The Bluehelm nodded, her attention shifting from me to Desmond, and back.
“Then I accept. The other student’s family will pay for the window on my behalf, as restitution for his offense. I will move into Des—into Mr. Gregory’s laboratory. And the other student will stay on at the Alchemary, so long as he does not exhibit such aggression again.”
“Amber—” Desmond said, and I shook my head sharply.
“I will not cut off my nose to spite my face,” I insisted. “And I will not have it said that I only succeeded at the Alchemary by banishing my competition, or that I leveraged any personal advantage against another student.” Whether he deserved banishment or not. The truth never spreads as faithfully as a juicy falsehood, and I would not be on the beneficial end of any gossip about me. “Andyou do not speak for me.”
The Bluehelm’s eyebrows rose. Over her shoulder, Cressa looked quietly amused.
Desmond’s eyes narrowed. His intense focus on me seemed to be silently asking some question I had no way of understanding, much less answering. Finally, he sighed. “That does appear to be the case.”
Monday was unseasonably warm for a fall day, and the heat only contributed to my stuffy feeling of frustration and discontent. And while the rhythmic whooshing of waves outside my window was peaceful, it also threatened to lull me to sleep.
After yet another night of low-burning candles and insufficient sleep, followed by two classes of my own and one of Professor Robard’s, my brain felt like a swollen, overheated mass throbbing behind my skull. My thoughts churned with a maelstrom of facts, theories, and data. I would have given my left arm for another cup of tea, and the alertness it would surely bring, but I could not waste any more time going up and down the stairs.
Every day I understood more of my craft, yet felt less capable of using it. Less capable, even, of rising from my bed to face the day. I could not remember ever being more tired or less focused. Though, considering my circumstances, that really wasn’t saying much.
Distracted as I was by exhaustion, my attention caught again on the metal ouroboros lying on my desk. Afternoon sunlight beaming from the open shutters caught its scales and glittered in its red eyes. As a hawk soared past the window, its shadow made the snake appear to be blinking as it worked to swallow its own tail. To continue the cycle of life, or learning, or the seasons, or anything else that could be said to begin the same way it ended.
I picked up the bracelet and studied it for the hundredth time in the past twenty-four hours. I had no idea why it had been hidden in the Conservatory wall, or who had been meant to find it. But the idea that someone there had secrets—beautiful, possibly symbolic secrets—made the cold, harsh Conservatory building feel more like a mystery than like the giant marble mausoleum it resembled.
With a sigh, I dropped the bracelet into the wooden chest, under my father’s letter, where it encircled my mother’s rose-cut ring, then pushed my chair back from the desk, careful to avoid the edge of an uneven stone that had caught the chair leg twice the night before. Desperate for a cross breeze, even if it fluttered my loose sheets of parchment, I rose and opened the door into the dark stairwell.
“Oh!” I jumped back from the unexpected face, practically glowing on the shadowy landing. “I didn’t hear any footsteps.”
Wilder laughed, lowering the fist he’d raised to knock on my door. “Buried in work?” he guessed with a glance at my desk. “All you do is study.”
“Well, yourarelystudy, so I suppose, together, we achieve some sort of balance.”
“I suppose.” He crossed his arms over the front of his tunic, one brow arched expectantly. “May I come in?”
“Only if you’ve come to help.”
“Actually, I’ve come to introduce you to the concept of daylight.” Yet he stepped inside anyway. “They say the sun’s rays have a medicinal effect on both the human body and spirit.”
I blinked up at him. “You’re here to save me from the gloom of my own dormitory chamber?” Despite the fresh breeze being pulled in from the glittering ocean view, now that the door was open.
Grinning, he stepped close and gently tapped the side of my skull, just above one of my braids. “And of this equally glum and much more mysterious chamber.”
I rolled my eyes and turned back to my desk. “What I’ve learned—what I’verelearned—today is that the sun can also have an effect on certain kinds of compounds and suspensions. It’s something about the heat, or maybe specifically the light itself, though that’s evidently quite difficult to replicate with open flame or direct heat in a laboratory setting, and—”
Wilder groaned as he glanced over my shoulder at the sheets of parchment I’d been studying. “You know, you used to spend time in places other than your own bedchamber. Not that this is an entirely unpleasant location, under the right circumstances.” His gaze wandered toward my neatly made bed.
If only I could remember those circumstances…I thought, indulging the sudden warmth deep in my chest. “Where did I spend time before?”
“The library and the laboratory, mostly.”
And the truth was that I would have loved to be in the library at that very moment, with a large selection of texts legitimately at my disposal, instead of merely the few I’d managed to sneak out of the building the week before. But I could not abide the stares. The whispers.
It wasn’t only that they made me uncomfortable; they made it impossible for me to concentrate.
“Which laboratory?” I asked.
“Desmond’s, mostly.” Wilder’s expression soured, as if the admission left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. “So, why aren’t you there now?”
“I’ll go tonight. I’m just…trying to study. While I still have daylight.”
Wilder leaned against the front of my desk. “You’re avoiding him.”
