“The woods, then,” Wilder said, following my gaze to the land that stretched behind both the Refectory and the Conservatory. “Or the menagerie.”
“Soon,” I assured him. “But for now, I have to start…studying. I suppose.”
“Studying what? We missed class.”
“Studying mylife. I don’t know what research I was working on or how I’d planned to prepare for the trials. I don’t even know who I was as a person yesterday. But there’s likely evidence of all of that in my room.”
“You’re overlooking one other very valuable source of that information. And I happen to know that he isverygenerous.” Wilder threw his arms out, as if he were inviting me for an embrace, and the impulse to accept it was surprisingly strong.
I couldn’t remember the nature of our relationship, but I felt very alone in my current reality, standing outside of my own memory and experience. And he seemed willing to step into that distressingly foggy place with me. Or, more accurately, to help me clear the fog.
After all, what were the chances that the man who’d woken up in my bed knew nothing useful about my life?
“You’re offering to fill me in on what I’ve forgotten?”
“I’m offering to doanythingyou need.”
I blinked up at him, choosing to ignore the subtext. “That’s very kind of you,” I said as a familiar feeling crawled up my back and across my shoulders. A feeling that we were no longer alone.
Just as that sensation settled in, sinking through flesh and blood into my very bones, vague movements on the edge of my vision solidified into black-cloaked human forms.
Students. Classmates. The first class of the day was over, and I could feel heads turning our way.
I aimed an acknowledging glance at several unfamiliar faces, but I found my focus straying back to Wilder. To what suddenly felt like safe territory, despite the fact that I had no more memory of him over the past two years than I had of any of these other students.
They all seemed to recognize me, but there were no friendly looks or cordial nods. No one was smiling.
The front door of the Seminary suddenly flew open, and several more students emerged, their dark cloaks flaring back in the cool autumn breeze. A young man with brown skin and a young woman with long, voluminous blond hair bounced down the front steps onto a stone pathway that meandered fancifully around the lawn with no clear aim, only to wind up beneath my very feet. They looked up, deep in conversation, and words seemed to trail away from the girl as she tossed a thick, loose braid over one shoulder and her eyes found me.
She elbowed the young man and nodded in my direction. Her sudden broad smile had the affectation of a stage masque as she marched toward Wilder and me, eschewing the circuitous path, determination practically thundering from her steps.
My veins sparked with a sharp dread I could not contextualize.
She and I were not friends. Though my memory had hidden the details, my body’s reaction to her was quite clear.
“Yes.” The word flew from my mouth as I grabbed Wilder’s arm, to his obvious surprise. “Yes, please, come help me.”
I shot the blond girl and her male friend a smile—despite my panic, I didn’t want to appear rude—then I spun on my heel and half dragged Wilder across the lawn, past a couple dozen nearly identically dressed students toward the Dormitory perched on the edge of a cliff, at the other end of the quadrangle.
Wilder sank into the armchair in the corner of my small room as if he’d been there a thousand times, and I found myself envious of his comfort. Inmyprivate space.
“Where should I start?” he asked. “Do you want to hear about the brilliant essays and heroic works of admittedly novice alchemy that earned us our spots at the Alchemary? Or do you want to know about how respected you are as an academic and how beloved I am across campus for my jovial nature and my generous distribution of the hangover cure I developed one afternoon last year?”
One of us, evidently, was having a lot of fun on campus.
“You developed a hangover cure in a class lab?” I marched past him and threw open the shutters, letting in a glorious breeze and the salty scent of the ocean. “Using ingredients intended for student projects?”
Wilder snorted. “You said itjust like thatthe first time. But no. I snuck into Desmond’s lab. In the Apotheosis wing of the Conservatory.”
“Apotheosis?” I blinked, a little surprised to hear what discipline Desmond had chosen. “The effort to transform people into their ideal and most perfect state?” The definition came unbidden, and the voice reciting the words in my head was my mother’s.
“Yes. My brother is trying to perfect the human form, both mind and body. Yet somehow, in that endeavor, he manages to seem even less human than he used to.”
“Certainly less kind, anyway,” I agreed, thinking of his effort to get me expelled.
Apotheosis was, in my opinion, the least interesting of the three disciplines. Had my opinion changed during my first two years at the Alchemary? Or was my academic disdain the reason Desmond was so eager to have me sent away, when Wilder, Dr. Winhoof, and even the Bluehelm had seemed willing to let me stay?
“I want to hear about all of that.” I stood in the center of the small, narrow space and glanced in turn at the wardrobe, the unmade bed, and the desk piled high with papers, unsure where to begin: the personal or the academic?
