Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
The truth of that stung. “Well, that won’t be a problem again. Even if I survive.” With that, I marched out of his apartment and slammed the door, grateful not to see any other staff members in the small, forest-facing courtyard.
I managed to hold back tears until I’d rounded the building and set off down the stone path, but they burst forth, uncontrolled, the very second I stepped out of sight from Desmond’s window. And the worst part was that I could not rightfully identify the cause.
It wasn’t just fear or frustration, though those were certainly among the villainous emotions battering the ramparts of my soul in that moment.
There was a deeper affliction. An ache with no source I could identify, as if I’d poked at a bruise and reawakened the pain but could not recall the initial impact.
I was angry at Desmond, as I had been weeks before, and again, I could not remember why. I was angry at myself for forgetting that long enough to enjoy the pleasures of his bed.
And worst of all was the fact that every step I took away from his apartment seemed to widen a chasm opening deep inside me, spilling forth a cold emptiness that I could not understand.
What was wrong with me?
Swiping tears from my face, swallowing hiccupping sobs, I hurried down the path through the woods, my gaze catching on various brightly colored and distinctive plants.
To distract myself from the maelstrom of unpleasant emotions storming inside me, I quizzed myself on their names, and to my utter surprise… I knew them all.
Fevervine, with its scarlet-hued veins twisting along plump, leathery, bluish ropes of plant material.
Devil’s root, arcing up from the ground in gnarled, charcoal- colored knots and twists.
Spiky hibiscus, with its bright pink leaves and deep, greenish- purple thorns.
When he was bored, Wilder sketched these plants in the margins of his “notes.”
The Alchemary woodlands had been cultivated carefully and deliberately in order to grow plants that were useful in alchemy—mostly to the Panacea division.
More than a century ago, according to my mother, special soil had been brought in by the cartload and mixed with the loamy earth of what was then a sloping field sparsely dotted with hardy trees.
The soil was sown with seeds from plants specially bred by the Alchemary, and since that time it had been constantly monitored by staff gardeners.
Within a few decades, the forest had exploded with trees and exotic plant life.
Plant life that was nurtured by soil infused with alchemy-specific nutrients so that the vegetation could be dried and ground, or boiled and reduced into specialized and concentrated versions of the very chemicals they had been grown in.
No other alchemists in the world had access to these ingredients.
To beyn and common formulas made from them.
Wilder often came to class with dirt beneath his fingernails and fresh scratches on his arms from harvesting elixir components in the middle of the night, and my interrogations about his illicit activity inevitably had shifted, at some point, into him good- naturedly quizzing me on the usage of the plants he’d purloined from the Alchemary forest.
Thinking about Wilder sent a fresh pang of guilt like a sledgehammer through my very soul, and I hurried through the woods, my steps clicking rapidly on the stone path, my breath puffing in the cold morning air.
At the end of the trail, I veered around the back of the Refectory and let my path arch toward the cliffside the long way, avoiding the quadrangle entirely.
I could not be seen like this.
I managed to avoid both students and staff members until I snuck up the steps at the center of the Dormitory’s ladies’ tower.
A figure stood at my door, fist raised to knock, and I knew who it was even before he turned at the sound of my steps.
“Amber?” Confusion crinkled Wilder’s brow. “Where have you been? Have you been crying?”
“It’s just nerves,” I told him. “I was in the Conservatory until late, then I just kind of…fell asleep.”
An omission of details wasn’t the same as a lie. Not technically. And there was no reason at all for me to feel guilty about that, considering how many details of our relationship he was still withholding from me.
And yet, I did feel guilty.
“How do you feel?” he asked as he followed me into my room. “Are you prepared? Has Desmond been generous with his experience?”
I flinched and could only hope he hadn’t noticed.
“I mean, he may not think you belong here, but he doesn’t want you dead,” Wilder continued.
“He’s done absolutely everything he can for me,” I confirmed, stung by my own unintentional double entendre. “I…um. I need to get ready. I’ll see you at the Conservatory, okay?”
Wilder frowned. “No, that is not okay. I don’t understand why you’re angry with me, and I can’t let that stand, when either of us could die today. You must forgive me, for whatever I’ve done.”
“I’m not angry.” I settled onto my desk chair and stared up at him. “I was a bit piqued, but with no real cause, I must admit, so…it is you who must forgive me.”
His smile burst forth like the sun breaching the horizon. “Then consider the matter settled. Meet me in the Refectory in half an hour, and I will have food and tea waiting. We can go over theories and strategy.”
In fact, we could. Though most of our cohort would not. The competition for a permanent position at the Alchemary was fierce, and most of our classmates would never give up their edge by working with a competitor. Not even for a friend or lover. But Wilder was not selfish.
He was also not particularly helpful, a fact he confirmed half an hour later, over porridge and tea, when his theories all amounted to guesswork and an alchemical instinct I could not understand.
He had written none of it down, and his explanations leapt from point to point in no logical order I could discern.
He would likely be the only Mastery student in the history of the Alchemary to carry precisely zero notes into the trial.