“Agreed.” Lennox huffed. “But heiscapable of lying about it.”
“He may not be brilliant, but he isn’t a fool, either,” Keryth insisted. “Anyone who takes credit will be expected to prove the skill, and when he can’t, he’d be expelled for lying.”
“So…who do you think did it?” Lennox asked, and I found myself leaning backward, into the plant, so I could hear better.
“I have no idea,” Keryth admitted. “No one in our class has that kind of aptitude.”
“Not even Wilder?”
“Not even Amber, back before her fall from grace.”
I bristled at the label. I’d been struck with amnesia. How was that disgraceful?
“So then…?” Lennox left the unspoken question dangling.
“A professor, maybe? Or a researcher? It had to have been a staff member. My father says there have always been conscientious objectors to the trials. To letting students die to prove their worth.” She hesitated, and I could practically see her shrugging. “Maybe someone decided to do something about it.”
I stood so suddenly I nearly knocked over my teacup.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe Wilder wasn’t the only Gregory brother who’d tried to help me.…
I was halfway across the quadrangle when I spotted Wilder heading directly for the Conservatory, absentmindedly weaving the handle of his blade through the fingers of his right hand, and my pulse spiked so hard that the world swam before my eyes for one swollen instant.
He was looking for me.
There was no other reason he’d go into the Conservatory, considering that he and Desmond were hardly on speaking terms.
Mastery-year classes had been suspended for the past week, ostensibly to give students ample time to recover from the White Trial, but the truth, I suspected, was more in line with Keryth and Lennox’s supposition: Our professors were trying to understand what had happened in the arena and which students should move forward.
That was no doubt also why we had not been given the expected draught of memory drain; one could not claim credit for what one could not remember.
Instead, we’d been sternly instructed not to reveal details about the White Trial and to spend missed class time working on our personal research and studying for exams. I’d spent much of that time in the Seminary library, sharing a table with Wilder and Yoslyn, all three of us avoiding several pressing topics, while I seemed capable of privately contemplating little else.
Which is to say that Wilder and I had not discussed our second kiss, just like we’d never fully discussed the first. Just like we’d never truly discussed the nature of our relationship before I’d lost my memory. And the last thing I wanted was for him to rush up to the laboratory looking for me and come face-to-face with his brother instead.
So, as he stepped into the Conservatory atrium, I raced across the lawn, mumbling apologies to students I brushed abruptly past, then I stormed up the front steps, rushed across the Alchemary creed in its triangle on the floor, and headed up the steps.
I was prevented from running up the first flight of stairs by two researchers who were on their way down, embroiled in a debate about the ethical uses of a temperament-enhancing elixir, so by the time I got to Desmond’s office suite, the door was already swinging shut.
I pulled it open, but Wilder had already crossed the outer office and entered Desmond’s private laboratory space. The door stood ajar, and I could see Wilder’s elbow and the satchel he carried under one arm.
I should have said something. But his words stopped me cold.
“You know, you still owe me for the last dose.”
Surprised, I lurched to the right, out of sight from the door, as the familiar soft creak of leather told me he was opening his satchel. Vials clattered together, then clinked distinctively as they were set on a hard surface.
“I apologize. I was running short on several things last time. Amber goes through quite a bit of my inventory. But it’s all there.”
I heard more clinking, along with the rustle of fabric and another soft creak of leather, and I understood, suddenly, that Desmond was paying Wilder in supplies for whatever elixir he’d provided. Whatever it was that he snuck into his office to take, at least once a week.
“How long do you anticipate needing my services?” Wilder’s voice was thick with arrogant amusement.
“Only as long as it takes me to replicate your formula for myself.” Desmond didn’t sound the least bit shamed by his admission.
“Naturally,” Wilder said. “And have you had any luck?”
