Iwasrunning an experiment. I had no memory of that incident, or of the others that had clearly led my cohort to distrust me, yet I knew that. And not just because I recognized my own documentation methods. Ifeltthe truth of it, in the same way I’d known where to find supplies in Desmond’s laboratory.
“I’m sorry if this has upset you,” Yoslyn said, squinting at my expression in the dark.
“Don’t be. I dragged the information from you, and unsettling though it is, I needed to hear it.”
“You’re not that person anymore,” she insisted. “If you were, I wouldn’t be here.”
Uncertain I was worthy of her assumption, given that regaining my memories might turn me back into Past Amber, I started us both down the road again in lieu of a response.
“They don’t want me in there,” I whispered as we came to a stop in front of the Dusty Beaker. And for the first time, I understood why.
Yoslyn huffed. “They don’t want me in there either. Not anymore. But that doesn’t mean we should cower in our bedchambers or bury our heads in our notes. We deserve a night off as much the rest of them do. We survived!” She spun toward me and took my hands, her exuberant expression lit by the flickering glow from the tavern window. “Let’s celebrate!”
Ifollowed Yoslyn from the cold, dark dirt road into the warm, crowded tavern, and at first, I could only stand in the doorway, letting the voices and the flickering light wash over me. Listening to the cordial cacophony, as the clink of tin ale mugs rose through the buzz of overlapping conversations.
My mouth watered at the scents of brown bread and mutton stew, and I noted that several people were dipping crusts into half-full bowls. Buteveryonehad a mug of ale.
“They’re all from the Alchemary!” I said directly into Yoslyn’s ear.
She nodded. “The locals won’t set foot in here after dark unless they work here. We tend to suck up all the air. The whole town’s like this,” she half shouted, evidently unconcerned with being heard. “Every house in the village becomes an inn during Family Weekend, graduation, accreditation testing, and any trials week, and they can charge whatever they want, because the demand for lodging is greater than the supply.”
Trials week.Thisweek. That’s how so many alumni had been in the audience. I looked around, studying ale-flushed faces. Were they in the crowd as well?
“Half our professors live on this side of the bridge,” Yoslyn added.
Business was clearly booming, yet the harried staff of the Beaker didn’t seem entirely enamored of their patrons. I could not blame them.
The front room was crowded, and though I recognized many underclassmen, I couldn’t find a single member of the Mastery-year cohort.
“Through that door!” Yoslyn shouted.
I followed her pointing finger toward a private room, just past the long plain-board table where a dozen or so professors and staff researchers sat on simple wooden stools with their tankards.
“Staff and faculty usually gather in there, but after each trial, they relinquish the space for the Mastery-year celebration. Come on!”
Yoslyn pulled me through the crowd, and I muttered apologies as my shoulders and elbows collided with no fewer than three patrons.
“Amber!” Wilder called from the doorway to the private room.
Desmond’s head swiveled my way from the staff table, and I gave him a nod as I was swallowed by his brother’s ale-scented embrace.
Wilder tugged me into the small, warm room, and Yoslyn followed.
“That’s everyone!” Wilder declared, practically shoving me onto an empty stool. His eyes were glazed with drink, his smile sweet but sloppy.
Despite his gregarious greeting, no one else seemed to care that Yoslyn and I had joined the group, and I accepted their indifference as the lesser of two evils, considering the animosity I’d been expecting. My classmates were too drunk to be angry. Except maybe Pryce, who sat on a stool in the corner, gulping morosely from a dented metal mug.
A headcount revealed nine Mastery students including Yoslyn and me. Out of twelve. No, out of eleven, since Kornell had washed out. “There are still two in the infirmary?” I whispered to Wilder as he pushed a mug of ale into my grip.
His smile faded. “Just Adria,” he said. “Petyr didn’t make it.”
A pall fell over me, like a cloth pulled over a corpse. But before I could demand to know how everyone could feel so celebratory, knowing that a classmate had died, Wilder turned to the room and lifted his mug. “To Petyr!” he shouted.
“To Petyr!” the chorus echoed, and everyone took a drink. Including me. And that’s when I understood that this gathering was as much a memorial as a celebration.
And that it would not be the last.
Would they toast to me, if I’d died in that glass arena?
