Chapter 17 #2
“No. I’m fine.”
He lifted my hand higher, and I resisted the urge to squeeze his fingers. To steal more of their warmth. “What did you take?” he asked, tilting my hand so that the light shone on it more fully.
“What do you mean?”
“Did Pryce give you something tonight? Force an elixir upon you? Did you drink or eat anything in his presence?”
“No, I—” My teeth clicked shut, and his gaze snapped up to mine.
“Amber?”
“It wasn’t him. I…Wilder makes an elixir that can help you concentrate. Help you stay awake, and…Well, I’ve had a lot of late nights, trying to catch up with what I should know already.”
He scowled, and I scrambled to change the subject.
“How did you know? You can see that in my blood?”
“There are always side effects. Do not take anything Wilder gives you.”
“But it works.”
“It’s unproven.” His voice hardened. “Unapproved. Untested. It’s dangerous.”
“He’s helping.” I pulled my hand from his grip, and I felt the loss of it like an ache deep in my bones.
“And anyway, I have little choice. I have to study at night to catch up, and that’s also the only time I can work in the lab without the rest of my cohort realizing I’m not at their level.
Which feels like a moot point now. Pryce knows.
And now that I’ve rejected his ‘proposal,’ he’s going to tell them. ”
Desmond waved that off as if it didn’t matter. “They were always going to find out. But you won’t be working in that lab anymore, anyway.”
“I don’t have any other—”
“There.” He glanced over my shoulder and through the door at his own lab. “I have more than enough space.”
“Desmond, I can’t work in your lab.”
He arched one brow at me. “Where do you suppose you worked all of last year?”
I could only blink at him. “I couldn’t possibly have—”
“Proficiency-year students don’t have a dedicated lab space, because most don’t start their independent research until the third year. You worked here with me for your entire second year at the Alchemary.”
Alongside him. Not truly with him, surely.
“Why would…Desmond, why would you offer me lab space, if you’re trying to get me kicked off campus?”
“I’m trying to have you removed in part for your own safety, and—”
“In part?”
“—given that goal, it would be hypocritical of me to abandon you to an unsafe work environment when I could offer you a secure space instead. Especially considering that I’ve made no headway with the Bluehelm.
She’s decided you’re in no danger until the Black Trial, and she will reassess your progress at that time, assuming you continue to pass your classes.
” He set the bloodstained cloth on his desk, then gently lowered my hand onto my own thigh.
“Of course, this incident might change her mind.”
“And if it doesn’t? You clearly don’t enjoy my company,” I said, and Desmond huffed again, but he did not argue. “Is that because we did not get along, as lab partners? Would that be an issue this time?”
“That was never our issue, Amber. We’ve always been able to respect each other—”
“As ‘rational individuals.’ So you said. What was it, then? Why don’t I deserve to be here? You disapprove of my field of study? Of my work on the Philosopher’s Stone?”
Desmond’s gaze held mine with a weight I could not measure. With some internal conflict I could not understand, as if two discrete halves of him were at war. “I have no problem with your field of study. But I could not always condone your…methods.”
A strange tightness spread throughout my chest. Desmond’s disapproval felt bitter and humiliating, as if I’d disappointed a mentor or a favorite instructor.
Had he been my mentor?
How thoroughly must I have let him down, if he wanted me removed from the entire island even though I couldn’t remember my missteps?
“I don’t want to crowd you,” I finally whispered.
He gave me another look I could not interpret. “There’s plenty of space. You’ll have your own section of the lab, and your own supplies. I’ll have your proportion of the student allotment transferred here, and you’re welcome to anything of mine that you need.”
“Why?” I asked, before I could even fully work out what I meant. “Why would you do that for me, if you don’t believe I deserve to be here?”
Desmond’s focus seemed to narrow on me. To sharpen. “Because removing you from the student lab will keep you safe from Pryce Wishart.” His words, too, took on a honed edge. “And it will keep the rest of your cohort safe from you. Even if that means I’m forced to…supervise.”
Indignation blazed beneath my skin, but I swallowed it, denying him a glimpse of how deeply his words stung. “Why would they need to be protected from me?”
“Because the fact that the Alchemary is a danger to you is only one half of the equation. The other half—equally relevant to my efforts to have you removed—is that you are a danger to the Alchemary.”
I could not fathom how I could be a danger to the entire institution, but the fact that he clearly believed what he was saying left me too hurt and exhausted to argue further.
“Very well,” I said. “I will move in tomorrow. But consider yourself warned: You may be getting more than you bargained for.”
His narrow-eyed censure faded into a sad look that deepened the ache in my chest. “Alas, Amber, I know exactly what I’m getting into.”
As I stepped down from the bottom stair tread into the Conservatory atrium, my gaze caught on the scroll-shaped plaque on the wall.
Not on Desmond’s name and office number this time, but on an odd smear on the top right corner, just beneath the top roll of sculpted parchment.
With a sinking feeling, I realized that the blood I’d accidentally smeared there had stained the plaque itself, to which the metal nameplates were attached.
How was that possible?
I moved closer to examine the plaque, wondering if it were made of some kind of porous stone, but it was smooth, both to the eye and to the touch. This one was about the height of my forearm and the width of three of them laid side by side.
Bone.
The answer came to me with a start.
Staff alchemists were permanently appointed to the Alchemary, and not just for life.
When one died, hopefully after a long tenure spent serving the institution itself as well as the field of alchemy, that alchemist’s body went on to serve the cause in every way possible.
That last sacrifice was considered a true honor and the sign of a scientist thoroughly dedicated to the craft.
Bones, I knew, had many uses, most of which required them to be purified, then dried and ground into a fine powder. Which could then be distilled, mixed into various solutions, or…used as the primary ingredient in a compound that could be baked into any shape, both functional and decorative.
Alchemists, I’d learned, could become forever a part of the Alchemary they’d served.
But how had I learned that?
My father.
The memory came all at once. My mother had been regaling me with tales of the wondrous academy, of colorful elixirs and suspensions with miraculous properties, and my father had interrupted to accuse the founders of “ghoulish proclivities.” Of testing their arcane products on the bodies of deceased colleagues, distilling fluids from corpses donated to the institution, and sometimes using those same bodies to fertilize the soil.
When my mother dismissed that as utter nonsense, he’d told us both about the bone plaques, and that he’d once seen the recipe for how they were created, in a tome of Toolkeeper secrets, which he should—admittedly—not have been revealing, even to his beloved family.
My mother had shrugged off his story as just that—legend with little basis in truth—and scolded him for telling such a gruesome tale to a child.
But his story had stuck with me. And now I was staring at evidence of its accuracy. What else could this plaque be, sculpted into such a specific shape, beyond what was possible with molten metal poured into a mold?
Wonderful. I’d ruined another priceless and irreplaceable architectural element, this one formed from the final, corporeal donation of an alchemist so dedicated to his craft that he’d wanted to live on forever as a literal part of the Alchemary.
At least this time no one would know I was responsible. And considering how disinterested most of the staff alchemists seemed to be in anything that happened outside of their laboratories, it could be weeks before any of them even noticed.
I ran one finger over the top right edge of the plaque, above the nameplates, frowning at the strange shape my bloody handprint had left.
Nearly a quarter of my palm had landed on the plaque, smearing most of the corner with my blood, but it hadn’t soaked in evenly. In fact, the stain seemed to have…
I sucked in a breath and backed away from the plaque. Then I stepped forward again, squinting. My blood had not simply been absorbed everywhere it had been smeared. Rather, it seemed to have reacted with the plaque in specific places. In faint but distinct shapes.
An upward pointing triangle mounted on a balanced cross: the alchemical symbol for sulfur.
My blood had revealed writing hidden in the bone.