I waited for his words to hit the watery grave at the bottom. For the splash of my dignity into the well of his anger and resentment. But I never heard it. His ire at me, it seemed, was bottomless.
At last he added, “Or was that a lie, told to lull the rest of us into complacency?”
He stood, divorcing himself from Keryth’s comfort, glowing with rage as if someone had struck a match to his very veins. “Was this all an act? Another cruel aspect of your mad science? Are we all still lab rats in your moonstruck alchemical conjecture?”
Keryth stood and put an arm around him, drawing him back toward the bench with her. “Forgive him,” she said while I stared at them both, wide-eyed, guilt churning in my newly calmed gut, though I could recall no offense on my part. “His antidote produces some unpleasant secondary effects. A short tempter and unmeasured words seem chief among them.”
And yet she did not deny the truth of his rant. Nor did she appear particularly concerned that I had heard it.
Whatmoonstruck conjecturewas he referring to? What mad—
“Amber!”
I spun toward the doorway at my back just as Yoslyn burst from the Panacea wing into the atrium, and before I could brace myself for impact, she threw herself into my embrace, arms tightening around me like a corset made of human flesh and bones.
“Thank you!” she sobbed into my ear, her tears wetting my cheek, chin digging into my shoulder. “I should be dead.” She suddenly lurched away from me, hands clutching my shoulders so that I had space but lacked freedom. “I would have died, right there on the floor of the arena, if you hadn’t…”
Fresh tears formed in her eyes, and suddenly her gaze tore away from mine as she realized we were not alone. That the rest of the Mastery cohort was staring at her through gazes that felt equal parts bewildered and…frosty, as if a winter chill had drifted down from the mountain to blanket us all.
Because if she’d needed my help…she should be dead right now. That was the rule. Students who could not save themselves should not have entered the arena.
“What happened?” Wilder asked, and even his voice lacked its usual jovial warmth. “Amber?”
“She shared her antidote with me,” Yoslyn said. “She gave me half, as I lay dying on the ground.”
Wilder’s brows furrowed, more in confusion than in irritation or anger.
Footsteps shuffled slowly toward us, and though I didn’t turn, I could feel our classmates closing in on us. Waiting for me to explain. To deny her claim that I had helped her cheat.
“You survived onhalfa dose?” Cressa Baxter asked, and I turned to find her studying me with narrowed gray eyes. Suddenly she lurched forward, reddish ringlets swinging as she reached for my face. I stumbled backward, my heart racing, but Wilder was at my back and he had no time to retreat. Cressa seized my chin, and while I clutched at her wrists, she pulled down my lower left eyelid and peered into my eye.
I forced myself to relax, both because any movement could result in my injury and because there appeared to be no malice in her examination. She seemed viscerally curious and astonished, but not angry.
“How?”Cressa let me go and swung toward Yoslyn, who backpedaled out of reach.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Oh, did youforget?” Keryth snapped. “Because that’s starting to sound terribly convenient.”
“No. I mean, I know what recipe I used. But I don’t know why my antidote was enough for us both. Maybe the observer can—”
“Did you pass?” Lennox cut me off, staring daggers at Yoslyn. “Even though she saved you?”
Yoslyn’s hesitant nod tugged at my heart. “The observer said my antidote would have worked. I—” She swallowed thickly. “I got it right.”
“But not in time to save yourself,” Keryth snapped, and heads all around us bobbed in agreement.
“Take that up with the officials,” Wilder insisted. “It’s their call. I, for one, am happy she’s alive!” But then he frowned and turned back to Yoslyn. “What about Petyr? Was he still in the arena when you left?”
She shook her head slowly, lips pressed together, green eyes damp. “He’s in the infirmary. It…doesn’t look good.”
Pain flickered behind Wilder’s eyes, deeply lining his forehead. Then, in the solemn silence that had settled over our entire cohort, he stood a little taller, making an obvious effort to shield his thoughts. He put one arm around me and one around Yoslyn and ushered us toward the front door.
As he pushed it open, I turned to look over the disapproving faces staring back at me, fiery islands of anger in a sea of cold white marble.
Pryce had stood from his bench near the door to the Panacea wing. The blue skin and hair that had saddled him with an absurd look—had turned him into the very farce of a serious student— suddenly gave him a fierce and menacing edge.
He was glaring right at me.
