The Alchemists Academy Book 2: Elemental Explosions

by Kailin Gow

  “Spencer…”

  “It was my father’s idea,” Spencer explained without being asked. Wirt nodded. That was what Ms. Lake had said too, and Wirt certainly knew what Spencer’s father was like. So busy that he could hardly spare his son a minute to talk to him, and yet utterly determined that Spencer would either follow in his footsteps in corporate magic or rise to the top of some other aspect of the field.

  “So he just decided that you didn’t need a roommate?” Wirt asked. He couldn’t help the slight note of accusation there. Spencer had to have said something, or why would his father have done anything.

  “Well, you know he found out that we were roommates when we were in the middle of looking for the chalice, right?”

  “But I thought your father was okay with that.” Wirt pointed out. “After all, you told him that even Priscilla has to share.”

  “Apparently, he changed his mind,” Spencer said. “I think that the whole chalice thing had something to do with it, to be honest.”

  Wirt wasn’t sure that he understood. “How could that make him want to get you a single room?”

  Spencer looked uncomfortable for a moment. “He said that he doesn’t want me going around having adventures. That it isn’t what he’s paying my school fees for, according to him.”

  “But the search for the cup was an official Quest,” Wirt said. “It went towards your marks for the year. You couldn’t exactly ignore it.”

  Spencer shook his head. “It wasn’t that part that was the problem. It was the part where we kept going even after we had been told to stop. Father thinks that showed a lack of respect for authority.”

  “So he would have preferred us all to be killed by some crazy old witch?” Wirt demanded.

  Spencer shrugged. “I know he doesn’t like adventure generally. He says that magic should be used for better things than just running around fighting dragons or exploring dungeons.”

  “Well, it wasn’t like we actually fought Llew. We just talked to him.”

  “You know what he means, Wirt.”

  Unfortunately, Wirt knew. Mr. Bentley was a serious man, interested almost exclusively in his many businesses. Anything that didn’t lead to success, defined in Mr. Bentley’s personal world purely as profit, was wasteful. Magic, to him, was what you used to predict which way the markets were going to go in the next quarter, or to ensure that your business rivals’ products never did quite as well as yours. For Spencer’s father, a proper magician wore a business suit, not a robe. In that view, adventures belonged to a way of life that was old-fashioned and unprofitable.

  “And now it’s our second year,” Spencer said, “so the pressure’s really on.”

  “More than when he had you taking extra classes last year?” Wirt asked.

  Spencer nodded. “Far more. There’s the tests for the elite class, for one thing.”

  “Elite class?”

  Spencer looked at Wirt like Wirt had just admitted that no, he didn’t know that the world was round. “The elite class.”

  Wirt shook his head. “I still have no idea what you’re talking about, Spencer.”

  Spencer sighed and started to explain. “After students have done a couple of years at the academy, they start to divide us up. Most students keep going as they are to the end of the year, and they get… okay jobs I guess. I mean, even the worst students here can still say that they went to the Alchemists Academy, right?”

  “But the elite group is different?”

  “The elite group are the best students,” Spencer said. “They get special lessons, one on one teaching, that kind of thing. At the end of it, they’re the ones who end up advising royalty, or on the boards of the big companies. Someone who didn’t make that group just wouldn’t fit in at that level.”

  Which explained why Spencer’s father pushed him so much, not to mention the sudden need for a room alone. Mr. Bentley was obviously determined that his son would make the elite group, and having Wirt as a roommate for Spencer probably would seem like an unnecessary distraction to the hardened businessman.

  “Well, you know that you can still visit our old room whenever you want,” Wirt said.

  Spencer shook his head. “With Roland Black there?”

  As if the words summoned him, which wasn’t entirely out of the question in the academy, Roland showed up at the entrance to the cafeteria, collected some surprisingly normal looking burgers from the serving hatch, and picked out a table.

  “Even the nymphs like him,” Spencer muttered. He took another look at the entrance. “And they aren’t the only ones.”

  Wirt followed the line of his gaze and saw Alana queuing to get her food with Priscilla. He started to wave them over as they reached the serving hatch, but Roland Black was suddenly there by their side, guiding the two girls to the table he’d picked out. Well… guiding Alana, really. Priscilla was more just tagging along. It was probably a new sensation, not being the center of attention.

  Wirt swore that every girl in the room shot Alana a jealous look on her way over, while Spencer’s glare at Roland wasn’t much more restrained.

  “Are things not going well with you and Alana?” Wirt asked.

  “There is no ‘me and Alana’.”

  That made Wirt’s eyes widen. They had certainly seemed very friendly at the end of last year. So friendly, in fact, that Wirt’s hopes in that direction had withered and died, leaving him feeling empty for days afterwards. All that, and they weren’t actually together?

  “What happened?” Wirt demanded.

  “We dated for a bit over the summer,” Spencer admitted. “We saw each other every day, with her mother working as my father’s cook, and we were finally happy to admit that it wasn’t just being friendly. Then my father…”

  “Your father did exactly the same thing as he did with the room,” Wirt guessed. “He said that you didn’t need the distraction going into an important year at school, and he told you to break it off.”

  Spencer nodded.

  “Spencer?”

  “What?”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Spencer shot back, the anger clear in his voice. “I knew that what Father really meant was that he didn’t want me having a relationship with his cook’s daughter, and I wanted to tell him no, but you haven’t tried standing up to him, Wirt. He could make things very difficult.”

  “For you.”

  “For me and for Alana,” Spencer countered. “He has more than enough influence at the school to cause problems for her, even if she is friends with Priscilla.”

  The slightly scatterbrained princess chose that moment to relocate from the table Alana was sharing with Roland to the one that Spencer and Wirt were on.

  “Honestly! I don’t know what’s gotten into Alana!”

  “What is it, Priscilla?” Wirt asked.

  “She… she actually asked me to go and sit somewhere else. She can’t do that. I’m a princess!”

  “What were you doing at the time?” Wirt asked.

  “I was just telling her all about the latest thing that’s happened with my… um, problem.”

  Wirt sighed. Priscilla’s main problem, as far as he could see, was that she didn’t think enough about the people around her before doing things. The problem that had earned itself a significant pause, however, was her unfortunate tendency to attract fairytales.

  “What is it now?” Wirt asked. “People showing up to official balls in glass slippers? Aunts trying to lock you up in towers? Wolves dressing up as your grandmother?”

  “You can laugh if you want,” Priscilla said, “but some of it is frightening. You don’t know what these things can be like, Wirt. My brother tried to climb in my window the other day and almost blinded himself falling into some rose bushes.”

  Actually, Wirt suspected that he was probably being a little cruel to the princess. After all, the original fairytales were dark and grim. Stories that no one would want to be caught up i
n. And it sounded like Robert had nearly been seriously hurt.

  “Alana always understood,” Priscilla said. “And now she doesn’t even want to hear.”

  “She’s probably too busy drooling over Roland Black,” Spencer muttered.

  “Oh, is that it?” Priscilla said. “Well, so long as she hasn’t forgotten about me, that’s all right then.”

  Spencer shook his head. “No it’s not.” He looked over at Wirt. “Wirt, I’m really worried about Alana. Especially with Roland around. She needs to do well this year. Could you… you know… look out for her?”

  Wirt was about to tell Spencer that he should stop being stupid and do it himself, but he didn’t. For one thing, he cared enough about Alana to want to agree. For another, he couldn’t help sharing just a few of Spencer’s doubts about Roland.

  “I’ll do my best,” Wirt promised.

  Chapter 6

  The next day brought a new lesson for Wirt. It was down on his timetable as “magical animal husbandry”, and was accompanied by a note for all students taking the class to be down at the front of the tree bright and early in clothes they didn’t mind getting muddy. Which meant, in Wirt’s case, his normal clothes. Not having to worry about clothes getting dirty was one of the major advantages of a magical wardrobe.

  Several other students were already there by the time Wirt arrived, Alana among them. She was dressed practically, with wellington boots over her jeans and a dark sweater that presumably wouldn’t show the mud. Even in that, Wirt couldn’t help thinking how stunning she looked. Then he remembered what he had promised Spencer, and squashed the thought. There were some situations he didn’t want to get in the middle of.

  At the front of the class stood a rather elderly man, wearing ancient-looking plate armor interspersed with fragments of camouflage cloth. The backpack slung across his shoulders seemed to be far larger than someone so frail looking should have been able to carry.

  “Welcome, students,” the man said. “I am Sir Percival, and I will be responsible for teaching you the finer points of the care and control of magical animals.”

  Alana stuck up her hand. “What does that mean, Sir Percival?”

  “Well, it used to mean learning to fight the things, the way we did in my day.” Sir Percival puffed out his chest. There wasn’t much of it to puff out. “Ah, those were the days. Hacking away at dragons. Killing Gorgons with mirrors. Taking on hordes of tree warriors with nothing but a sword, some courage and a couple of cunningly concealed flamethrowers. Great times.”

  “And that’s what we’re doing today?” Wirt asked. He wasn’t sure whether to be excited or simply frightened.

  “Sadly not,” Sir Percival said. “These days, it is all about conservation, you see. Creatures are just too rare to go around fighting them all the time. Instead, we have to think about ways to ensure that they thrive, and only go after them with the old sketch pad and ankle tags.” The knight shook his head. “All very valuable, of course, but not the same, somehow.”

  Wirt let himself breathe a sigh of relief. Most of the rest of the class did the same.

  Sir Percival wasn’t done. “The more observant of you will have noticed that this lesson is quite irregular in its scheduling. That is because I will be teaching this class through field trips almost exclusively. It is vital to observe creatures in their natural environment, after all. I hope none of you mind a little hiking. No?” Sir Percival didn’t wait for an answer. “Good. Follow me please.”

  He set off, setting a blistering pace despite the backpack, heading along the main track leading from the tree, through a wooded area, and out into a series of large meadows. While several of the others struggled to keep up, Wirt found himself and Alana alongside their teacher as they walked.

  “Tell me,” Sir Percival said, “are you the two students who met with Llew down in his cave?”

  “You know him, Sir Percival?” Alana asked.

  “Oh, we used to fight quite a bit back in the old days, though with things getting so busy recently, we haven’t really had the chance. He used to be a very accurate dragon when it came to breathing fire, I remember that. You must suggest that we have a rematch, when you next see him.”

  Wirt couldn’t really imagine this old man fighting someone like Llew, though presumably, it had happened when Sir Percival was younger. Certainly, he didn’t want to think about what would happen to the knight if he fought the dragon now.

  “Um… I’ll try to remember,” Wirt lied.

  “Good, good. Now, we’re here, so gather round, everybody.”

  They were there? Wirt looked around, trying to make out what kind of animal they might be learning to deal with today. All he could see were a few horses grazing together in the next field, their heads down.

  “Today,” Sir Percival declared, stabbing a finger at the sky in dramatic fashion, “we will be studying unicorns.”

  Almost all the boys in the class let out a collective groan, while the majority of the girls seemed to be suddenly very happy that they had chosen the class. Even Alana seemed excited by the prospect. Wirt was very definitely with the rest of the boys on this one. Unicorns? Who cared about creatures that were little more than ponies with horns? They probably weren’t even dangerous.

  Only when he took a second look at the horses in the next field, Wirt couldn’t help revising his opinion just a little. The creatures there weren’t cute, or cuddly, or any of the other things he had instantly assumed that unicorns would be. They were as big as the largest horses back home, rippling with muscles, and when they raised their heads, their horns shone wickedly in the sunlight.

  One of the creatures ran up to the edge of the field, and, as though sensing that eyes were upon it, reared dramatically. Its hooves were huge, and would easily be enough to crush a skull, while the damage the thing’s horn might do didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Are they aggressive?” Wirt asked.

  “Hugely,” Sir Percival said. “There are some people, of course, who claim that virgins are largely left alone by the creatures, but frankly, I find that they are just as vicious towards absolutely everyone who gets near them, regardless of anything like that.”

  Wirt could believe it. As he watched, the unicorn that had reared headed back to the herd and started to fight with another of the creatures, the two horse-like beasts using their horns to fence with one another. After a few seconds of that, the unicorn that had been with the herd ran clear and headed for the other side of the field. It had a lengthy cut down one flank. Wirt looked around him. The girls who had previously seemed so excited to be working with unicorns suddenly looked a lot less happy about it.

  “It seems like we’re just in time,” Sir Percival said. “It is getting near the breeding season, you see, and the young males can fight to the death if we let them. We need to separate them out from the herd and move them off into other fields.”

  Wirt couldn’t help another look at the field. The first unicorn was rearing again, showing off that vicious looking horn. It had a dark smear of blood on it. “Um… does that mean we have to go in there?”

  “Of course it does,” Sir Percival said, sliding off his massive backpack. “What did you think we would be doing out here? Now, does anybody among you know how to use a lasso?”

  Nobody did, prompting a certain amount of muttering from the knight about the things they taught children these days, followed by what seemed to Wirt to be a very short demonstration of how you were meant to use one. That done, Sir Percival handed them each a lasso and told them to get in the field.

  “Remember,” he said, “the key thing is not to let them see any weakness.”

  They went in, mostly very reluctantly. Even Wirt wasn’t quick to climb over the low dry-stone wall that surrounded the field, while several of the others seemed to be doing their best to hide behind one another. They crept forward as a group, and frankly, Wirt suspected that the only thing keeping them from running out of the field was the presence of Sir P
ercival at the back of them.

  “Oh, this is silly,” Alana said, moving forward from the group. “It shouldn’t be dangerous if we just work together.”

  She headed for the nearest unicorn, which happened to be the big stallion that had just seen off a rival. Gathering up her lasso, she whirled it around her head once, and then threw it. It sailed through the air sweetly, landing over the creature’s golden horn and cinching tight. Unfortunately, that left Alana trying to control the creature alone. So when the unicorn reared, she was dragged forward, stumbling in the mud of the field.

  The key thing, as Sir Percival had said, was not to let them see weakness. Well, the stallion could see it now. Alana was practically helpless. Almost as fast as Wirt could blink, the unicorn lowered its horn and charged.

  Several students tried to ready their lassos, but they didn’t know enough about what they were doing to do so quickly. Sir Percival was right at the back of the group, where he couldn’t do anything, and Alana didn’t have a solid enough footing to throw herself aside. If she didn’t get skewered, she would almost certainly be trampled.

  And then it seemed obvious to Wirt what he should do. He reached out with his will, not for the unicorn, but for the land beneath its feet. He thought about softness, and wetness. He thought about how it had felt when he had been falling from the tree with Ms. Burns. He raised one hand.

  The unicorn disappeared from sight, splashing down into the trough that had opened up beneath its feet. It whinnied and thrashed, but before it could climb out, Sir Percival and half a dozen of the class had lassoed it, holding it firmly. As they started to wrestle it from the field, Wirt went over to Alana, helping her up.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Alana nodded, though she didn’t seem very certain of it. She looked at the pond, which was already starting to close up. “That was you, wasn’t it?”