I let the power of her own words sink in. “I think that love may be warm and sweet, but passion is madness and angst. It is push and pull. It’s an insatiable, covetous craving, equal parts adoration and vexation. I think it is a powerful force that can drive a man to obsession and grief. Be he the ruler of an entire kingdom or just a simple laboratory alchemist.”
Yoslyn smiled. “You sound like you know whereof you speak.”
I blinked, startled not just by her words but by the deeply assessing nature of her gaze. As if she could see through flesh and bone into my very thoughts. “Do I?”
She nodded. “You sound as if you’ve fought and died in the same trenches you describe.”
My throat felt suddenly tight. “I’m afraid I would not remember, if I had.”
Finally, Yoslyn’s expression relaxed into its standard half smile, and some of the tension eased deep in my belly. “Well, anyway,” she said, “I’m starting to see why the first Bluehelm decided that personal relationships were, in fact, antithetical to the practice of alchemy.”
I could only shrug. “Maybe that’s why Lord Calyx failed to create the Philosopher’s Stone—because he was distracted by matters of the heart.”
Was that why I hadalsofailed?
“So then, what about the last two lines? They make no sense, even if we’ve uncovered the meaning of the first two. And I am not convinced we have.”
“Because of the tense?” I asked.
Yoslyn nodded. “ ‘Now the moon shines’ sounds like it’s still happening. But ‘bit’ is clearly in the past, so the ouroboros biting off its tail—whatever that means—has already happened. How can the two of those be related, if one’s still happening, and the other is not?”
“That, I don’t yet understand,” I admitted. “But we know that the ouroboros is a symbol of the cyclical nature of life and death. Of birth and rebirth.”
“As are the seasons, cycling year after year. And the sun, rising and setting every day. But if ‘she’ will rise no more, then she has passed on. Which we’ve already surmised. The ouroboros biting off its tail seems to be a repetition of the same theme—an end to the cycle of life.”
“Or toonelife. Avalona’s.”
Yoslyn scowled at the parchment where I’d written the riddle. “But no individual’s life is cyclical. It’s humanity in general that observes the cycle of life and death, not any one person.”
“So…maybe the ouroborosisn’tthe repetition of a theme. Symbols in alchemy often have more than one meaning or interpretation. Maybe in this instance the ouroboros represents not a cycle but infinity. A life that does not end.”
Yoslyn shook her head. “But Avalona’s lifedidend.”
I nodded, my thoughts spinning. “But it wasn’t supposed to. Or Lord Calyx didn’twantit to. MaybeEmperor Eldondidn’t want it to. The ouroboros biting off its own tail would sever the loop and end the cycle. That could mean the end to a life that was supposed to last forever.”
Yoslyn looked up from the text. “How can one life last forever?” Then her eyes widened, and I saw the moment she came to the same conclusion I had. “The Elixir of Life.”
I stood from my chair so quickly that my head spun. “That was my very thought. What if Lord Calyx wasn’t only working on the Philosopher’s Stone? Or, what if he gave up on that?” His notes certainly seemed to hint that he considered it, eventually, to be an impossible endeavor. “What if he was actually working on the Elixir of Life?”
Yoslyn stood, practically buzzing with the potential of our hypothetical. “To keep his true love alive forever?”
“And, presumably, to keep himself alive with her.” I sucked in a deep breath as my gaze wandered toward the wedding image still visible in the book open on my desk. “Emperor Eldon immortalized his love for his bride in books, and statues, and buildings bearing their names. In songs, and in plays, and in legend. But Lord Calyx…Yoslyn, I think the father of alchemy tried to immortalize Avalonaherself.”
“Amber!”
I turned toward the sound of my name, my pulse spiking at the anticipation bouncing through each syllable. At the enthusiasm of the greeting.
Too late, I recognized the voice, and though unease washed over me when my gaze fell upon Wilder heading across the quadrangle toward me, my pulse did not slow.
He cut a daring figure, jogging in his waistcoat and breeches, his cloak tossed over one broad shoulder, moss-colored knife sheath rhythmically brushing his hip, blue eyes shining in the setting sunlight.
I’d spent three weeks avoiding further discussion on the subject of our kiss, while not avoiding him specifically, and the effort required to walk that particularly fine line—to keep a natural-sounding change of subject at the ready, at all times—had begun to take its toll.
I did not dread seeing him. But I did wish, fervently, that I could simply stare at his handsome figure unnoticed from across the quadrangle, free from the burden of talking, when I had no idea what to say.
He fell into step beside me, breathing easily despite his exertion. The dirt beneath his nails and a stray hibiscus blossom caught in his hair told me that he’d been in the forest again, and that his satchel was likely full of carefully plucked and sorted plant matter, waiting to be dried and powdered or distilled into usable alchemical ingredients.
His recipe for beyn, I knew, was plant-forward.
