The Alchemists Academy Book 2: Elemental Explosions

by Kailin Gow

  “Nothing, Headmaster. Just checking.”

  “Then get out, all of you.”

  The three of them left as quickly as they could, Roland hurrying on ahead. Wirt hung behind with Spencer.

  “Did your father really do that?” he asked.

  Spencer looked at him sharply. “That was the game, Wirt.” He paused. “Sorry. My father doesn’t talk about it much. And what Roland’s father did next…”

  “He tried to take revenge for this Elise.”

  Spencer nodded. “She was an accident, but Roland’s father trying to kill mine wasn’t. He almost did it, too. They’ve hated one another for years, and I can see why. Roland is… I don’t know what he is, but I know I don’t like it.”

  Wirt nodded. He thought he understood. “So long as this doesn’t turn into something like that.”

  Spencer shook his head. “It won’t. Now, are you coming? We have an incredibly dangerous book to translate.”

  Chapter 19

  The next day found Wirt in Ms. Burns’ class on elemental magic once more. He had, with Spencer’s help and the aid of a pair of glasses kept in the library for just that use, managed to get his required translation to the headmaster on time. Now, he was working with the others on using temperature changes to achieve a variety of effects, from cooking food to freezing things solid. By the end of the class, Wirt and the others had an array of popsicles in front of them, containing everything from a perfectly preserved flower to a frozen rock.

  The bell went for the end of class, and Wirt rose with the others to leave. Ms. Burns stepped in front of him, though.

  “I have another lesson for you, Wirt. Come with me.”

  Wirt followed, wondering what it would be this time…also wondering what Ms. Burns’ teaching method would be, too, because he could still remember being pushed off a branch by her all too clearly. Thankfully, though, this lesson seemed to be taking place at ground level, because Ms. Burns led Wirt outside, onto the field in front of the school.

  “Stand here,” Ms. Burns instructed, indicating a patch of ground. Wirt stared at it, trying to work out if there was anything worryingly different about it, then looked up, making sure that nothing was poised to fall on him there. With the way Ms. Burns’ last lesson with him had gone, he wasn’t going to take any chances. Finally satisfied that the spot in question was simply a perfectly ordinary patch of grass, Wirt stood on it.

  At that point, Ms. Burns picked up a stone and threw it at him.

  It hit Wirt in the ribs, and he flinched automatically. “What did you do that for? That hurt.”

  Ms. Burns wandered over and poked the spot where the rock had hit. “Oh, don’t whine, it’s not like it broke anything.”

  “You still threw a rock at me,” Wirt complained.

  Ms. Burns shrugged. “And I’m going to throw a few more in a minute. It promises to be a fun morning, on the whole.”

  “But that’s… that’s…”

  “Designed to teach you something, Wirt.” Ms. Burns moved back to her mark, selecting another stone. Wirt noticed now that she had a small stack of them at her feet. Ms. Burns spotted his look and smiled. “These are from the bottom of Ms. Lake’s home. They’re some of the ones people have skimmed into it over the years. Plenty of ammo for today’s lesson, I think.”

  Wirt wasn’t sure why it was such a big deal that a teacher was planning to throw stones at him all morning. Maybe it was just the part where Wirt had subconsciously put Ms. Burns into the tiny category of the school’s “good” teachers, where “good” mostly meant that they weren’t inclined to try killing their students, and didn’t actively promote the virtues of being a power hungry evil wizard the way the headmaster did. Of course, given that Ms. Burns had almost killed Wirt the first time they met, that was probably not the safest categorization out there.

  “You’re really just going to stand there and throw stones at me?”

  Ms. Burns quirked a smile. “You’re really just going to stand there and let me?”

  “So I could just move?” Wirt asked.

  “I guess so. Of course, if you do move from that spot, you will instantly fail my elemental magic class.”

  Which would almost certainly mean not making the final fourteen of the elite class. Ms. Burns had Wirt between a rock and a hard place. Well, a series of rocks, anyway. So was that all this was? Another test? Some kind of weird hazing thing to determine how much Wirt would put up with when ordered around by an authority figure?

  “So what is it I’m meant to do about the stones?” Wirt asked determined to find out.

  Ms. Burns shrugged. “Whatever you can.”

  She lobbed another stone his way, not as hard as the first one, so Wirt was able to knock it out of the way with his hand.

  “The problem with doing it that way,” Ms. Burns observed, winding up like a baseball pitcher, “is that it hurts.”

  She threw the next stone, and sure enough, it stung when Wirt tried to parry it away, leaving an ugly looking welt on his palm.

  Ms. Burns went on as though he hadn’t just yelped in pain. “And of course, if I had placed a spell within the rock… well, anything could have happened when it touched you.”

  “So what am I meant to…” Wirt paused, realizing the foolishness of even asking it, given where he was. “Magic.”

  Ms. Burns smiled. And, Wirt noticed, she didn’t reach for any more rocks straight away. “Finally. What took you so long, Wirt?”

  Wirt just shrugged.

  “No, seriously. What took you so long? You’ve spent more than a year at a magical school, you have significant talents for whole areas of magic, and yet when I start throwing rocks at you, your first response is depressingly physical. The same thing was true of that fight you had with Roland and Spencer.”

  “I wasn’t having a fight,” Wirt argued. “I was just caught up in it.”

  “And you couldn’t have ended it magically?” Ms. Burns demanded. “You could have temporarily transformed everyone in that room into something, or frozen their feet to the floor, or blown them back with strong winds. Yet your first response, your only response, was to try to pull them apart. Look where that got you.”

  Wirt wasn’t sure about that. “So you’re saying that I should only use magic?”

  Ms. Burns shook her head. “I’m saying that you should make the most of the talents you possess. Currently, it’s like someone having a virtuoso talent for the violin, and then deciding to work in an office instead. Or a natural race car driver who insists on walking everywhere.”

  “So you want me to be the best I can be?” Wirt asked, and he couldn’t help a hint of sarcasm dripping into his tone.

  “I want you to make the most of your magic,” Ms. Burns shot back. “Trust me, you have plenty of it. It’s just… buried. It has been hidden away for too many years.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll get to that,” Ms. Burns promised. “At least, I hope we will. You have to master this first.”

  “Um… you aren’t about to ask me to undertake some impossibly dangerous quest are you?” Wirt asked.

  “Me?” Ms. Burns asked innocently. “I just want you to do something about the rocks, Wirt.”

  She bent and threw one in a single motion, catching Wirt off guard.

  “But what am I meant to do?” Wirt asked.

  “Don’t you remember our lesson with the snowballs?”

  Wirt did, but he had a feeling that a simple heat shield wouldn’t be enough. He tried it anyway, though, and got another bruise for his trouble.

  “It needs to be more heat,” Ms. Burns said, “and it needs to be much more focused. A general shield is good when someone is throwing pure bolts of an element at you, letting you cancel water with fire, fire with water, and so on. For actual physical objects, you need to intercept them more accurately, and more actively.”

  “So I need to shoot them down as they come in?” Wirt asked.

  Ms. Burns nodded. “You could
put it like that, yes. Now, are you ready for another try?”

  “Does it really matter whether I’m ready?”

  “Not really.” Ms. Burns hefted another rock and took aim while Wirt tried to summon up every scrap of elemental power he could. He would be ready for this. He would shoot down these stones before they got anywhere-

  The first rock hit Wirt on the knee, stinging and bruising. The second struck his shoulder. The third-and here Wirt could see why Ms. Burns had been the one conducting the throwing rocks for accuracy test a few days ago-hit him in the solar plexus, making him double up as the breath went out of him. Part of Wirt wanted to tell Ms. Burns that this was stupid, and that he wanted nothing further to do with it. Except that, if he did that, he would fail. Wirt was certain that Ms. Burns was deadly serious about that part.

  The fourth rock flew at him then, and Wirt reacted on instinct, raising one hand. He felt power surge up through him then, rising up in a wave that seemed to burn and freeze him at the same time, bursting out along that raised arm and flying forward until…

  The rock exploded, turning into a shower of dust motes. Wirt was so shocked that he’d managed it that he barely reacted to the fifth rock, thrown straight at his head by Ms. Burns. That one exploded just inches from him, disintegrating only moments before it would have connected. More rocks followed, and Wirt found that he just had to focus on them for the power to leap out, turning them to dust before they got anywhere near him. After a dozen or so, Ms. Burns put a stop to her pitching, nodding with apparent satisfaction.

  “There,” she said, “that wasn’t so hard, was it? Incidentally, you can put your hand down now, Wirt.”

  Wirt lowered his arm, looking at it like the limb was a loaded weapon. Which it was now, of course. That was a lot of responsibility.

  “Why did you teach me this?” Wirt asked.

  Ms. Burns shrugged. “Because you’ll need it. Only next time, the flying objects will be moving a lot faster, and if you miss one, just one, you’ll get a lot more than bruises as your reward. You’ll be disintegrated.”

  “You’re talking about the quantum ball,” Wirt guessed. “What is it you know that I don’t, Ms. Burns?”

  “Oh, hundreds of things,” the teacher said with a smile that was as enigmatic as it was infuriating. “Right now, for example, I know that you’ll want to hurry back to the room you’re sharing with Roland.”

  “What?” Wirt started to ask. “Why?”

  Wirt didn’t get an answer to that though, because Ms. Burns chose that moment to vanish, obviously using a transportation spell to head off to some other part of the tree. Not knowing what else to do, Wirt transported himself to a spot outside the door to his room. The door was locked when he tried the handle carefully, but by pressing his ear to the wood, he could just about make out Roland’s voice inside.

  “Yes,” Roland said, “things are still on course. We are almost in a position to act.” There was a pause, Wirt guessed it was for the voice from the box to speak. “Yes, I understand. I know what is at stake.” Another pause. “I know this is too important for that. Are you sure the artifacts in the school will give us the power we need?”

  This time, Wirt thought he caught the faint rasp of a voice raised in anger.

  “No, I would never question you. I just want to be sure that taking over will give us enough power to do everything that needs to be done. Yes, I understand. I’ll do it. I’ll do everything that’s needed.”

  Wirt had had enough. It was time, he decided, to jump in there and confront Roland directly. Except that, just as he started to whisper the words to a transportation spell, a hand closed on his shoulder. Wirt whirled, ready to defend himself, but it was only Spencer.

  “We have to go,” the other boy said. “The headmaster wants to see everyone in the solarium. I think… I think this might be it, Wirt. I think he might have results for us.”

  Epilogue

  The solarium was silent without Ender Paine having to work any kind of magic this time. Everyone was too tense to speak, especially once they had looked up at the front of the room, where fourteen scarves hung over some of the low branches of the plants there. The headmaster stood at the front, as usual, with Ms. Lake on one side of him and, more surprisingly, King Wilford on the other. Robert and Priscilla stood with their father, and for once, they lent a regal air to proceedings, rather than merely making Wirt wonder when their presence would make something go wrong.

  Wirt couldn’t help shuffling a little in place. It was finally time. Time to find out if he had made it, or if the last few weeks of effort had been for nothing. They had flown by, and Wirt found himself thinking back to all the things he could have done differently. All the things he could have done better. He had thought that he would have time to make up for things like his poor performance in glamour spells, yet now there was no time left.

  In a way, that was a relief. There were no more tests to sit. No more stupid quests to try to make sense of. No more games to play for the amusement of men like Ender Paine. Wirt could finally relax in a way he had not been able to all through the term so far.

  Of course, in several much more important ways, the thought was an absolutely terrifying one.

  Wirt looked around himself, trying to count the students remaining in the room. Remaining in contention for those fourteen precious places. Wirt counted twenty, which meant that ten of the original class had dropped out early. It wasn’t enough. Not to make Wirt certain. Not even to make him confident. More than a quarter of the students in this room would be sent home today, told in an instant that they weren’t good enough, and any dreams they had of working in the top few jobs of the magical world would be shattered, just like that.

  Wirt thought back to the strange dreams he’d had at the start of term, where he had been talking to Arthur, and the legendary king had called him Merlin. If he didn’t pass here, Wirt wasn’t going to be anyone’s Merlin. He wouldn’t be able to secure a job advising the most destitute of minor lords, let alone some great king. More than that, he would be homeless, cast adrift the way he had been by foster families so many times before he came to the school.

  Wirt looked around for his friends. Alana was there, looking up eagerly at the stage, where Priscilla looked back at her and gave her the occasional smile of encouragement. She looked confident, but Wirt knew Alana well enough to know that it was a mask, and that inside, she would be terrified. After all, the next few minutes would probably determine whether Alana would ever spend time working with her royal friend again.

  Spencer’s nervousness was plainer to see. He practically danced in place with it, while his features were paler and more drawn than Wirt remembered. He had worked so hard for this, studying in his room long after Wirt had given up, trying to be everything that his father wanted him to be. How would Mr. Bentley react if his son failed? Would he quietly find Spencer a new school to go to? Would he still give Wirt’s friend a place in his many business interests? Or would he treat Spencer like he was some worthless, lazy outcast?

  As for Roland, he looked the worst of all, any veneer of coolness he had possessed gone as he stood there, a mixture of terror and wanting written plainly across his features. Not that Wirt had much sympathy for him, given everything Roland had done so far this year. In fact, Wirt found himself silently wishing for the other boy’s failure. Let him try to explain that to whatever it was he kept in that box of his.

  Every other student in the room looked as apprehensive, glancing up at the front of the solarium as they waited for Ender Paine to start. Wirt thought he saw the faintest flicker of a smile pass across the headmaster’s face, and anger rose in him. Ender Paine was enjoying this. He was enjoying spinning out this moment where he had power over the students, and the fear coming up from them in waves.

  Thankfully though, King Wilford didn’t seem to be enjoying it so much.

  “Can we get on with this?” he demanded. “It’s bad enough that I get dragged down to this kind of
thing, without having to stand here at the front for hours like some kind of idiot.”

  The headmaster turned a look on him that made the king go quiet, but seemed to concede the point. At least, he started to speak.

  “We are gathered here,” Ender Paine said, “because the time has come to announce those of you who have made it through into our school’s elite class. Over the last few weeks, our teachers have tested you, given me their opinions of you, and provided opportunities for you to demonstrate your capabilities in the magical arts.”

  He looked around the room. “Some of you have succeeded admirably. Others of you have at least enough talent to be worth our time for another year. Many more have had the sense to slink home to avoid embarrassment. A few of you still need to be weeded out, however, which is what we will do today. I will call out names now, and you will come forward as you are called to receive your scarf.”

  The headmaster called Thomas, the boy who had nearly beaten them to Priscilla and who had found the magical ropes, first. Everybody else applauded as the headmaster handed him his scarf, and the boy moved to stand behind him.

  After Thomas came a couple of girls who had apparently excelled in enchanting items and in alchemy, followed by a slender, unhealthy looking boy who had shown an aptitude for some of the more unpleasant magical arts the school offered. More names followed, each one accompanied by a brief description of what that pupil had done to earn a place ahead of his or her fellows. To Wirt, it sounded like just one more attempt on the headmaster’s part to sow division, though he guessed it could equally well be just a hint as to where they would be focusing next year.

  What started to worry him as the litany of names went on was that none of Spencer, Alana, Roland or himself had been chosen, while the number of places available was shrinking rapidly. It occurred to Wirt that, since so few students would be left out at the end of the process, this was a cruel way to go about things. It would have been far quicker to simply name those who had not made it at the start, or even to tell them individually before things got to this stage. But then, that wasn’t the way the headmaster worked.