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“Yes.”

He leans in slightly, watching me closely. “It had nothing to do with the fact that whatever you discovered would be linked to you, that you would become known for it. That you would be recognized and deserving of the accolades.”

I swallow thickly. “I mean, I guess.”

Okay, that had a lot to do with it. My ego loved the idea of discovering something before someone else, loved how people would know the name Sydney Denik, even if just within a small circle of mycology nerds.

“Would you consider yourself to be an ambitious person?” he asks, bringing out a pen and pad of paper and writing something down.

“Yes.”

“Have you always been ambitious?”

“Ever since I was young,” I tell him. I launch into how I wanted to be a mad scientist growing up and how my grandmother was my enabler.

He at least seems amused by my confession. “I see,” he says, smiling slightly, his grey eyes seeming warmer. Then he grows serious again. “Has your ambition ever taken on a dark side?”

I stare at him for a moment, my heart lurching.

He can’t know, can he?

Oh, but wait. He has access to the internet. Of course he can.

“No,” I lie. He doesn’t need to know, and if he does know already, I don’t need to repeat it. Besides, it’s a leap to say it was because of ambition. I thought Professor Edwards actually liked me. It was him who used me, not the other way around. It was him that lied and said he wasn’t married. It was him that made me lose my scholarship to Stanford.

“Do you feel ambitious here at Madrona?” he asks. “I imagine your capstone project is at the forefront of your mind.”

I blink a couple of times. “Actually, no,” I admit. “I haven’t really thought about it since I got here.”

Because there is no capstone for me anymore, I want to admit to him, just to get the truth out there.

Kincaid scribbles something down, and my thoughts about Edwards remind me to stay professional, no matter how good his hands look as he writes.

“How have you been sleeping?” he asks again, glancing up at me. “You never answered the first time. You deflected.”

I make a face at his candor. “I think I’m sleeping okay. But I don’t feel like I have. I’ve been pretty tired since I got here.”

“How is your appetite?”

“Nonexistent. The food is really good, I’m just not…hungry. I don’t know. Feels like I lost weight since I got here.”

“Are you on any medication?”

“Yes. I have an IUD. And I take Adderall.”

“How much do you take?”

“Only ten milligrams. Just twice a day. But I plan on cutting back. I could only get the pharmacist to give me two months’ worth. You know, they automatically think you’re dealing drugs if you get three, heaven forbid. So I’ll cut back to one a day while I’m here.”

He leans back in his chair, tapping his elegant fingers along the edge of the armrests. “Do you care to do a little experiment with me?”

My brows go up. “What kind of experiment?”

“Well, two experiments, actually. One is that I want you to keep a diary. Write in it every night before you go to bed. Just a sentence or two about your day or at least how you’re feeling. Mentally, physically.”

He reaches into his desk drawer and slides a faux-leather notebook toward me.

I take it, turning it over. I love a good notebook. “You won’t be reading it, will you?”