“It’s like walking around in a room after someone has blown out the candle,” I said at last, opening my eyes again to find the Bluehelm waiting expectantly. “I know that if I move about, I’ll find a table or a chair or a desk, because the furnishings are still there, even if I can’t see them.”
Her gaze narrowed on me, and vaguely, I was aware of everyone else watching in absolute silence, breath practically—perhaps literally—held.
“So, your memories are still there?” the Bluehelm said, her brows arching only slightly with the question. “Like hulking shapes in the dark?”
“I can’t say for sure, obviously. But I certainly feel like knowledge has been cut off from me. Not destroyed. Just…obscuredby a fog, or locked behind an iron door in my mind.”
And in that moment I understood one thing for certain: If that were the case—if my memorieswereimprisoned in a cell of my mind’s own construction—Iwouldfind the key to that door. Or, if need be, I would take a battering ram to the whole damn thing.
Ishivered on the exam table, chilled by the smooth marble surface despite the weight of both my shift and my frock.
Across the room, Desmond stood huddled in the corner with Dr. Winhoof and the Bluehelm, discussing my future as if I couldn’t hear them. As if my thoughts on the matter held no relevance.
Wilder snagged my cloak from a coatrack in the corner and draped it over my shoulders. “Chin up, Amber. It’s not all bad,” he whispered as he rubbed my arms through my sleeves, as if he knew they were covered in gooseflesh.
“How is losing every aspect of my adult life not ‘all bad’?” I demanded in a matching whisper.
A brazen grin lit up his blue eyes, like a candle flaring behind stained glass. “You still have me, and I find you more fascinating and mysterious than ever.”
I rolled my eyes at him, fighting a smile. “You’re suggesting that should be my primary concern?”
“Well, it certainly ismine.” He boosted himself onto the table next to me and bumped my shoulder with his own. But then his gaze, too, was drawn toward the meeting in the corner of the room.
“With all due respect, madam,” Desmond said, “given that Amber is suffering from what appears to beprofoundamnesia, of an unknown nature and cause, I see no way for her to safely proceed with her Mastery year.”
Irritation spiked in my heartbeat, briefly blurring the edges of my vision. My hands clenched around the edge of the exam table.
Wilder shot me a sympathetic look.
“The trials are dangerous enough for students who know what they’re doing,” Desmond continued. “And regardless of her status at the school yesterday,todayshe can’t tell the difference between precious metals and base metals. Between a solution and a suspension.”
That wasnotaccurate. I still had the foundational-level knowledge I’d come to the Alchemary with—what I’d learned as a child from my mother—but it would do me no good to argue with his assertion.
The past half hour had been spent in examination of my memories, and to my surprise, the Bluehelm had stayed for the entire exam, her aide taking distressingly few notes, because there was little, evidently, that was noteworthy.
I remembered nothing after my eighteenth year, but part of that year, too, was spotty. There was no clean line dividing the “before amnesia” and “after amnesia” portions of my memory, but Dr. Winhoof had determined, through exhaustive questioning, that I remembered nothing of my time at the Alchemary. Nothing of the skills I’d gained or the projects I’d worked on.
Despite his hyperbolic stance, Desmond was correct: I was not ready for the Mastery-year trials.
And yet that bolt of anger—of indignation—persisted, burning in my belly like an incompatible meal. I’d wanted to be an alchemist for most of my life. I’d grown up in my mother’s village apothecary shop, hearing stories of the Alchemary and the great works done there—donehere—by the most accomplished scientists in the world. Amnesia had not erased my drive to become an alchemist. And the knowledge that I’d beenalmost therebeforewhateverhad happened—the knowledge that I’d worked, and studied, and sacrificed, and learned, all fornothing—had left me bitter on a level that stretched beyond present and past, and burrowed deep into my soul.
Rather than end my ambition, amnesia had left memotivated.
I couldn’t be sure how I would have reacted to something like this if I hadn’t forgotten my entire adult life, but thisfeltlike a moment for fighting. Not for giving up. Not for going home with my metaphorical tail between my legs. And not just for my future as an alchemist.
For my memory.
Whatever had happened to me to drain the well of my memory, it had happened here. It was related to this place, somehow. And I could not shake the certainty that if I left, I would be abandoning my best chance of reversing the loss. Not just of my alchemical skills, but of mylife.
“As badly as I hate to admit it,” Dr. Winhoof said. “And as dearly as I would love to study this case…I’m afraid Desmond is correct. The trials are much too dangerous for someone with inadequate knowledge of alchemy, regardless of the reason for that inadequacy.”
A strangled sound leaked from my throat, and Wilder’s hand curled around mine, warming my fingers. “There’s still time,” he whispered.
Dr. Winhoof turned. “What was that?” he asked, but I could see from the twitch at one corner of his mouth that he’d heard perfectly well. That he concurred with whatever Wilder’s point was, but he didn’t want to be the one to make it in front of his superior.
Wilder cleared his throat. “I said there’s still time.”
“Forwhat?” Desmond glared at his brother.
