Desmond exhaled heavily. “Panacea is not my area of expertise, and I will admit that your mind and mine do not tread the same scientific pathways. But I am confident in my own abilities. I will eventually unlock the functionality of your elixir, even if I wind up using a slightly different recipe.”
“Best of luck.” The door creaked open an inch, and with a jolt of panic, I scooted even farther away, glancing around for some place to hide in the empty foyer. But Wilder didn’t emerge. “Was it you?”
“Was what me?” Desmond asked.
“The water. In the arena. Did you make it breathable? And as a brief follow-up query,howdid you do that?”
“It wasn’t me,” Desmond said, and I found myself easing closer to the door again, drawn by something in the almost unnaturally tranquil tone of his answer. I’d come to recognize that tone and to understand what it meant: He was telling the truth, yet leaving something else—something relevant—unsaid.
“There’s no one else who has the skill for such a thing who also had a reason to demonstrate that skill, in that manner, at that time.”
Desmond huffed. “So, you believe you’ve sorted it all out.”
“You were trying to protect her.” Wilder sounded tense and insistent, each word tightly wound and ready to explode. “That’s why you didn’t jump in. You didn’t go save her because you knew she wouldn’t drown in that water.”
“I didn’t go save her because she didn’t need saving.”
“I thought she was going to die—”
“But shedidn’tdie. She made it to the center of that maze on her own, and she deserved the chance to emerge without anyone else interfering.Youjumped in and created the appearance that she couldn’t do it on her own.”
My heart thumped so hard my sternum felt bruised.
“Everyoneknowsshe can do it, Des,” Wilder insisted. “That’s never been in question. She’s at an unfair disadvantage because of her memory, but she’s the best alchemist in our cohort, and it would be unfair for her to flunk out just because she’s temporarily lost some of her previous skill set.”
“That wouldnotbe unfair,” Desmon practically growled. “Shehaslost knowledge, and that has weakened her, and the board has to be sure that she can contribute to the Alchemary, because whether or not you want to admit it, she may never get back what she’s lost. She needed to prove she could do this on her own—to herself, and to everyone else. She needed everyone to know she is worthy of the victory. And you jumping in to save her only tells people that you don’t think she can do it. Which allows them to suffer the same delusion. Youstolethe moment from her, Wilder.”
“Andyouwere going to let her die.”
“I would not have—”
“Then why didn’t you jump?” Wilder demanded, his shadow gesticulating angrily through the crack in the door. “If you didn’t know she could breathe in the water, why didn’t you jump in? You wereright there, on the edge of the hole, even though all of the staff and faculty were staring at you. You had already shed the thin veneer of your objectivity like a snake casting off its own skin. But you didn’t jump. I know how you feel about her, sowhywere you willing to let her die?”
I pushed the door open, and they both turned to stare at me, silence heavy and horrible between us.
“He wasn’t going to let me die,” I finally said, my voice echoing with a truth as cold and as deep as the sea. “He was just going to let mefail. Desmond would have jumped in to save me if you hadn’t pushed Pryce back in and jumped in yourself, because then I would have been the ninth competitor out of the water.
“He doesn’t want me dead.” I shifted my focus to Desmond, who met it without any hint of an argument. “He just wants me far away from here.”
Desmond nodded, holding my gaze. “I’ve been honest about that from the beginning. You should not be here. But if you’d needed help, I would not have let you die.”
I blinked slowly, anger and a grief I could not understand swirling in my gut like eddies on the surface of a murky pond. Then I turned and walked away from them both.
“Amber, wait.” Wilder’s footsteps clomped behind me. His hand closed over my bicep, pulling me to a graceless stop halfway through the outer office, and I turned to find myself alone with him. Desmond had not followed.
“I…”
I had no idea what he’d intended to say, and he seemed somewhat unsure of that himself.
“He’s not wrong, you know.” I gently tugged my arm from his grasp. “As sweet as it was”—as well-intentioned, and kindhearted, andfiercelycharming—“you should not have jumped in after me.”
His forehead crinkled, confusion warring with something deeper and more painful. “I jumped because I couldn’t let you die.”
“No.” My heart cracked open at the words—at what was still to come—but it had to be said. “You jumped because you didn’t believe I could save myself. And now no one else does either.”
I left Wilder staring after me in the outer office, and instead of going down the stairs, I went up. Desmond would not follow me, and there was only one other place where neither Wilder nor Yoslyn would be able to.
To my utter surprise, I found as I stepped into the grand, warmly but imposingly furnished research library that the space was completely empty. Even the librarian was absent, a likely momentary state I attributed to the very odd atmosphere that had settled over the Alchemary campus like a spiritual fog in the week since the White Trial.
