He looked…not quite puzzled by my reaction, but certainly fascinated. As if I were a solution suspended over a flame on his laboratory station, and he was perfectly content to study my transformation.
To watch me…simmer.
“I cannot say what my most recent experience of you was, before this morning,” I continued, desperate to drag my thoughts back on track. “Not precisely, anyway. But it would certainly be from before you left for the Alchemary, four years ago. I know you as a spindly twenty-year-old boy, still growing into his height and more than ready to stretch his wings and soar free from his little brother and the tiresome girl from across the way. Those memories feel aged, but I have no more current knowledge of…who you’ve become. And yet somehow, you’re now…”
Aman. Fully grown, with a man’s broad, powerful proportions, and an unfamiliar glint of entitlement shining in his eyes. But I couldn’t say any of that aloud.
“You’re now basically a professor, at the best alchemy university in the world, and—”
“I’m an alchemist,” he interrupted. “A second-year staff researcher, in the Apotheosis division.”
“I know. Wilder told me you’re trying to perfect the human form.”
He actually smiled, just a little. “Not the physical form, specifically. And not from an aesthetic perspective. That would be purely subjective. I’m working toward a functional efficiency of physique and intellect that—” He held up a hand and shook his head, swallowing the rest of his explanation. “My work is not relevant to this situation.”
It was more interesting than I’d expected, however. He wasn’t trying to make people pretty. He was trying to make peoplebetter.
“My point is that I don’t know you anymore,” I insisted, forcing myself back on topic yet again. “And if you think you know me, then your hypothesis is deeply flawed. I don’t know the girl I was yesterday, and you don’t know the one I am today.”
Desmond’s eyes widened, and for a second, he seemed truly startled. As if some gear in his brain had slipped into a new and unexpected formation. As if I had changed shape, right there in front of him.
“No, I suppose I don’t,” he said, his voice a bit softer than before. “But what Idoknow is that if I’m discovered loitering outside your room, no amount of rational explanation will be able to silence the grinding of the Alchemary rumor mill.”
I crossed my arms over the front of my cloak. “Well then. If I can’t convince you I have the ability and the work ethic to thrive at the Alchemary, I suppose you’d better go.”
Desmond exhaled slowly. “You should not be here, but that has nothing to do with ability or with work ethic.” His voice was oddly gruff, gaze trained on me with an intensity that made me wonder if he could see straight through my eyes into memories I had no access to. “In fact, I greatly respect everything you’ve accomplished. That’s why—”
“What have I accomplished?”
“Pardon?” His shoulders tensed, hands hidden at his spine.
“Wilder told me about the Philosopher’s Stone,” I admitted, and Desmond looked so startled that I wanted to stuff the words back into my mouth.
Ofcoursehe hadn’t known what I was researching. WhywouldI have told a respected professional alchemist that I was wasting my time and the school’s resources chasing after a myth instead of pursuing more practical and achievable goals?
Wait.…
A bonfire exploded behind my cheeks. “Wilder was joking, wasn’t he? Playing a prank on the poor girl with amnesia, convincing me that I’d been researching something soutterlyridiculous…”
I glanced back at my desk. At the papers stacked there.
“And here I’ve been, trying to understand all this, assuming it pertains to a professional interest in thePhilosopher’s Stone, of all things!” I spun to face the window, hoping the ocean breeze would cool my face. “He’ll consider amnesia amercyby the time I’m done with him.”
Desmond made a strange sound deep in his throat, and I turned to see his expression shifting rapidly as his thoughts seemed to kaleidoscope. Finally, he settled on sympathy. Which irked me on a bone-deep level.
“Wilder wasn’t lying.” His mouth quirked up for an instant. “Though I can understand why you’d draw that conclusion. My brotherwasserious once. But then he recovered.”
I laughed, and Desmond looked surprised. Almost nostalgic. And I wondered if, in that moment, he was seeing the Amber he remembered from childhood.
How different was she from the girl he’d known yesterday? From the girl I was now?
Curiosity made a mockery of my willpower, and I sighed. “You may come inside, if you’ll answer some questions.”
Yet Desmond hesitated in the doorway, as if the price might be more than he was willing to pay. After a moment, though, he stepped over the threshold, almost formally. As if he were stepping into another world.
I retreated to put space between us, and the back of my foot collided with something on the floor. As I felt myself tipping, my arms shot out, flailing for balance. A startled sound leaked from my throat, and…
A hand closed over my wrist, arresting my fall.
