“I…cannot.”
He scoffed. “You’ve been saying that for a year. But truthfully, Amber, there are no hard feelings, at least on my part. You can tell me what you’re up to.”
I blinked at him, and he mistook my confusion for surprise.
“Honestly.” He laid one thick hand over the front of his vest, ostensibly covering his heart. “I was furious at first, obviously, but you were right. I overcame the passion of my anger. And I’d truly love to know what you’re working on. Andwhereyou’re working. Have you been allotted a private lab?”
“A private…?” What in the name of mayhem was he talking about? Why would the Alchemary award private lab space to a student?
He shrugged. “Well, you’re obviously not set up alongside the rest of us.”
“Oh. I—” I had no answer for that, and the faint shine of envy in his eyes triggered an uncomfortable itch beneath my skin. “I swear to you that I’ve not been afforded any resources denied the rest of the class.”
“Oh, I know. You’veearnedeverything you’ve gotten, haven’t you?” He was still smiling, but his words sliced with a blade’s edge, though I couldn’t quite fathom the meaning.
“I have to go.” I stepped around the nearest curved bench onto the lawn, more unnerved than angry, though I felt like Ishouldbe angry.
I marched down a cobblestone path in a random direction, my stolen textbooks forgotten until I’d managed to collect my thoughts, several minutes into the unnecessary detour. Frustrated, I turned to find that Pryce had perched himself on the front steps of the Seminary, a book open on his lap, where he was now talking to Keryth Malcom. Both of them watching me.
I couldn’t suddenly reverse my course without practically admitting that I’d had no destination in mind when I’d fled Pryce, and that I had let him fluster me to the point of a mental fog.
The only logical way to save face was to keep marching forward, as if I’d intended to head straight for…the Conservatory. Its smooth, hulking exterior rose before me, sunlight glaring off the gray-veined white marble.
Surely I could sneak out the back and go the long way around the quadrangle, headed east behind the Refectory, and approach the Dormitory from the southern side.
Arrogantly determined, I marched up the front steps and into the atrium of the Conservatory, my heels echoing on the smooth, slick stone. Other than a few benches built into the walls and a commemorative plaque hanging near the base of the staircase, the atrium was empty. It was brutally austere, in stark contrast to the inviting wood panels and well-worn rugs of the Seminary. Even the torches hanging at fixed intervals on the curved walls shone brightly, their flames unnaturally white.
The atrium—and presumably the entire building—felt cold and bare. Harsh and unforgiving. Unwelcoming.
Why, I could not help wondering, had I been so determined to earn a place here, when this building felt like a terribly unpleasant place to work?
Shivering more from the ambience than the temperature, I glanced around in search of some obvious path toward the back of the building, but the round front chamber offered only two possible routes forward. The broad staircase curving along the rounded left wall or a set of doors at the back of the atrium opening into the Panacea wing and the infirmary.
I wouldnotgo unnoticed in the infirmary.
Which left only the front door, which represented a total retreat and admission of defeat, and the stairs: a deeper commitment to my own fraud.
I exhaled as my gaze traced the staircase, rising in graceful curves past the second floor and up to the third. The atrium stretched that entire height, and…
I blinked, a gasp slipping from my throat into the weighty silence of the imposing space, as my gaze found the ceiling.
“Ohmy…”
In sharp contrast to the cold gray and white marble and stark lines of the Conservatory atrium, its ceiling was a graceful wonderland of curves and colors. Above the staircase, the marble bricks narrowed as they spiraled inward, forming a dramatic shape like the shell of a nautilus. Set into that spiraling marble framework were a series of brightly colored stained glass scenes, framed by thin strips of lead.
It wasstunning. The contrast of cold white planes with boldly pigmented scenes…Of straight lines with elegant curves…It was a feast of divergent colors and textures, none of it visible from the outside or obvious from the first floor. Until one looked up.
In fact, when I’d come to and from the infirmary, the day I’d awoken with amnesia, I hadn’t even glanced at the ceiling.
I turned a slow circle, my mouth agape, my satchel hanging forgotten against my right hip.
Sun shone through the panels at an angle, casting colors upon the curved staircase walls with extravagant, exaggerated proportions, as if the images had been both blurred and stretched by the slant of the light.
The sight lit a fire deep in my soul. An appreciation for beauty beyond what I could express or explain.
I recognized several of the scenes depicted. The young emperor Eldon courting his beloved Lady Avalona. Their wedding, with the officiant at the center, the royal couple facing him and the royal witnesses on the edges of the scene. Lord Calyx, the venerable father of alchemy, stood to his emperor’s left, but the identity of the woman to the new queen’s right had been lost to history long ago.
One panel showed the royal couple on their matching thrones. Another the presentation of their ill-fated only child. And another the tragic queen on her deathbed, mere days after her son’s death.
