“Amber?”
I blinked and found Wilder staring at me, a beaker evidently forgotten in his grip.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
Not even a little bit. Was that a memory? Had one slipped between the bars of its cell, or had the jailer released one poor, emaciated scrap of a recollection just to toy with me? It wasn’t accurate. It couldn’t be. Brown eyes don’t justbecomeblue.
Would it do me any good to have my memory back, if it could not be trusted?
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just tired. How are you so alert, having been up all night? I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
“Try a swig of that moss-green solution, on the far table.”
I followed his glance to Lennox’s workstation, where I’d noticed two solutions cooling. “Why? What is it?”
“It’s an elixir of concentration. It will keep you alert, as if you’ve had four cups of tea, while it enhances your ability to focus on the task at hand.”
I stared at the vial, yet another of the distinctive flat-bottomed variety, frowning at the clear liquid. “You made this?”
“I made it, I consumed it, and I will offer it for purchase.”
“To whom?”
Wilder shrugged. “Several of the staff members, when they’re approaching a deadline and aren’t pleased with their results. There aren’t enough hours in the day left for them, so they must steal hours from the night.”
“Like you do,” I murmured.
“Precisely. And I’m not the only one. Lennox has bought a few doses, over the past year.”
Understanding flared like a torch, burning off a bit of my own naivety. “You run a business,” I said. “In secret. And those students, from the first day of class? The ones who accosted you in the hallway? They’re your customers?”
“They areamongmy customers.” He watched me carefully, assessing my reaction.
“Lennox Pettifog is one of them?”
“Occasionally. I have to be careful when I offer him an elixir of concentration, though, because when he takes it, he stays in here for hours, and I can’t get anything done myself.”
“Because you need…secrecy?”
“My business requires an absence of prying eyes, yes.” Wilder returned to my station, empty-handed, and began disassembling an alembic for cleaning.
“What grade are these?”
“That is difficult to say, because there are no grade scales on record for these particular,originalformulas.” He gave me a saucy wink. “Though, naturally, I’d guess based on efficacy that they’re professional grade, at least.”
“Of course you would.” I knelt to examine his vials from eye level.
“The elixir won’t hurt you. You have my word. I would never give you anything that would harm you, Amber.”
His eye contact was direct and open. It hid nothing.
“I know. Thank you.”
I started to politely turn down the offer anyway, leery of potential side effects and possible insomnia. But then I thought about how much I still had to learn, and how few hours I had left before the first trial.
“Thank you,” I repeated as I reached for the vial.
“No!” Wilder lurched forward and snatched it before my fingers had more than brushed the warm surface of the glass. “That’sferngreen. I said to sip from themossgreen.” He tossed his head toward the other vial.
