“That doesn’t mean he isn’t responsible for it. Amnesia could be an unintended consequence of something he did. Something he…slipped into your tea.”
“I suppose that’s possible.” Pryce was furious with me about something, after all.
“I need a name,” Desmond insisted.
I sighed. “Pryce Wishart.”
His jaw clenched. “I will deal with him.”
“What does that mean?”
“Are you hurt? Beyond this?” He lifted my hand, and when it caught the light from his lamp, he frowned at my wounds, as if he were just then seeing them.
“No. I’m fine.”
He lifted my hand higher, and I resisted the urge to squeeze his fingers. To steal more of their warmth. “What did you take?” he asked, tilting my hand so that the light shone on it more fully.
“What do you mean?”
“Did Pryce give you something tonight? Force an elixir upon you? Did you drink or eat anything in his presence?”
“No, I—” My teeth clicked shut, and his gaze snapped up to mine.
“Amber?”
“It wasn’t him. I…Wilder makes an elixir that can help you concentrate. Help you stay awake, and…Well, I’ve had a lot of late nights, trying to catch up with what I should know already.”
He scowled, and I scrambled to change the subject.
“How did you know? You can see that in my blood?”
“There are always side effects.Do nottake anything Wilder gives you.”
“But it works.”
“It’s unproven.” His voice hardened. “Unapproved. Untested. It’sdangerous.”
“He’s helping.” I pulled my hand from his grip, and I felt the loss of it like an ache deep in my bones. “And anyway, I have little choice. I have to study at night to catch up, and that’s also the only time I can work in the lab without the rest of my cohort realizing I’m not at their level. Which feels like a moot point now. Pryce knows. And now that I’ve rejected his ‘proposal,’ he’s going to tell them.”
Desmond waved that off as if it didn’t matter. “They were always going to find out. But you won’t be working in that lab anymore, anyway.”
“I don’t have any other—”
“There.” He glanced over my shoulder and through the door at his own lab. “I have more than enough space.”
“Desmond, I can’t work in your lab.”
He arched one brow at me. “Where do you suppose you worked all of last year?”
I could only blink at him. “I couldn’t possibly have—”
“Proficiency-year students don’t have a dedicated lab space, because most don’t start their independent research until the third year. You worked here with me for your entire second year at the Alchemary.”
Alongsidehim. Not trulywithhim, surely.
“Why would…Desmond, why would you offer me lab space, if you’re trying to get me kicked off campus?”
“I’m trying to have you removed in part for your own safety, and—”
