While she was busy with them, I bent across the table to peer at the center, at whatever she’d been pointing at.
Someone had done a good job of refinishing it, but the damage was still visible beneath a clean, glossy coat of wax. The very center of the table had indeed been burned, and the fire had exposed the shape of an inlaid circular panel of wood, no bigger in circumference than my palm. I wedged my fingernail into the crack and pried the panel out, holding my breath in anticipation.
Anothersecret compartment. A circle, no doubt opened with ash and blood.
But it was empty. Whatever it was—whatever Past Amber had found—she had taken it with her.
Yoslyn sat alone at a small table in the student library on the first floor of the Seminary, tapping a lead stylus against a sheet of parchment, and for a moment, I felt bad for having skipped our study session. Especially since Wilder clearly hadn’t shown up either. But I was as relieved by his absence as I was by her presence, despite the fact that half an hour earlier, I’d wanted nothing more than to be alone.
“I think I found another secret compartment,” I whispered as I slid into the chair across from her, flinching when it skidded on the stone floor and several gazes snapped toward us.
She blinked at me. “Why are you cross with Wilder?”
“I…” I frowned, thrown by the change of subject. “Pardon?” I whispered, leaning over the table toward her.
“That man jumped into an underwater labyrinth to try to save you, and he’s been walking around here for a week like there’s nothing but clouds beneath his feet, until you both failed to show up for our study session.” She narrowed green eyes at me. “Then, half an hour ago, he came in here looking like someone had ripped his heart out and devoured it right in front of him.”
Yoslyn nodded subtly to my left, brown ringlets falling over her shoulder, and I turned to see Wilder sitting alone in a chair across the room, angled away from us, the corner of a textbook visible on his lap.
“There’s only one person on this island with the power to make Wilder Gregory look like that,” she said. “And youdohave a history of leaving your classmates in tears. So don’t try to tell me you didn’t just carve open his chest and leave him bleeding.”
I leaned back in my chair, and the wood creaked conspicuously. “It’s…complicated, Yos.”
“I’m not certain it is.”
“I didn’t need him to save me,” I whispered, well aware that we weren’t supposed to talk about the White Trial in public. Specifically, near the underclassmen.
“And he didn’t. But he was willing to.Demonstrablywilling. He wasfurtherwilling to land a blow atop the skull of the pig gizzard of a boy who’s been bullying you for weeks now. For the second time. And you’recrosswith him because of it? For caring about you and being willing to act on it?” Her perplexed frown practically begged me to explain.
I swallowed a groan and leaned forward again. “The problem isn’t that he cares,” I insisted softly. “It’s that he doesn’t believe in me.”
Yoslyn slammed her textbook shut with a sharp thunk that made me cringe. “That is categorically false. Hedoesbelieve in you. He just also knows that Pryce Wishart’s moral decay could very well have killed you, and he wasn’t going to let that happen.”
My hands tightened around the arms of my chair. “Even if it cast me in the role of the helpless damsel, in front of the entire Alchemary board?”
Yoslyn nodded. “Even if it vexed you so badly that you’d never speak to him again. He’d rather have you alive than happy.” She reached across the table and poked my arm with one finger. “What was it you said about love? That it’s madness and angst? That it’s insatiable and covetous, equal parts adoration and vexation?”
I swallowed a groan. “Actually, I said that aboutpassion.”
She laughed softly. “I believe my point stands.”
For a moment, I could only stare at her, struggling against uncooperative lungs for a deep breath. Then I twisted to sneak another glance at Wilder, who was definitelynotactually reading a textbook.
I lowered my voice even further as I turned back to Yoslyn. “You think he loves me.”
She rolled her eyes. “I do, but only because that is patently obvious. I also don’t think it’s fair to hold that against him.”
I sighed again. “I will take that under advisement.”
“Good.” She leaned back in her seat, arms crossed over the front of her gray frock, blue cuffs standing out stiffly. “Then let’s revisit what you just said. Youthinkyou found another hidden compartment? Where?”
“In the research library. There was a hidden panel in the center of the table, and evidently I set it on fire and bled all over it at some point over the summer.”
“What?”She shot forward again in her seat. “I never heard a word about that.…But then, most students go home for the summer, and it’s not as if the staff would broadcast the fact that the one who didn’t turned out to be an arsonist.”
I arched one skeptical brow. “I’m not—”
“What was in it?”
