Chapter Twenty-Seven
I awoke in Desmond’s bed, and I could not tell, at first, whether I was relieved or disappointed to find myself alone.
The other side of the fine wool-and-feather-stuffed mattress was cold, as if he had not been abed in hours, and a shower of possible reasons flooded my thoughts.
None were pleasant.
Contrition. His regret about what we’d done was so strong that he could not pass the night at my side, yet he was too much of a gentleman to send me home, my thighs still damp, after our passion was spent.
Disgust. His needs sated, he now looked upon me the way I once looked upon an empty jug of ale Wilder had pilfered the morning after we’d drunk the entire thing when we were far too young to imbibe, any memory of my joy eclipsed by nausea and head pain.
As the possibilities chased each other through my thoughts, I rose and pulled on my clothing, shivering in the cold, empty room.
Though I’d hardly gotten a glance at it the night before, Desmond’s apartment was much finer than my own Dormitory room.
It even had a stone fireplace built into one wall.
But it was unlit, and though I knew very well how to build a fire, it was not my place to do so in someone else’s private space.
Instead, I stepped into my shoes and glanced around the chilly room for my satchel. But it was nowhere to be found.
The obvious conclusion—I’d left it in the Conservatory— triggered fresh panic as I turned toward the window, where I could see the sun just peeking over the eastern horizon, glowing across the top of the forest stretching down the slope of the island toward the southern shore.
Desmond’s view was different from the one visible from my own window, but no less beautiful. Yet I had no time to truly consider it.
Monday morning. The day of the Black Trial.
Fear swelled inside me like a gust of cold air, swirling up from my gut, blossoming into gooseflesh on my arms and legs.
I hadn’t finished my preparation.
I’d followed Desmond back to his apartment and rolled around in his bed until the early hours of the morning, lost in a passion that had been all-consuming for hours on end, but that now felt…
Like a death sentence.
Air rushed in and out of my lungs without lingering long enough to perform its function. The room swam around me. I sank onto the edge of the unmade bed, fists clenched around the bedclothes, listening to my chest rattle and wheeze as I hyperventilated yet was unable to stop it.
“Amber.”
Desmond had said my name at least three times before I was able to process the syllables. Before I could draw his face into focus as he knelt on the woven carpet in front of me. “Breathe. Slowly.”
But it wasn’t his advice that brought the world back into clarity and unlocked my lungs. It was rage.
“You left me.” My words carried the sharp, hot edge of a blade gleaming in firelight.
“I had to run an errand.”
“You left me. On Black Trial day. I’m likely going to die today, and you left me here to wake up alone.” Never mind the fact that if I’d slept in my own bedchamber, I’d have woken up alone anyway. Fear had swelled within me, leaving little room for logic.
“I went back to the lab to make this.” As he stood, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a sealed vial, just like the ones Wilder used. Only there was no handwritten label, and I did not recognize the color—the pale, sickly yellow—of the contents.
“What is it?”
“You need to drink it.”
“I will not, without knowing what it is.”
Desmond sat next to me on the bed, a puzzled, disappointed expression swirling slowly behind his eyes. “It is…a remedy. For a problem that only may exist. Because of last night. I swear on my soul that it will do you no harm. It will only prevent… conception.”
And suddenly the reality of what we’d done—of the potential consequences—hit me with the impact of the clock tower collapsing directly onto my unsuspecting body. Crushing me swiftly and terribly.
“Most women buy these in Saltstrand, which we have no time for. Or they get them from Wilder. Which is equally out of the question, for obvious reasons.”
I groaned, scrubbing one hand over my face as guilt rose like a behemoth to overshadow the other facets of my misery. “Wilder. What have I done?”
“No,” Desmond said firmly as he pressed the vial into my hand. “I do not know what passed between you and my brother the night you lost your memory, but I know for certain that you were not then, nor are you now, together as a couple.”
And yet…Wilder had been in my bed. I’d spent the past six weeks at his side—I cared for him—and—
“You have done nothing wrong, Amber.”
“And yet you brought me here in secret.”
His sigh carried the weight of the entire planet. “Because while you have done nothing wrong, the same might not be true of me.”
I frowned at him. “What does that mean?”
“It’s…complicated. Amber, drink the remedy. Please.”
“And if I don’t want to?” I stared down at it.
“That is your choice. Entirely yours. But I wanted you to have the option, and I strongly suspect that if you were thinking clearly right now, you would have already swallowed the entirety of that vial.”
He was right. I did not want a child. Not right now. Not when I had yet to graduate—to even survive—the Alchemary and could remember little of the past few years.
I thumbed the cork from the vial and swallowed the contents, grimacing as the bitter taste and viscous texture lingered at the back of my tongue. “That is loathsome.”
“So I’ve heard. If I could take it for you, I would. But despite the Alchemary’s attempts to perfect the human form, men are as yet incapable of conception.”
“I don’t understand what happened last night.”
He turned from his desk to give me a wry smile. “At the time, you understood well enough to have theories.”
I flushed at the memory of what I’d said and done. Of what I’d asked him to do.
Of his unflinching willingness—eagerness—to oblige.
I closed my eyes, and I could feel the ghost of his touch on my skin. I could still taste him. I could feel the firm strength of his form pressed against me. Over me. Arching beneath my hands, between my thighs.
No.
I shook my head, rattling the memories loose. Banishing them to the abyss that had swallowed more than two years of my life. “I don’t have time for this. I have to find my satchel. My notes. I need to go back to the lab and—”
“The Conservatory is closed,” he said. “For the trial. That’s why I had to leave so early—to get out before they posted attendants at the doors.”
“No…I need my notes, I can’t—”
A familiar plane of leather swung in front of my face, and I looked up to see my satchel dangling from Desmond’s left hand.
“Thank you!” I snatched it from him and threw open the flap. Everything appeared to be in order, though I had no memory of repacking my notes before we’d rushed across campus to his apartment, drunk on lust. Blind to all other concerns.
What in the name of eternal chaos had gotten into me?
“Amber, there’s something else.”
The solemn tone of his voice stilled my hand. I looked up.
“The Bluehelm met me on the path. She was headed this way, and if I hadn’t caught her, she would have shown up here at my door.”
“Why?” Unease churned in my belly.
“She wanted my opinion on whether you should be allowed to undergo the trial.”
“So, you got another chance to plead your case for my dismissal.”
“Yes. And so I did,” he confessed, holding my gaze.
“Even after…?” I glanced at his bed, where the bedclothes were still rumpled.
“Yes. You already know my opinion on this matter, and last night has no relevance to it.”
Of course it didn’t. Desmond was far too logical to let pleasure get in the way of his rational opinion.
Or even affection, should that actually exist. Though I was starting to believe that the older Gregory brother and I were saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal—destined to explode upon contact, yet unable to enjoy each other’s company.
I understood that his opinion wasn’t personal, and he’d been honest with me about that from the start. Thus it should not have stung. Yet a brand-new ache had formed just beneath my ribs, clutching me like a vise.
I inhaled slowly. Bracing myself for the inevitable. For a loss that would surely rival the loss of my memory.
“So then…I won’t be allowed to compete?”
“On the contrary,” he said. “I gave my opinion, but her next question was quite specific. She asked if you would be in greater danger than any other student in the Black Trial, and I had no choice but to truthfully answer that in my opinion, after six weeks of study, you are not the least proficient member of your cohort. At which point I was informed that you are passing both of your classes and your professors are both quite impressed with your progress.” He cleared his throat and looked distinctly displeased. “You will be allowed to compete.”
A jolt of anticipation fired throughout my entire body, lighting it on fire.
“I have to go bathe.” I stood and dropped the strap of my bag over my head, onto my shoulder. “And change clothes.” I stepped toward the door, but then Desmond’s left hand closed around my arm, before I even realized he’d stood.
“Just because you are not the least proficient does not mean there is no danger.”
“I am aware.” I pulled my arm from his grasp.
“Amber, you could die.”
“I—”
“You could just withdraw. There would be no shame in it, considering your memory loss. And I know you didn’t get to test all of your antidotes.”
I blinked up at him, anger firing through my veins. “Was that your plan all along? Distract me with carnal pleasures so that I am unprepared for the trial and have to withdraw?”
His eyes narrowed, his brows dipping in a look of censure that hurt all the more, considering how he’d looked at me just hours before. “You are the one who kept demanding more.”