“Indeed. We have always accepted the burden of leadership.”
“A selfless act, no doubt.”
He chuckled. “Toolkeepers’ legend has it that while the Crown commissioned the Seminary’s design from its own architects, the Conservatory was designed by the royal alchemist, Lord Calyx himself.”
I pictured the father of alchemy as he stood next to the emperor in the atrium’s stained glass. “Really?”
“That building was his passion toward the end of his life, when his scientific pursuits proved…fruitless.”
“They weren’tfruitless,” I snapped. “Calyx set the Alchemary down the path of its most noble pursuits; not every farmer gets to harvest the fruit of his own labors.”
My father’s brows rose. “It seems propaganda has proven immune to your amnesia. How much have you remembered?”
“None of it. Not a single day spent here, before this week.”
“I see.…” He nodded slowly, and I could tell from the tight line of his jaw that hedidsee.
I’d known the history of the Alchemary since I was a child, and it wasn’t from propaganda.
It was from bedtime stories.
Half an hour later, we’d spoken on topics that could be addressed and eschewed those that still could not, and though I couldn’t remember the absence from my father, I felt content for the moment to have him near, despite the gulf that lay between us.
Perhaps because of it.
With a sigh, my father set his teacup on the bench and stood, clearing his throat rather formally.
“Well, Amber,” he said, collecting his satchel from the ground as I stood. “I do hope you’ll see fit to come visit this year. You could travel with the Gregorys, or I could send a carriage. Or I could arrange to have work nearby, around the time of your holiday, and fetch you home myself, if you wouldn’t entirely detest a couple of days spent on the road with your father.”
I extended my hand for him to shake. “You have my word that I will consider it.”
My father’s palm slid against mine, his fingers gripping my own warmly. He held my hand for a moment, looking right into my eyes. “And should this entire proposal prove little more than an old man’s whimsy…” A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth and at what had become, since I’d last seen him, a rather spectacular silver mustache. “A simple correspondence from my daughter would not go amiss. I should dearly love to know when you’ve recovered your memories, and what astonishing feats this malady has hidden from you.”
“Those would likely be alchemical feats,” I informed him. “And you have little stomach for the practice.”
“Indeed. But I have nothing in this wide world but affection and pride for my daughter. Even if her interests oppose my own.”
“In that case…” I took a deep breath. “There is a Family Weekend coming up soon. I hear there’s a festival on the first night. You would not be unwelcome, should you and Martyn choose to attend.”
My father leaned in and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I will do my very best.”
After he had gone, I turned to clear away our teacups, and I found his handkerchief lying on the bench, where it had fallen from his pocket.
For no reason I could understand, I picked up that handkerchief, still damp with his tears, and I stuffed it into the pocket of my frock.
As the sun rose on Saturday morning, five days since I’d woken up with amnesia, I finally stepped for the first time into the third-floor lab devoted to use by Mastery-year students. As I had hoped, the space was almost entirely abandoned.
Almost.
Wilder Gregory rushed from table to table like a man gone mad. Like a man possessed by the spirit of alchemy and at home in its demanding embrace.
He looked wild, and driven, and passionate. It was mesmerizing.
For some time, I only watched him, delaying the announcement of my presence, as curious about when he would notice me as I was about what, exactly, he was doing. And as I stood in the doorway, leaning against the thick wooden frame, a calm descended over me despite the early hour. Despite the constant, grinding anxiety of my own ignorance and the weight of my secret.
I felt at home here, though I could not remember ever having utilized an alchemical laboratory.
It was the sounds. The gentle bubbling of half a dozen liquids. The soft sputter of flames and the clinking of glass against glass. Each noise felt familiar and made sense, like the crackle of the fire in my childhood hearth.
