In the time it had taken me to lose my balance, Desmond had somehow crossed the room and seized my arm.
I stared up at him, stunned by his speed and his quick thinking, and suddenly I became distinctly aware of the warm iron of his grip.
“Thank you,” I said, righting myself.
He dropped my arm as if my skin had scalded him.
I glanced down to see what I had tripped over and found a leather satchel, which I’d only vaguely noticed in my original perusal of the space. “Um…are you familiar with my work?” I asked, nudging the satchel out of the way with my foot. “With my research project, I mean?”
“You’d have a difficult time finding someone here who is unfamiliar with the Philosopher’s Stone.” He glanced at the bed, then looked away quickly. His attention skirted over my desktop, as if its contents held no interest for him at all, then finally landed again on me.
“That isn’t what I asked. Did my work show any promise? Was it…good?”
He frowned, studying my face, and I had no idea what he saw there. But then he exhaled, and his gaze…hardened. “You’ve earned your place as a student, Amber. But that doesn’t mean you deserve it now.”
Sparks fired through my synapses, arcing through my soul like flaming arrows of indignation. “That ispreciselywhat it means.”
His jaw tightened, but he did not argue.
“We don’t get along, do we?” I leaned against the edge of my desk, irked that he’d grown so tall and so broad. That this Desmond didn’t match the one in my memory. “Maybe we do respect each other as ‘rational individuals,’ but you don’t like me as a person, do you?”
Something dark shifted behind his eyes.
“Do I likeyou?” I demanded.
He crossed his arms over his broad chest, and his cape fell forward with the motion, hiding the left half of his torso. But it might as well have covered his face, for all I could read of his expression. “Other than Wilder, I’m not sure you care about anyone in the world.” His voice was hard, each syllable the harsh grind of a blade against a whetstone. “Except for yourself.”
His arrow found its mark, and I flinched with the impact. “What happened between us?” I blinked up at him, searching his gaze for the boy I’d once known. “We were friends, back in Innswood. True, you were an arrogant bore, but—”
“Iwas arrogant?”
“But you weren’tcruel,” I finished.
“I’m not trying to have you removed from the Alchemary out ofcruelty,” he snapped.
Startled, I gripped the edge of the desk to steady myself. “You’re still trying to get me expelled?” What did that mean? He was trying to get the Bluehelm to change her mind? Trying to prove I didn’t belong?
“Dismissed. Not expelled,” he corrected. “This isn’t a penalty.”
“But you’re still trying to—”
“I’m doing what’sright.”
“Forwhom?” I demanded, anger sparking in my veins like a lit fuse. “If I’ve earned my place here, who areyouto decide I don’t deserve it?”
He exhaled, nostrils flaring. Teeth clenched. “I know you can’t possibly understand what I’m about to say, if you don’t remember your time here—”
“If?”I stared at him, incredulous. Bruised by his skepticism.
“—but I don’t owe you an explanation.”
I could only blink up at him, stunned silent, while my thoughts raced in circles.
The temerity!
“Is this about Wilder?” I asked. “It’squiteevident that you didn’t like finding him in my bed, and—”
“Enough!” Desmond growled.
