Give the Dark My Love(12)

The dormitories occupied most of the buildings behind me. The clock tower and the administration building lined the south end of the quad, and across from me were most of the lecture halls. And in the center was . . .

I wandered closer. I’d thought it was an odd statue last night, and in the daylight, it was odder still. The base was clearly stone, but it had been covered in iron, black streaked with red rust, towering above me as I approached.

I noticed a small sign at the bottom. It said only one word, but it told me all I needed to know.

WELLEBOURNE

My grandmother had taught me the story of Bennum Wellebourne. He was one of the founding fathers of Lunar Island, part of the first colony that left the mainland and struck out for the crescent-shaped rock in the middle of the Azure Sea. He faced harsh weather, sickness, and near annihilation of the original colony before using alchemy to save a few survivors, who eventually grew to take control of the land.

He was, at one point, the greatest hero of our history. They built a statue in his honor—this statue—using a stone that jutted straight up from the land.

But then Bennum Wellebourne turned traitor, choosing to rebel against the very Empire that had supported him in a bid for the island’s independence. He’d resorted to the dark arts, twisting alchemy to raise an army of the undead. After he was captured and hung for his crimes, the citizens of Lunar Island tried to remove the stone statue, but it was wedged too deep in the earth. So they melted down iron and dumped it over the top, leaving nothing but a lumpy black monstrosity behind.

According to my grandmother, every single woman in the colony contributed her frying pan to the cause of covering up Bennum Wellebourne’s stony face. But Grammy always laughed when she told the story, and cracked another egg in the sizzling cast-iron pan on the stove.





SIX


    Grey



There was a new girl in class, and she was sitting in Tomus’s seat.

Master Ostrum’s morning lecture was small, just twenty students, and exactly enough desks for each one. Those who had arrived before Tomus and me had either claimed their own desks or hung back, watching. Waiting.

I glanced at Tomus. The girl in his seat had rattled him, an unexpected addition to his morning. His face was passive, but his eyes were narrowed in a way I knew meant trouble.

The girl was about our age. Her long skirt was made of homespun fabric; her hair was wrapped in braids, and she wore no makeup. She sat ramrod straight, staring at the worn blackboard caked in chalk dust as if she were trying to read the words that had long since been erased. Her hands—nails bitten short, skin cracked from labor—were folded neatly atop a short stack of books on alchemy, each so worn that threads leaked from the corners of the clothbound covers.

Tomus strode across the lecture hall, his hard-heeled boots thudding against the wooden floor. She didn’t turn to him until he was almost on top of her.

“You’re in my seat,” he said. He had clearly decided she wasn’t worth his veneer of politeness.

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “I’m sorry.” She gathered her inkwell, pen, and books and stood, shifting her belongings one desk over.

“That’s his desk,” Tomus said, his voice almost a snarl as he jerked his head toward me.

“It’s—” I started, intending to tell her that she could sit there, but Tomus silenced me with a look.

The girl gathered her belongings quietly, then got up, surveying the desks, all of which had now been claimed. No one met her gaze.

“You’re in the way,” Tomus said as he sat down, as if he were speaking to a particularly dense child. The girl’s eyes flashed, but she spun on her heel and sat down on the floor, directly in front of Tomus. Tomus’s jaw clenched. His foot slid out from under the desk, but she had—by cleverness or accident—sat just out of his reach.

Master Ostrum finally entered the lecture hall and surveyed the room, raising an eyebrow at the girl on the floor, but saying nothing. “By this point,” he said, going directly into his opening lesson, “you have learned everything the books can teach you. It’s time for hands-on instruction.” He hefted a large box onto his hip and slammed three metal vases on the desk in front of the class. One gold, one silver, and one copper.

Every student sat up straighter. Crucibles. We knew what this meant. We were finally going to perform alchemy.

Tomus’s eyes darted to the girl on the floor. He—along with everyone else in the room—was clearly wondering when Master Ostrum would address the new addition to our class. But no one was willing to speak up. Master Ostrum did not like interruptions.

“Alchemy is all about trades,” Master Ostrum said, adjusting the three crucibles on the desk so they were evenly spaced. “Copper is for transactions.”

We knew this; it had been the first lesson in every textbook we’d studied, every lecture we’d sat through. I glanced over at the girl; her eyes were wide, her attention rapt, and her lips moved silently, repeating Master Ostrum’s words.

Master Ostrum picked up the copper crucible, tilting it so we could see it was empty. He plucked a hair from his head and dropped it into the center of the crucible, muttering as runes lit up along the metal. After a moment, he turned the crucible upside down, and a fist-sized granite rock fell into his palm.

The new girl gasped, and though she wasn’t the only one to do so, she was the loudest. Master Ostrum cut her a glance so severe that she silenced immediately.