“How could he have?” Wilder asked, his feet shuffling on white marble as he stepped closer to examine the portrait. “He came from famously modest means, and that’s a huge stone. Emperor Eldon funded the Alchemary, but I can’t imagine Lord Calyx found room in the budget for a ring made to seduce the emperor’s wife from her marriage.”
“We don’t know that was the purpose of the ring,” Yoslyn pointed out. “And—”
“He made it,” I said.
“Lord Calyx was not a jeweler,” Wilder said. “And again, I don’t think he had the means to—”
“He made it,” I insisted. “ ‘Beautiful, but inert. Multifaceted, like alchemy itself. Both precious and worthless at the same time. A token bestowed but not treasured.’ ” I turned to find them both staring at me as if I’d elapsed into a foreign tongue. “He must have thought so, since this is the only portrait of her wearing it.”
“What are you talking about?” Yoslyn asked softly.
“I read about it just today, in a bound collection of Lord Calyx’s notes. This gem was a failed attempt to create the Philosopher’s Stone. This inert but beautiful jewel is the result of his inability to combine spirit with mind and body.”
“How can you be sure of that?” Yoslyn said. “We don’t even know that the Philosopher’s Stone actuallyisa stone. Right?”
I nodded. “We don’t know what its true form will be, butthisform is an alchemist’s failure. Yet it is beautiful, so he gave it to his beloved, and as far as we know, she only wore it once. ‘Bestowed but not treasured.’ At some point, it was returned to him, and he used it in this puzzle.” I opened the box and rearranged the pieces again so that they could see. “What does this look like to you?”
Yoslyn gasped as understanding dawned.
“It’s the symbol of the Philosopher’s Stone,” Wilder whispered. “Just missing the triangle.”
He was correct, on both counts. For whatever reason, Lord Calyx had hidden in the Conservatory—a building he’d designed himself—three of the four shapes necessary to form the symbol for the Philosopher’s Stone.
“We must have overlooked a compartment,” Yoslyn said.
“I don’t think we have.” I’d been mulling it over since we’d left my bedchamber. “I think we’re looking for a triangle hidden in plain sight. An indication of where these pieces are supposed to be placed.”
“For what purpose?” Wilder mused.
“You think they open something?” Yoslyn asked. “Another compartment?”
I shrugged. “Only Lord Calyx knows what this puzzle is about.” Though the truth was that I had a theory.
Considering that the puzzle had taken the shape of the Philosopher’s Stone, and that he’d worked on it for years, there seemed at least some chance that he’d hidden his formula— imperfect though it was—in this very building. There was even some chance—albeit a much smaller one—that he had gone back to his magnum opus and actually finished it.
The Philosopher’s Stone—or a formula that would get me close—might be the only thing in the world that could restore my memories. And even if it didn’t, finding the Stone would be…
Well, it would be anenormousaccomplishment: the completion of the Alchemary’s original mandate and the culmination of one hundred fifty years of effort by the greatest alchemical minds in the world. Finding the stone, or a valid path to creating it, wouldn’t just keep me enrolled, regardless of my rank in the White Trial. It would render me alegendin the field. It would lead to job offers, and grants, and my name in the history books. It might lead to statues and paintings of me, on these very grounds.
And yet, while Yoslyn’s eyes were alight with the thrill of a fresh mystery, Wilder seemed…quiet. More solemnly determined than I’d ever seen him.
“So, you think we’re looking for a triangle we’ve already seen somewhere,” he said, sounding oddly thoughtful.
Had he come to the same conclusion? Was he hoping to leverage the Philosopher’s Stone to his own advantage as well? After all, if the board wanted an excuse to get rid of him, he’d given them one at the White Trial by pushing Pryce into the water. By jumping back in himself.
“Yes, but it needs to be small,” I said. “It would have to fit inside the ouroboros, and the frame would have to fit inside it. So, a triangle no bigger than my palm.” I held up my free hand to demonstrate as I tucked the box beneath my right arm.
“There are triangleseverywherearound here,” Yoslyn moaned. “There’s literally one on every uniform.”
Our school motto.Mind, Matter, Spirit—the three aspects of human nature, which the Philosopher’s Stone sought to elevate to a higher form. The Alchemary’s seal was all three words, written in the shape of a triangle, in beautiful, scrolling print. And itwas, in fact, embroidered over the heart of every student wearing a school-issued cloak.
“Well, we’re not looking for a uniform, clearly,” Wilder said. “So, maybe on a plaque? Or painted on a wall? Carved into one of the doors? Or—”
“Oh!” I breathed as the epiphany struck me. Then I spun and raced down the Panacea’s main corridor toward the iconic white marble atrium.
“It’s been here the whole time,” I whispered as Wilder caught up with me, Yoslyn panting at his heels. “I walked across it every time I entered the building, but I hardly gave it a second thought because Yos is right; there are triangles everywhere. And the stained glass is so stunningly distracting.”
I knelt on the floor at the center of the atrium, where the mosaic tile spiraled outward from a version of our school’s creed that was just smaller than the palm of my hand. Yoslyn and Wilder knelt on either side of me.
