression, followed by what I could only describe as the briefest flicker of nostalgia. Of…settling in. As if he’d just entered a room he remembered fondly.
But then it was gone.
“What, may I ask, does your anger have to do with the injury you’re hiding from me?”
“Not a thing,” I admitted. “But you cannot possibly expect me to obey just because you’ve given an order. I remember nothing of my adult life before I lost my memory, yet I am absolutely certain that I did not obey orders just because they were given.”
That amusement was back, and this time it clawed at my nerves, fraying my patience.
“No,” he confirmed with a sharp shake of his head.
“You have never been what I would characterize as compliant.” He cleared his throat and looked up at me without a hint of a smile.
“May I please see your hand so I can do you the favor of assessing and treating the wound?”
I hesitated for another second. Then I held out my right hand, bloody knuckles up. “You may. And thank you.”
He examined my hand without touching it at first. Then he leaned to one side and pulled a rounded leather bag into his lap. I recognized it as a laboratory aid kit, mostly used when someone sustained a burn or cut themselves on broken equipment.
“That is not from a busted beaker or pipette,” he said. “The cut would be on your palm. Or a finger.” His voice hardened a bit. “What have you done, Amber?”
“In my defense,” I began, “I was attempting to resist prostituting myself under duress in exchange for help in remedial alchemy. But the result was somewhat less effective than I might have hoped, and the short end of it is that the mastery cohort lab space is now missing a gorgeous leaded glass window.” I sighed miserably.
“Half of it, anyway. Though I suspect that if it is removed for repair, what remains of the glass will crumble.”
Desmond’s hand stilled inside the aid bag. His gaze snapped to mine. “You were assaulted?”
“I suppose,” I said, though I had not considered it in that light. “And in return, I inadvertently assaulted the leaded glass window.”
“Wilder?” he almost growled, his pupils tightening to little more than dark pinpricks within the coppery-brown depths of his irises. “Is that why you’re here?”
Confusion made me physically recoil for a moment, and the rage burning within his visage kept me trapped in that moment even longer. “No! Of course not. Why would you even think—”
“You were in the lab, in the middle of the night. Wilder is the only one who…” His words faded, evidently as my denial sank in. Some of the fire was extinguished from his expression, but the rest smoldered there, ready to flare at any moment.
“Does everyone know about that?” I asked. “About his…nighttime activities?”
Desmond huffed as he pulled a clean cloth from the bag and folded it into a neat square. He took my right hand in his left and began to gently blot the blood from my wounds. “Who was it?” he asked as he worked, without looking up from my hand.
His skin was warm and rough in places, calloused in a way I would not have expected from a man who’d spent the past five years in classrooms and labs.
And…training with soldiers, evidently?
He looked up, and my gaze swam in his until I felt like I was drowning. “Amber?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I finally said.
“It most certainly does. This bully could have something to do with what happened to your memory. And he’s obviously still a threat.”
I shook my head. “He found out about my amnesia from eavesdropping. I practically caught him. Before that, he truly had no idea.”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t responsible for it. Amnesia could be an unintended consequence of something he did. Something he…slipped into your tea.”
“I suppose that’s possible.” Pryce was furious with me about something, after all.
“I need a name,” Desmond insisted.
I sighed. “Pryce Wishart.”
His jaw clenched. “I will deal with him.”
“What does that mean?”
“Are you hurt? Beyond this?” He lifted my hand, and when it caught the light from his lamp, he frowned at my wounds, as if he were just then seeing them.