Chapter 33
The heavy door of the Seminary library swung slowly shut behind me, and I exhaled as my gaze settled on the grand table—the focal point of the large room.
Somehow, I’d never noticed that the chairs surrounding it numbered twelve.
That was likely because I’d never seen our entire cohort gathered there before.
Three of the chairs stood empty.
“Amber!” Yoslyn waved at me from across the open space, gesturing at the empty one next to her.
Several of our classmates, as well as a couple of underclassmen seated at smaller tables, glared at her for shattering the reverent feel of the room.
Wilder’s head pivoted in my direction, and he scooted his chair abruptly farther from Raelah, who seemed disappointed by his sudden disinterest.
Wilder and I had hardly spoken since class the previous Wednesday. We weren’t ignoring each other, exactly. I was giving us both some space to think through what had happened at the Black Trial celebration, and as far as I could tell, he had the same intent.
I avoided his gaze as I rounded the table toward the seat Yoslyn had claimed for me with her satchel. Which was wholly unnecessary. Our classmates didn’t dislike her as vehemently as they disliked me, but they seemed much less eager to sit next to her now than they’d been before the Black Trial.
Pryce seemed to have suffered no disgrace from the fact that he, too, should have failed the trial. Likely because no one else here knew that.
As I sat, the remaining two empty chairs suddenly seemed tragically conspicuous. I did my best not to look at them. Not to think about Kornell’s failure. About Petyr’s death.
Adria had been released from the infirmary that very morning, after five full days of treatment, but she still looked a bit…peaked.
“Thank you all for coming.” Keryth Malcom stood from the far end of the table, running one hand over the green ribbon braided through her long blond hair.
She let her gaze skip over those gathered with an air of self-appointed authority.
Most heads turned her way, but Cressa looked bored as she doodled surprisingly skilled beakers, tongs, and alembics around the edge of a sheet of parchment with her lead stylus.
Gavin sat to Cressa’s right, followed by Pryce, who seemed to be going out of his way to avoid eye contact with me. Adria, Raelah, and Wilder sat across from them.
Wilder was staring at me. I could see that on the edge of my vision, but every time I turned to confirm it, he’d evidently just decided to focus on Keryth and the reason she’d called this meeting of our entire cohort, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon that could have been better spent studying.
“Having spoken with several of you privately, it’s come to my attention that while we all knew at least vaguely what to expect from the Black Trial, we stand in utter ignorance of what we’ll be facing in three weeks at the White Trial. Does that sound accurate?”
Mumbles of assent made their way around the table as students shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, and I could practically feel the underclassmen in the room leaning in. Trying to hear.
“So, my suggestion is that we concentrate on what we do know and work together to ascertain what we may be up against.”
Pryce frowned. “It’s a competition. Why should we help one another?”
“I am by no means suggesting that we help one another come up with strategies or solutions,” Keryth explained.
“Only that we put our heads together at this phase and try to figure out what we’ll need strategies for.
And,” she added, her pitch rising on the word, “this is one of the things we know: The White Trial is a competition in a different way than the Black Trial was.”
“How so?” Raelah asked, and I realized with some measure of relief that I wasn’t the only one in the dark on that matter.
“In the Black Trial, everyone who survived was allowed to move forward.” Keryth’s gaze fell heavily for a moment upon Yoslyn, who—to her credit—stared right back at her.
“Not so in the White Trial. This time, only the eight fastest times will move competitors forward, even if all ten of us succeed in our task. The two slowest, even if they survive, will fail and be expelled.”
A discontented rumble echoed around the table as the shock of that information sank in.
“How do you know that?” Wilder demanded softly. “I’ve heard nothing of the sort.”
“We uncovered that information the same way any of you could have,” Lennox said from Keryth’s right. “Through observation and research. Skills we should all be perfectly capable of, at this stage in the game.”
“I went back through my notes,” Keryth clarified.
“I’ve kept record of which Mastery-year students succeeded in each trial for the two years we’ve all been here, and only eight made it past the White Trial both years.
That seemed like more than a coincidence, so we looked into it.
” She aimed a glance at Lennox, and I noted that it was somewhat less warm than usual.
Was competition getting in the way of their bond?
Lennox pulled something from the bag at his feet, then stood and dropped a heavy leather-bound book on the table.
“It’s a ledger. Turns out the Alchemary keeps a record of trial participants, as they keep records of everything else.
This one is the White Trial. It was right here in this library, free for the looking. ”
For a moment, we all stared at the book. Then Yoslyn leaned forward and dragged it across the polished surface of the table.
“They’re correct.” Cressa didn’t even look up from her doodling.
Yoslyn opened the thick ledger to a page marked by a gold ribbon, about a third of the way through hundreds of sheets of fine, thin, delicate, expensive parchment. The right-hand page was blank.
The left-hand page was labeled with the date of last year’s White Trial, and below that was a numbered list of the participants, including the time it took each to complete the trial.
Eleven had begun. Three names were crossed through. One of them had no completion time.
“Ten survived,” I said, staring at the crossed-through names. “But only eight moved on.”
Yoslyn flipped the page. “It was the same the year before. Nine of ten survived, but only eight moved on.”
Keryth nodded. “It’s been eight for every one of the past twenty-three years, except for two years when only seven survived. At no point in almost two and a half decades have more than eight Mastery-year students gone on to the third trial.”
“We’re guessing some new policy was put into place that year,” Lennox said. “Before that, everyone who survived moved forward.”
Yoslyn closed the ledger and slid it into the center of the table.
Keryth aimed a magnanimous look at our entire group. “We’ve chosen to share this knowledge with you all, when we did not have to.”
“How long have you known?” I asked, staring at the ledger.
Silence descended from every direction as chatter and nervous fidgeting ceased. Several heads turned my way.
“Pardon?” Keryth asked.
“I said, how long have you known?” When neither of them answered, I met her scowling gaze. “A while, right? Maybe since last year? And you’re just now sharing that information.”
“This is a competition,” Lennox said, his voice hard. Defensive.
“As is my point,” I said. “You’re not sharing information to be generous. You’re sharing, months after you came by this knowledge, because you need help. Because you haven’t been able to figure it out for yourselves.”
Cressa smiled down at her drawings.
“That doesn’t change the calculus,” Keryth insisted. “Helping one of us helps all of us.”
I nodded. “But you’re misrepresenting your intentions. You aren’t trying to help us. You’re using us.”
“Well, you’d certainly know all about that,” Lennox snapped, glaring at me from across the table.
“So, what else do we know?” Keryth set her right hand on his shoulder. “What do we have to work with?”
“Theme,” Lennox said.
She rewarded him with a smile. “Yes. Purification and rebirth.”
“And color,” Wilder said. “Alchemy is about colors as much as it’s about anything. This is the White Trial.”
“Yes,” Yoslyn said. “A theme and a color. White. Purification and rebirth.” She glanced around the table. “So…what could that mean?”
“Transmutation. Rebirth into something new,” Gavin spoke up. “This is a Transmutation trial, where the Black Trial was Panacea. They’re testing us in each of the three disciplines.”
“But there are four trials,” Lennox pointed out.
“Of course,” Gavin conceded. “But the fourth trial could be something entirely different. Like a final exam that covers the entire course, while smaller exams cover specific portions of class.”
“Maybe…” Keryth seemed unconvinced.
I leaned back in my chair, listening as the discussion took hold, individual contributions running wild like piglets in a pen.
Cressa continued to doodle, as if she could not care less about the discussion. Had she overheard something in the Bluehelm’s office? If so, why not share her intelligence?
Because this was a competition, after all?
“So, what could we possibly be asked to do to prove our alchemy skills, considering a theme of purification and—or—rebirth?” Keryth seemed to be asking herself as much as she was asking us.
But no one had an answer.
Not one they were willing to share with their competitors, anyway.
Light, rapid footsteps echoed up the tower stairs, and I tensed as they stopped at my landing. A fist tapped softly on my bedchamber door, and I looked up as it opened, though I had yet to reply.
“What does it say?” Yoslyn stepped inside, and with her came a whiff of the incense usually kept burning in her room.
Her green eyes shone wide and eager in the daylight streaming from my open window, her hands clutching great fistfuls of her own cloak, which contrasted the stiff blue cuffs of her sleeves. “The miniature scroll?”