I was quite simply not up to this level of alchemy.
And yet, as soon as I’d seen the symbols for salt, and copper, and sulfur, and lead, I’d recognized them. Writing them had felt familiar, and my hand had moved all on its own, forming curves and slashes on the page in a distinctive style that I recognized from a few of the symbols in my journal.
Signature notation.
Double entendre aside, my swirls reallyweretight. Learning to make them quickly had likely taken months of practice.
“Amber?” Wilder said, and when I looked up from the desk, I found him standing over me, his chair pushed back, his “notes” folded and tucked beneath his arm.
He hadn’t bothered to bring a satchel.
“Are you ready?”
Professor Edmiston was gone, as were half of the students. Cressa glanced at me, tight reddish ringlets swishing around her head as she slid her own materials into her bag, and though a couple of our classmates seemed to be watching me curiously, she volunteered nothing of what she knew of my condition. Instead, she slung her bag over her shoulder, offered me a quick, lukewarm smile, and marched out of the room.
“Amber?”
Dread pooled cold and thick in my belly as I turned left to find Keryth frowning at me from across the center aisle, her blond braid draped over one shoulder. The young man stood at her other side, clearly ready to leave, and now that I could see him up close, I noticed his slight scruff of a beard and bright green eyes.
“Yes?” I slid my notes into my bag, careful not to crease the parchment.
“Are you well?” Keryth asked while I clawed at the brick wall of my memory, desperate to carve loose a chunk with her companion’s name on it. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so quiet in class. You didn’t even correct Edmiston when she pointed to that vial of cinnabar and called it colcothar.”
“You’re criticizing her for not being rude to our professor?” Wilder asked, one brow lifted in her direction.
“Of course not,” the young man behind her said. “But you must admit it’s out of character.” He turned to me. “And you skipped class this morning entirely.”
“I’m fine,” I said, wondering if it sounded awkward that I hadn’t yet used his name. Panic had left me adrift in everyday conversation, trying to recall how often, under normal circumstances, people said each other’s names. “I…overslept.”
Judging by Keryth’s shocked expression, complete with an openmouthed stare, I could not possibly have come up with a less believable excuse. “Youoverslept? By two hours?” Her hazel eyes narrowed. “It certainly wasn’t a hangover. You didn’t even come to—”
“Are those the trousers you wore last night?” the green-eyed boy interrupted, and I followed his gaze to the left hem of Wilder’s slacks, where it brushed the top of his shoe beneath his unfastened cloak. “They’re still stained from the ale you spilled at the Dusty Beaker.”
Keryth’s shock melted into a scandalized understanding as her gaze slid from Wilder to me. “Overslept, indeed? I’ll trade my notes from this morning for your notes from last night,” she said to me with another suggestive glance at Wilder.
She reached across the aisle as if she’d tuck her arm into mine and drag me off for some gossip.
“Sorry, Keryth.” Wilder tugged me closer, subtly pulling me away from her. “We have plans for the afternoon.”
“Plans.”Keryth’s smile made intimate assumptions. “Well, when you’re done, you let me know if either of you want my notes.” Then she tucked her arm into the green-eyed boy’s arm instead and pulled him with her into the hall.
Leaving me alone in the classroom with Wilder.
I spun and punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow!” He frowned. “I just saved you from being interrogated by Keryth Malcom, who would have figured out within minutes that you have absolutely no memory of her.”
“She’s going to figure that out anyway. I’m assuming that none of the twelve students who’ve made it to Mastery year are complete idiots, though I am starting to wonder about you!”
“That’s uncalled for. I am both blatantly brilliant and entirely underestimated, which is a rather difficult combination to maintain.”
“You made salacious implications to Petyr, and now you’ve given Keryth the impression that you stayed the night in my room,” I hissed, glaring up at him as I lifted the strap of my satchel over my head and onto my opposite shoulder. Innuendo between the two of us was one thing, but—
“Ididstay the night in your room,” he mock whispered. “And that secret was never going to keep. Keryth’s room is the only one above yours. She clearly heard us talking this morning, then she saw me come out of the ladies’ dormitory tower. And my room is right below Lennox’s, in the gentlemen’s tower, which means he probably knows I wasn’t there last night. Eventually they would have put those two pieces of information together. And by ‘eventually,’ I mean in the next half hour. Because what theythinkwe’re sneaking off to do is what they’reactuallysneaking off to do. And have been doing for a year and a half.”
I had to think about that for a second. “They’re a couple? Keryth and…Lennox?” I put the names and faces together in my memory and waited for some sort of mental click to lock them in place.
It did not come.
