“I hadn’t intended to kiss you, and I regret going back on my word. I just felt, in that moment, that we were having a chemical reaction.” He nudged my knee with his. “Remember? Two reactants introduced into the same space, resulting in a change of energy?”
I recognized my words. I remembered saying them.
“But maybe that was the ale talking,” he conceded.
I exhaled slowly and lowered my voice to as soft a whisper as I could manage. “I’m sorry if my reaction worried you,” I said. “I’m just…I’ve only had flashes of memory, and I don’t know whether I can trust them, and—”
“What have you remembered?” Something in the sharp slant of his gaze set me on edge.
He must have noticed, because his expression changed, like fluid poured from a short, wide beaker into a tall, narrow vial. The same contents suddenly seemed to take on a different shape—a more amenable form.
“Nothing, really. Just flashes,” I repeated. “They’re…addled. Disorienting and…not possible, frankly. It’s like my mind is gifting me with shards from a mosaic but placing them in the wrong locations, so the image doesn’t make sense.”
His brows furrowed deeply over eyes that seemed a darker shade of blue than usual. “What images?”
“You, sometimes. And sometimes…” I shrugged.
“Des.”
I nodded. Wilder was the only one I’d ever heard use that nickname, and the fraternal relationship it implied felt at odds with the suddenly shuttered nature of his expression.
I was a bit relieved when Professor Bollinger’s chalk screeched against the slate, and he apologized as he turned to begin his lecture.
On Friday after the evening meal, as had become my habit, I crossed the quadrangle not toward the Dormitory or toward the Seminary, as many of my classmates did, but toward the Conservatory. I climbed the spiral stairs, staring up at the stained glass panels, noting how the dim glow of the waning moon painted dully colorful scenes on the smooth, curved plaster walls above my head.
The royal wedding. The royal nursery. Queen Avalona’s funeral. All of it both beautiful and tragic.
Desmond was in his office, working by candlelight with half a dozen thick tomes spread open on his desk and a half-used journal balanced on his knee for note-taking.
He stood the moment he saw me and set his journal on one of the open texts. “Hello. What are you working on this evening?”
I rounded my primary work surface and ducked into the supply closet, where I hung my satchel on its usual nail. When I reemerged, I found him standing at my preferred workstation, waiting for my reply.
“Tonight, I begin preparations for the White Trial.”
“Rebirth,” he said.
I nodded. “Which could, naturally, mean just about anything.”
A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, but it was gone in an instant. “I cannot tell you what to expect at the White Trial, but I do want to share one other bit of…conjecture regarding the Black Trial.”
Pressure mounted within my chest, and I fought the yawn that would force my lungs to expand for fear of appearing bored or tired. “Please tell me they haven’t decided to expel me after all, for helping Yoslyn?”
“It’s not to do with you, actually.”
“Oh?” I folded my arms over my chest and watched him from across the table. And this time, Desmond’s smile was wide, and true, and full of a bitter sort of joy.
“Pryce Wishart, as it happens, should not have passed the Black Trial at all.”
I frowned. “How so?” He’d beaten me to an antidote and had suffered little ill effect from the poison.
“Upon further examination of his official observer’s notes, it has been discovered that his formula was flawed. What Wishart concocted in that arena should not have saved his life.”
Questions swirled among the cacophony of my thoughts. “Well then, how—?”
“The prevailing theory is that he’d ingested something else, recently, that prevented the metal toxin from entirely affecting him and perhaps bolstered the effects of a flawed antidote.”
“The board thinks he cheated? That he took an antidote in advance? Or that—”
