I resisted the urge to follow their example, even as three other students raced after them, one stomping on the empty vial he’d dropped in his haste.
Instead, I held my poison up to the lantern suspended directly above my work surface. With the bright, unnaturally white flame shining through the glass vial, I could make out thousands of particulates suspended in the fluid.
I turned the vial over and watched the substance flow toward the cork, noting its thin consistency. Mentally eliminating several possible poisons from my list before I’d even opened the container.
As my observer watched, scribbling madly in his journal, I thumbed the cork from my vial and sniffed the damp end as if it had come from a fine bottle of wine. I noted the scent, and with the vial carefully held in my other hand, I dipped my quill in ink and scribbled all of my observations on a sheet of the provided parchment.
And finally, while several more of my classmates ran to select their equipment, I took a sip of the poison.
Rather than gulp it, I held a few drops of liquid on my tongue, noting the smooth texture and the fact that the particulates were too fine to feel. Noting the acrid taste. I swallowed, then immediately inhaled, in order to analyze the aftertaste—as much scent as true taste—as it bloomed with the inhalation.
I made more notes, while the observer watched me with a thoughtful arch of his brows. Then I took a deep breath and swallowed the rest of the liquid.
My observer accepted the empty vial, corked it, and slid it into his pocket. He scribbled in his journal again, lamplight shining on his dark, bald skull.
I…bent in half beneath a wave of pure panic.
A muted murmuring traveled around the otherwise hushed audience.
My hands clutched my knees, nails digging into my flesh through the layers of my cloak and skirt. My back arched as I sucked in great gulps of air and stared at the floor.
I’d just poisoned myself. Voluntarily.
A ticking echoed in my head like the hands of the Seminary clock, counting down toward my demise, and with every mental click, I flinched.
Get. Up.
The voice was mine, and yet it wasn’t. It was Past Amber shouting at me through the fog of amnesia. I could practically feel her disgust, not just at my ignorance but at my inaction. I could feel her pacing through the dark, inaccessible recesses of my mind, itching to show me what she would do in my position.
Past Amber could yell at me. But she could not help me.
Finally, I stood, and my gaze locked immediately on the official observer, quill poised over the half-full page in his journal, where he’d clearly meticulously noted my panic.
I blinked. Then I raced toward the supply cupboard with the observer at my heels.
Wilder was still there. He turned to me with a smile as I reached for a set of beakers and a burner. We weren’t allowed to speak to each other, but he took a moment, before turning toward his workstation with an armload of equipment, to give me a saucy wink.
The scoundrel was having fun!
I returned his smile—a subtler version—and gathered my initial load of supplies, then carried them to my workstation. My official observer did not help, but he did make note of everything I selected, as well as everything I added on my second trip to the supply cupboard.
I arranged my equipment, setting up beakers and burners, but I still had no idea what ingredients I would need. What format my antidote should take. And since I’d ingested the poison later than everyone else, I would be last to feel its effects, thus last able to analyze those effects on others. A disadvantage, to be sure, when everyone else would be able to use their own symptoms to help identify the poison well before I could. However, Lennox and Keryth had taken very little time to study the poison before they’d swallowed it, and as far as I knew, they had taken no notes on the details of its initial presentation. Which was potentially a disadvantage to them.
We’d chosen different methods of analysis, and I could only hope mine was not in error.
While I waited for the poison to take effect, I went back through the notes I’d taken in preparation for the trial. None of the six potential poisons I’d focused on looked exactly like what we’d actually been given. But it was possible that some small variance in the composition had given the poison its particulates. Or its pale color.
It was also possible that variance was introduced on purpose, to throw the students off. That those details were cosmetic in nature and unrelated to the function of the poison.
Of course, it was just as likely that they’d chosen a poison I’d never even considered during my preparation.
I flipped through my notes, searching for anything with even marginal similarities to the taste, scent, and consistency of the poison, and while a couple were vaguely similar, nothing truly stood out.
Fighting panic over the utter blank slate in my mind, I set aside my trial preparation notes and pulled a large stack of loose parchment from my satchel: Past Amber’s research notes. They were copious and meticulously organized. And detailed. They could also take an eternity to go through, especially considering that I had yet to feel any effects from the poison.
This trial was a deadly gamble. I could not identify the poison, nor could I start devising the remedy, until the sickness emerged. But the sickness itself would likely impede my ability to think, and perhaps to physically perform.
Until it killed me.
