Keryth was blinking blearily at a vial as she carefully swirled it, watching the contents separate, then recombine. Vomit had dried on her shoes and the front of her robe.
Lennox’s light brown cheeks had been overtaken by a swollen red rash. The fingers of his left hand were spasming, and he was compulsively clearing his throat.
Cressa looked fairly composed, though she coughed into the billowing material of her cloak as she worked, heating a bright pink substance to a slow boil over a low flame while she crushed something else to powder in a stone mortar.
Wilder looked triumphant, if nauseated, as he held a vial up to the white-flamed lantern suspended above his workstation. A second vial—its contents a vibrant moss green—hung in a stand at the end of his table.
At least half of the class had finished a first attempt at an antidote, and they likely would not get time for a second. Which meant I was running behind.
I measured, ground, and diluted as carefully as I could, given the tremor in my fingers. Clenching my jaw until it ached fiercely, in order to avoid contaminating my workstation with vomit. When my elixir was finally bubbling softly, I took a moment to lean against my work surface, pretending to double-check my notes while I caught my breath. While I surreptitiously spied on my classmates.
Lennox had just swallowed his antidote, and Keryth was eyeing her own somewhat skeptically. Lennox’s observer stood in front of him, journal open, quill poised in one hand, and pulled down his student’s lower eyelids to peer at the whites of his eyes.
Finally, the observer nodded, made one final note, and gestured to the attendant to let him out.
Keryth watched him go, panic firing behind her eyes. Tensing the line of her spine.
She threw her antidote back, wincing as she swallowed, and I realized she had not let it fully cool.
Wilder tapped his workstation, drawing my attention. I turned, and he raised his vial in my direction, as if he were proposing a toast with a glass of wine. He looked utterly confident, highly nauseated, and terribly worried. That last sentiment was likely on my behalf, as his gaze shifted to the elixir I’d just begun to heat.
He swallowed his bright pink antidote, then turned to his observer, who paused in her scribbling to assess the antidote’s effects.
The other vial still rested in its stand, but at some point he had corked and labeled it, though I could not read the print from my own workstation.
Minutes later, Wilder’s observer nodded and released him from the arena.
As I watched him leave, jealousy sliced me with all the pain and drama of a knife right to the heart, despite my relief for him and my pride on his behalf.
And to my amusement, as he passed the dignitaries seated on the front row, he paused to not-so-subtly pass the corked vial of moss-green fluid to one of the men to the left of the aisle staircase.
I laughed, though it earned me several strange looks from my competitors. But I couldn’t help it. Wilder had struggled so little with the trial that he’d had time to concoct one of his unsanctioned elixirswhilehe made his antidote. Right there in full view of our professors, the staff researchers, honored alumni, and the Bluehelm herself.
My kingdom for an ounce of his confidence. And just a dollop of his skill.
Or, preferably, the return of myownskill.
Two more students cured themselves and were allowed to leave while I waited for my antidote to bubble to the right consistency, and a third left while I waited for the elixir to cool. While I coughed, spraying my entire workstation with blood-tinged spittle, and prayed that none had fallen into the open vial.
Or, if some had, that the elixir was still hot enough to boil off any impurities.
Cressa glanced back at me as she left the arena, just in time to see that last scientific transgression, and she gave me a sympathetic smile.
No matter. The technique didn’t have to be perfect, as long as the result was functional.
There were three of us left by the time my elixir had cooled enough for me to pour it into a preheated vial without cracking it. Three still by the time that vial was cool enough to touch without an iron vial clamp.
Yoslyn stood hunched over her workstation, her forehead pressed to her folded arms. The flame was too low beneath her beaker. The liquid inside had yet to start bubbling, and I worried she would not have time to finish her antidote before the poison had progressed beyond repair.
Heartache gripped my chest like a set of overheated beaker tongs. Squeezing. Burning. She was not going to make it, and there was nothing I could do about that. I wasn’t sure I would make it out alive myself, even with Past Amber’s notes and Desmond’s surreptitious underlining. I could not worry about a classmate. Especially considering that we were not allowed to help each other.
The third remaining student was Petyr Lorena, at the front right table. His face was bright red, and as I watched, he shoved his spectacles back up the sweaty slope of his nose. I could feel all of the eyes trained on us from the spectators beyond the honeycomb of glass panels. Some looked concerned, others coldly clinical in their silent assessment.
Fighting a crippling wave of nausea and a vicious tremor in my left hand, I gingerly touched my cooling vial. The fluid inside was still hot, but not scalding. So I snatched it from the stand, holding it as firmly as I dared, given that my hand could spasm at any moment. Then I took a sip. When the hot liquid did not burn my tongue, I tilted the vial back again.
I’d swallowed half of the elixir when Yoslyn collapsed to the floor in front of my workstation, startling my observer so badly that he nearly dropped his quill. The vial Yoslyn had been holding had shattered, and even from where I stood, I could see that the spilled liquid had scalded two of her fingers and her thumb. She lay on the ground, unmoving except for the twitch of her right arm.
I rushed around my workstation, still holding my own vial.
