Chapter 32
Yoslyn popped up off a weathered wooden bench when I stepped out of the ladies’ tower and into the Dormitory courtyard. “Amber!” she called as she crossed the expanse of cobblestone between us, scattering crunchy brown leaves with every step. “I’ve hardly seen you in days!”
Days was a bit of an exaggeration. I had snuck home alone thirty-six hours earlier during the chaos caused by the aurum—an employee of the Beaker—because I had no idea what to say to Wilder.
Unfortunately, slipping out of the alley without even a word to him after he’d kissed me—in public—had left me crawling with guilt and smoldering with embarrassment.
I’d spent all of Tuesday in my room, studying, drinking cold tea, and nibbling on stale bread I’d snuck out of the Refectory during my trial prep.
Poorhouse food, Wilder would have called it.
But any pauper would be grateful for the warmth and luxury of my private room and soft bed, so rather than feeling sorry for myself, I’d buried myself in studies.
I had one month until the White Trial, which took some of the pressure off and gave me time to continue relearning the alchemy basics alongside my trial prep.
“Shall we break our fast?” Yoslyn fell into step beside me as I headed out of the paved courtyard into the quadrangle. “You like to eat in the morning, do you not?”
“I do,” I conceded. “But if that isn’t your custom…”
“Honestly,” she whispered, leaning closer, “I would love to. I always thought I’d appear a glutton, eating the moment I rolled out of bed, but you’ve inspired me to indulge my more fleshly appetites.
And not just with food.” She waggled her eyebrows at me salaciously, and my face warmed when I realized what she was referring to.
Wilder’s kiss.
“Food is fuel,” I said, ignoring her implication.
“You need food in the same manner that a fire needs kindling or oil. If you eat in the morning, you will find that your stamina is robust and your thoughts flow faster and more clearly, like the current in a strong river, rather than the stagnant waters of a pond.”
“Well!” Yoslyn huffed, eyes wide. “Food is fuel,” she repeated. “Both fire and water. What a beautiful, alchemy-themed metaphor as an excuse for our morning indulgence!”
“Life is alchemy,” I told her.
And alchemy was life.
Wilder did not appear in the Refectory, but that did not stop Yoslyn from talking about him as she sipped her tea and nibbled almost reluctantly at an edge of toast.
“Of course, it’s not unusual to see him pay special attention to someone at the Beaker.
You certainly don’t remember this—and I hope I’m not speaking out of turn—but he has been known to drink to excess, and the forces of chaos know there is no limit to the man’s charm.
He was quiet as a Fundamentals-year student, but by Proficiency year, he was the very life of the party.
And there was that thing, briefly, between him and Petyr.
Which Petyr was always trying to rekindle. ”
She frowned with her teacup halfway to her mouth, and I doubted she would manage a single sip before it went cold.
“I wonder how poor Petyr’s death is affecting Wilder?
Maybe that’s why he was a bit excessively merry last night.
As a method of coping, I mean. My point, though, is that while it’s not unusual to see Wilder enjoying himself in the company of a particularly attractive classmate”—her gaze flashed briefly, pointedly at my entire visage—“it is unusual to see him leave the Beaker alone.”
I drank the last of my tea and gathered our dishes onto the wooden tray, doing my best to scrub all emotion from my face.
She had no way of knowing how guilty I felt, or how unsure I was about how I would normally have reacted to a kiss from Wilder.
And for one careless moment, I almost asked her.
I almost asked a classmate whether or not Wilder and I had been an acknowledged couple before I’d lost my memory.
Just because Desmond didn’t know about it didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
My mouth opened, and I could feel the traitorous question clawing its way up my throat, where it sat heavy on the back of my tongue, waiting to pounce.
“Yoslyn,” I said as I backed slowly away from the table, clutching the tray tightly enough to press splinters into my palms. “Are you aware of the secret code written into the bones of dead alchemists bolted into the walls of the Conservatory?”
I hadn’t meant to tell her. Even three hours later as we stood on the second floor of the Conservatory, eschewing a midday meal with our classmates in order to stare at a plaque at the back of the hallway, I could not entirely understand how the revelation had come forth.
The mind was a complicated thing, and sometimes it reacted in defense of the body—of the psyche—in ways we were not prepared to fully understand.
At least, that was the closest I could come to understanding the defensive impulse that had spewed a secret to a classmate I hardly knew.
One who refused to leave my side, despite her repeated assertions that she did not want to bother me or keep me from my studies.
Maybe it was because my burgeoning friendship with Yoslyn was less complicated than my relationships with Wilder and Desmond.
Or maybe it simply felt nice to finally have a female confidante.
“This is bone?” Yoslyn leaned in to peer at the blank plaque, standing on her toes with one palm pressed against the wall for balance, long curls tumbling over one shoulder of her cloak. “How can you tell?”
“I can’t. Not really. But my father taught me a lot about the construction of various buildings at the Alchemary when I was a kid. It’s a bit of a…passion.”
“Construction technique is a passion for your father?” She dropped onto her heels and gave me an amused look. “What is he, a Toolkeeper?”
When I didn’t answer, her smile faded. “Wait, he is in fact a Toolkeeper. I’d forgotten.”
“Indeed.”
Yoslyn’s gaze narrowed on me in a careful version of the suspicion most alchemists had for my father’s guild. “A Toolkeeper by trade, or a member of the Toolkeepers’ Rebellion?”
“He’s a master stonemason, by trade. Guildmaster of the Stonemason’s Guild, since I was fourteen or so.
At least, I think he’s still the guildmaster.
” The truth was that I hadn’t asked, when I’d seen him the first week of the term, and I couldn’t be sure he would have shared any of his own troubles, considering that he had come to see to mine.
And because my father considered his problems to be his own.
I let the second half of her question go unanswered. My father was, in fact, a member of the Toolkeepers’ Rebellion—the cross-guild political movement, which was officially and staunchly anti-alchemy—but I saw no reason to verify that. Even for my new confidant.
Her green eyes widened. “And he let you attend the Alchemary?”
“I don’t recall asking for permission.” I shrugged, turning back to the plaque.
“My point is that he taught me about the construction of this campus long before I came here. Including the fact that some of the plaques are formed from a paste made from the ground bones of alchemists who died in service of the Alchemary.”
Yoslyn made a strangled sound at the back of her throat. “That’s horrific.”
“It’s an honor,” I insisted. “They dedicated their very bodies to the craft they practiced, and they were rewarded by being allowed to remain a part of the Alchemary even in death.”
“That is certainly a poetic way to put it.” She turned back to the plaque, hiking her bag higher on one shoulder. “And alchemical symbols were hidden on these?”
“Not on this one. This one was blank, and that led me to conclude that it was a different part of the puzzle. Once I’d identified the compound based on the components, I applied it to the back of this plaque, and…
” I slid my smallest finger behind the bone scroll, and to my relief, it fit just far enough to release the metal clasp.
The plaque swung away from the wall, revealing the empty compartment.
Yoslyn’s brows arched, displaying her surprise: evidence that she hadn’t truly believed me until that moment. She peered into the dark, square hole. “What was inside?”
I slid my hand into my pocket, where my fingers curled around the bracelet, and for one long, heavy moment, I said nothing. Then, with a sigh, I withdrew the bracelet and showed it to her.
“Wow,” she breathed. “That’s beautiful. An ouroboros. What do you think it means?”
“The ouroboros represents the cycle of—”
Yoslyn rolled her eyes. “I know that. I meant, what do you think it means that it was stuffed into a secret hole in the wall, on the second floor of the Conservatory? Who could have put it there?”
Instead of answering, I took another deep breath.
Yoslyn frowned at me. “Why do you keep your thoughts prisoner, when they so clearly want to be free?”
“Because they cannot be trusted,” I whispered, my voice dwarfed by the gravity of a truth I had not intended to reveal. “Once, they escaped entirely, as you well know, and I have yet to recapture them. And the ones that remain…I’m not entirely certain of their lucidity.”
To my surprise, her eyes shone with amusement. Or excitement, perhaps. “Mad thoughts are the best sort to run free, Amber. Release this one, and let me share in the lunacy.”
I couldn’t help but smile, despite the doubt creeping up my spine like an army of spiders.
“I think it was Lord Calyx. The histories say he was intimately involved in the design of this building, and I think he’s responsible for this hidden compartment.
I think he may have placed this bracelet inside with his own two hands. ”