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 apassionfor 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 isin facta 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 thebestsort 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.”
“Lord Calyx, the father of alchemy?” Yoslyn’s green eyes widened. “The very founder of the Alchemary itself?” Her voice rose into a squeal of excitement, and I shushed her with one finger over her lips. “Thatismadness, and almost certainly untrue,” she whispered. “There have been any number of researchers over the past century and a half who could have done this, long after Calyx was dust in his grave, but I will say, when you theorize, you reach for the very stars.”
I frowned, running one thumb over the snake’s scales. “You don’t believe it?”
“Not one bit,” Yoslyn said, almost gleefully. “And yet…they say he was quite mad by the time he died. Driven over the edge by his own failure.” She reached for the bracelet. “May I?”
I placed the metal snake in her palm, and she held it toward the wall torch, examining it as light flickered off its scales and gleamed in its crimson-jeweled eyes. She turned it, angling the snake’s head toward the light, and I assumed she was studying the red stones, until suddenly she was gripping its triangular-shaped head between her thumb and forefinger, tugging at its tail with her other hand.
