Any hope I had of shaming him suffered a swift death when his smile twisted into a smirk. “Youare accusingmeof crossing an ethical line? The irony burns like splashed acid, Amber.” He paused, assuming the affectation of a suddenly remembered thought. “Though I suppose it doesn’t burn you at all. Because you truly can’t remember what you were like.”
“Whatever you think I did…I apologize,” I said as he rounded the table toward me. My heart pounded like thunder, echoing in my ears so loudly I could hardly hear my own words. “And you said it was water beneath the bridge.”
“So it is. I’m not here for revenge.”
Yet he kept coming. His approach felt bellicose, his tone quarrelsome.
I moved backward, and he met me step for step until the small of my back hit the wooden surface of the supply counter, and a soft grunt of pain burst from my lips.
Pryce took another step, so close now that I could feel his breath on my face. “This feels peculiar,” he said. “You look so guileless.”
“What was I before?” I asked, and I hated the question the moment I heard it. I hadn’t meant to ask. Not to askhim, anyway. The fact that he clearly understood more of who I’d been than I did made me feel raw and vulnerable.
“You were…bold,” he said. “Oblivious and driven. Callous, in the name of alchemy. But there was a wild passion beneath all of that. Fueling it, I would guess. You had this burning need. Like aglow.”
He stepped incrementally closer, until I felt myself shrinking against the countertop, clutching at the edge of it with both hands. Then he leaned forward so that his words lived against my cheek, twisting this moment with the imposition of a vile intimacy: “Is that heat still in there?”
“Step back,” I demanded softly.
For a moment, he held his ground. Then, to my surprise, he complied.
I exhaled, and immediately I understood my mistake. I looked relieved, which exposed my fear. My vulnerability.
His focus narrowed on me with this new understanding. With a new measure of whatever boundary he’d been testing. “I’m here to support you, Amber. You meant it when you said you’d fallen behind, academically. I understand that now. And I can help you catch up.”
“I don’t need your help.” I edged to the side, sliding along the polished wooden countertop, shifting my grip with each of two steps.
But then he cut me off, matching my strides easily with one of his own. “You do, though, because no one else knows how far you’ve fallen. How little of a threat you now represent. How easy you would be to knock off, at the first trial.”
My heartbeat spiked. Did he mean I could be easily bested? Or…
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m offering to keep your secret. To help you catch up.” He shrugged, yet the gesture looked anything but casual. “And in return, I’ll accept…whatever you feel you have to offer.”
I tried to push past him, and anger flared behind his eyes. His hand closed around my wrist, squeezing until I gritted my teeth against the pain.
“Listen to the proposal,” he whispered fiercely. “You owe me that, at least.”
I glanced past his left shoulder, only to find the door closed, flickering light from the sconce across the hall shining through the leaded glass window, casting red, green, and blue shadows on the floor.
Wilder would appear any moment, but I wouldnotthreaten Pryce with the arrival of an ally, because at some point, I would have to stand on my own two feet. Even if they felt mired in quicksand at the moment.
“You’re looking for Wilder Gregory?” Pryce scoffed, and I went cold. “He’ll be a while. It’spossiblewe bumped into each other on the bridge, and several of his precious vials shattered in the collision. It’ll take him a while to replace them and continue his errand. If he even has sufficient inventory for that.”
He knew I was waiting for Wilder, and he knew where Wilder had gone. What he’d been doing. Was he a threat to Wilder, too, with this knowledge?
A bolt of anger shot up my spine, fire raging in my gut like a chemical burner with too much fuel. I ripped my arm from his grip and shoved past him, grabbing my satchel from the edge of the counter as I darted between two empty tables.
Pryce caught up to me several feet from the exit, but he only managed to grab my bag. His sudden grip spun me around, and I backed toward the closed door, facing him now, both of us clutching a side of my satchel.
“Don’t overreact.” His voice was soft and steady. Low-pitched and far too calm. “Your medical condition is on record, and if you go around spewing unfounded accusations against upstanding and well-regarded men in this program, the only logical conclusion will be that your condition has progressed. That it might have been caused by ingesting an untested, unapproved elixir created by a classmate of dubious repute.”
“You are abrute,” I growled at him, fire licking the back of my throat. Hatred singeing my teeth.
“I amrecompense,” he snarled in return, his composure finally close to breaking. “You are reaping what you’ve already sown—it’s not my fault you don’t remember the original sin. Though maybe you should start looking into whose fault that is.”
A fresh flare of anger swelled deep within my chest, and I jerked on my satchel as hard as I could. He lost his grip, and my arm flew up to sling the satchel over my shoulder, until my hand slammed into something hard. I heard a series of sharp cracks. Pain sliced through my knuckles.
