Chapter 18
I dreamed of never-ending strands of alchemical scribbles—about bone and blood—and I woke before the sun came up on Sunday, desperate to know why the plaque in the Conservatory had been secretly marked with the symbol for sulfur, and why my blood had revealed it.
Could there be other, similar symbols concealed elsewhere on campus?
Unable to sleep further, my thoughts racing like a horse with its tail ablaze, I rose and went about my morning ablutions, eagerness buzzing in my fingertips and aching in my legs like cramped muscles impatient to move. I felt driven.
No, I felt pulled. As if someone were tugging at a cord fastened around some memory, taunting me from the impenetrable recesses of my own brain.
Had I seen that symbol before? Or another like it? Why had it set my sleeping mind and my waking impulses afire? Because I’d already trodden this path, though I could no longer remember? Because it was related to the loss of my memory?
Or simply because my brain was fatigued from trying to relearn two years of concepts and skills? Of dissolution, purification, calcination, coagulation, and distillation. Of alembics, retorts, vials, flasks, crucibles, and athanors. Was it any wonder I felt pulled toward something entertaining?
According to Wilder, I’d always been more entertained by my own exploits than by any ordinary bacchanalia.…
I pulled my hair into an efficient but somewhat unkempt bun, slung my satchel over my shoulder, and proceeded straight to the Seminary, where I spent the last half hour before dawn exploring the building in search of any more plaques made of bone.
My probe uncovered several interesting alcoves I could not recall having seen before, as well as sundry supply closets, faculty- only spaces—both offices and a rather posh-looking lounge—and more portraits of Emperor Eldon and Queen Avalona than I could even count.
The Alchemary was nothing if not grateful to its original benefactor.
But to my disappointment, I didn’t find a single plaque made from the ground bones of dead alchemists.
Even the large, ornate decorative plaque in the Seminary’s rear courtyard, commemorating the planting of the massive Avalona Oak in memory of the dead queen, was made out of cast iron, with gilded lettering.
I already knew, by virtue of living there, that there were no bone plaques in the Dormitory, and there were no signs of any kind at the Refectory. Which meant the remainder of my search could safely be limited to the Conservatory.
The sun peeked over the lush forest behind the Refectory as I crossed the quadrangle. The island sloped gently toward the coast on the west and south sides, so gradually that the ocean was not visible in those directions.
Candlelight gleamed from the windows of the Refectory—the kitchen staff began their work quite early—but I had yet to see a single student, researcher, or faculty member out and about, which was both advantageous to my mission and unsurprising on a weekend.
Beneath the Conservatory portico, I peered at a plaque bolted to the marble front wall.
It was identical to the one in the atrium: powdered bone, compressed with other binding ingredients into a malleable shape.
The commemorative statement—the year the building had been completed, along with brief verbiage about what that completion meant for the Alchemary—had been hand-etched into the surface, each line filled with delicate yet sturdy gold filigree, which stood out sharply against the soft white of the plaque itself.
Before I could think better of what could only be described as a terrible and impulsive plan, I pulled a pair of shears from my satchel and opened them.
For a moment, still largely shielded from the rising sun by the massive building, I held the blade over my open palm.
But I used my hands every minute of the day, and a large cut down the center of my palm would invite questions.
Especially if anyone noticed a bloody smear across the front of the plaque on the Conservatory’s portico.
I pushed up my left sleeve, then carefully—and somewhat hesitantly—I pressed the tip of one blade into the crook of my elbow.
But I found it unaccountably difficult to actually break the skin.
Cutting myself open felt counter to all instincts of self- preservation.
And yet…I wanted answers. So I pressed harder, clenching my jaw, holding my breath until I felt the dull slice of pain and an eerie popping sensation as my skin split.
The shears were not particularly sharp.
Blood welled around the metal tip, and I made myself press harder, despite the unease squirming in my gut like a snake through a marsh puddle.
Heart thumping, terrified that someone would round the corner of a building and see me, I dipped the fingers of my right hand into the palette of my left elbow as if they were the bristles of a gruesome paintbrush.
I took a deep breath, mentally girding myself against the bevy of bizarre questions and accusations that would surely assail me if I were caught—if unaccountably losing years of my own memory weren’t enough to get me committed to the closest asylum, I was fairly certain that desecrating the Conservatory with my own blood would do just that.
Then I swiped my messy fingers across the top right corner of the plaque in as orderly a manner as I could devise.
While I waited for a symbol to appear, I swiftly cut a strip of material from my underdress and used it to wipe excess blood from the plaque, cleaning up my mess as best I could.
I folded the cloth and pressed it into my wound, pinning it in place with my arm bent to stop the sluggish flow of blood while I stared out into the quadrangle to make sure it was still empty.
On the weekend, the morning meal wasn’t served until nine, and while researchers seemed a devout and dedicated bunch who often worked weekends, I’d never seen the Conservatory windows lit up at dawn.
When I turned back to the plaque, I was elated yet somewhat surprised to see that a symbol had appeared in precisely the same position as on the one in the atrium.
It was dim—a pale shadow of an image—and at a glance, since I’d wiped off the excess blood, all anyone would likely notice was a smudge on the corner of the plaque.
But I’d seen the pattern.
Quickly, I pulled my journal from my bag and scribbled the alchemical symbol—mercury—onto a blank page at the back. To the left of that, I wrote the symbol for sulfur. Then I scurried into the building, relieved to be sheltered from potential prying eyes.
I tiptoed past the marble benches built into the walls of the atrium and peered at the plaque by the stairs. My blood had almost entirely faded from view, as if the bone had absorbed it, and the symbol had disappeared along with it. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I’d never have known it was there.
Which made me wonder: Had the symbols been visible before, then faded away? Or could I possibly be the first to discover them? The latter possibility sent a thrill firing through my veins.
I headed up to the third floor.
An hour later, blood had crusted in the elbow of my frock, and a staunch little weed of hope grew in one neglected corner of my soul.
I arrived at the Refectory before there was any food to be served, so I sat at a table with a pot of tea, a sheet of parchment, and a hundred questions about the symbols I’d found on nearly every bone plaque mounted on a wall of the Conservatory.
All but one of them, in fact.
It was a formula of some kind. A list of ingredients, anyway. But for what? An elixir? The invisible ink itself?
For all I knew, I’d just discovered the components that would make the Philosopher’s Stone.
The very idea that I might have spent two years fruitlessly researching a list of ingredients that were literally written on the Conservatory walls made me chuckle, softly but somewhat hysterically.
Fortunately, there was no one around to see me laugh alone in the dining room, at my own notes.
If those ingredients could be combined to make the Philosopher’s Stone, they would have been, and the Stone would be known to alchemy.
Its creator would be the most famous and lauded alchemist in the world.
Alas, the Philosopher’s Stone was a legend, no more real than Emperor Eldon’s immortal love for his doomed queen. Much less real than that, in fact. His love had spawned stories, and statues, and paintings.
The Philosopher’s Stone had spawned nothing but overwrought rumors.
For whatever reason they’d been written—and hidden—the symbols were real. But what good was a list of components with no measures or instructions? Without any indication of what the mysterious formula would produce?
But perhaps, if I could find a formula that included all of—and only—those specific components…
Fortunately, Past Amber had taken copious notes on every formula she’d ever come across. So I pulled a thick stack of her notes from my satchel and started reading.
An hour later, food had been set out by the staff and sunlight slanted across my table from an uncovered window. I blinked against encroaching exhaustion. Adventure had been more than enough to keep me awake, despite my lack of sleep, but sedentary research, it turned out, was not.
Steam wafted toward my face as I poured a fresh cup of tea. The warm, fragrant mist was comforting. I took a long sip, and as I set the cup down, my free hand slid into the pocket of my cloak, my fingers curling around the smooth, cold vial hidden there.
Despite Desmond’s order to abstain—or perhaps because of it—I’d brought Wilder’s elixir of concentration with me.
The Refectory was usually sparsely populated in the mornings, a fact I’d learned quickly, but today, the few other students breaking their fast all seemed to be staring right at me. To my utter frustration.