The Alchemists Academy Book 2: Elemental Explosions (11 page)

            “I get to learn magic!”

Chapter 11

S
pencer’s decision to help out Alana seemed to thaw relations between the two of them a little. They weren’t exactly as close as they had been before the summer, but they were at least prepared to talk. It made things a lot easier for Wirt, having both of his friends around and on good enough terms that he didn’t constantly feel like he was refereeing an argument.

            Perhaps part of it was Alana’s nervousness over having to take a class with the headmaster. For all that she’d joked about it the previous day, it
was
likely that Ender Paine would have Alana and Robert focusing on aspects of glamours that even Ms. Preville wouldn’t have gone near. Wirt wasn’t entirely sure what sort of evil you could do with magic that focused on deceiving the senses, but he was sure that the headmaster would know every facet of it.

            Then there was the reading Alana had to do for her class. She spent most of the next day or so weighed down under books that seemed to be written in half a dozen different languages, picking through them largely with the aid of Priscilla’s mirror, which claimed to be able to understand all tongues, and which the princess kindly lent to her. Though, from some of the translations the magic mirror offered up as Alana showed it pages, Wirt suspected that the thing was making the translations up as it went.

            Finally though, it was time for Alana’s class. She went off to it with a look of trepidation, while Spencer went off with Pricilla to Ms. Genovia’s transmutation class. Wirt would have liked to go to that one too, but he had transportation with Ms. Lake, and had to spend the next hour or so jumping around to locations picked out seemingly at random by the teacher. Wirt was, even he had to admit, getting a lot better at it.

            He was getting so good, in fact, that when the bell for the end of class came, he jumped straight to his next one, which happened to be one of Ms. Burns’ lessons on elemental manipulation. Spencer, Alana and the other second years arrived, and together, they started to learn about forming and manipulating rain clouds. Ms. Burns told them all about air pressure and moisture content, manipulating small breaths of air and making tiny temperature changes, so that one by one, they started to pull together tiny clouds over their desks, making the little things rain down into carefully positioned buckets.

            Alana was sitting next to Wirt, concentrating hard as she pulled hers together scrap by wispy scrap.

            “How was it with the headmaster?” Wirt whispered across to her.

            Alana shot him a look. “I’m trying to concentrate, Wirt.”

            “Sorry, I was just wondering-”

            “It wasn’t so bad. Robert and I spent most of the lesson just disappearing. Now let me focus.”

            Wirt knew enough to be quiet then, and Alana’s cloud let a few drops of rain fall into the bucket.

            “Not bad,” Ms. Burns said, walking past. “With a little more practice you’ll do well, Alana.”

            Roland, meanwhile, had succeeded in producing a small torrent of water from his cloud, though Wirt couldn’t help noticing that he had “accidentally” lost control of it, so that the thing wandered over to Spencer and rained down on him.

            In fact everyone in the class seemed to be doing well with the clouds, so that the classroom was very soon thick with rain. Everyone, that was, except Wirt.

            “I thought you were meant to be the one with special talents,” Roland called out.

            Ms. Burns gave him a hard look. “I’ll thank you not to talk in class, Roland Black. Now Wirt, come on. I want to see a real effort from you.”

            Wirt made the effort. He didn’t want to let Ms. Burns down, and he certainly didn’t want to be the only one in the class unable to do this. Not with Roland watching. Not with
Alana
watching. And Roland was right. Wirt
was
meant to be the one with a talent for this.

            Wirt bent his will to the task, picturing everything Ms. Burns had explained, visualizing roiling clouds, and lashing rain, and thunder. He whispered the words to the spell, though the last two times Wirt had manipulated the elements, he hadn’t needed words. He focused all the effort he could.

            Nothing happened. Someone, probably Roland, laughed.

            And then Wirt heard the first rumble of thunder. They all heard it. It was impossible not to, when it was loud enough to roll through the tree, muffled only slightly by the thing’s outer bark. Ms. Burns smiled and waved a hand, doing her trick of reducing the outer wall to a curtain of water once more. She stepped through, and Wirt followed.

            Clouds spun overhead in colors that ranged from inky black to purple. Lightning cut the sky in jagged arcs. And rain? Rain fell like a vertical river, so that Wirt was soaked just standing there. Just once, he thought, it would be nice to get through a lesson with Ms. Burns without getting drenched. The teacher, of course, seemed perfectly dry.

            “I did all this?” Wirt asked.

      s sm     Ms. Burns nodded. “An A for effort, I think. Though possibly an F for aim.”

            She looked like she might say more, but then cocked her head to one side. Wirt didn’t like that. It reminded him too much of the way Ms. Lake had looked last year, shortly before announcing that the cup had disappeared.

            “There’s an alarm, isn’t there?” Wirt guessed.

            Ms. Burns nodded, and went back inside. “Wait for me here, everyone,” she said, and vanished. It was almost five minutes before she reappeared, and in that time, Wirt had the chance to think of every possible thing that might be going wrong. Given the nature of the school, that particular chain of thought covered everything from a fire to an invasion of tentacled monsters in the cafeteria.

            By the time Ms. Burns finally reappeared, half the class was convinced that something terrible was happening, and the teacher’s expression didn’t do much to dispel that idea. She looked grave, glancing around the assembled second years before speaking.

            “It seems that we have a problem,” Ms. Burns said. “One of our students has gone missing, and we believe she may have been attacked. As such, I am going to have to call a halt to this class while I and the other teachers conduct a search of the school and its surroundings. In the meantime, it is vital that you all treat this as a time of heightened security, and take appropriate precautions. Do not be alone. Do not go wandering off. Until we have located the student, we cannot know what kind of threat we are facing.”

            Wirt asked the obvious question. “Who is the student, Ms. Burns?”

            The teacher hesitated for a moment, looking at Alana with something approaching sympathy. “Priscilla,” she said. “It is Priscilla who has gone missing. I’m sorry. I cannot say more than that just now, and I have to get going. I have to look for her. If we’re lucky, she’s just managed to get herself lost somewhere.”

            Ms. Burns vanished again. Almost as soon as she was gone, Wirt looked over to Alana. The girl looked distraught, her face creased with emotion as the shock of what had happened hit her. Wirt could see tears starting to roll down her cheeks.

            He knew he ought to comfort Alana. To tell her that it would be all right. He knew how much effort Alana put into keeping Priscilla out of trouble, and this would hit her hard. Wirt started to step over to put an arm around Alana, and found himself colliding with Spencer, who had apparently had the same idea. They crashed into one another and fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs where it was hard to work out which leg belonged to whom. By the time they had worked it out enough to stand with looks of embarrassment, Roland was already holding Alana, making soothing noises.

            “It’s not your fault,” the boy said. “There wasn’t anything you could do.”

            “There was,” Alana insisted. “I could have stayed with her. You don’t know her, Roland. You don’t know what she’s like.”

            Spencer started towards Alana. “Roland’s right, Alana. This isn’t your fault.”

            Alana looked up, fixing Spencer with a glare that actually made the boy take a step back. “And where were you when Priscilla was getting abducted?”

            “I-”

            “You promised me that you would look after Priscilla while I had my class with the headmaster. You
promised
me, Spencer.”

            “But I-”

            “I should have known that what you say isn’t worth anything. It didn’t mean anything over the summer, and it doesn’t mean anything now. You can never understand what this means to me, Spencer, and you’ve gone and blown it. I should never have listened to you. This is my fault.”

            Spencer started forward again. “Alana-”

            Roland moved between them. “Don’t you think you’ve said enough?” the other boy demanded. “Come on, Alana, let’s get you out of here.”

            His arm still around Alana, he headed for the exit to the classroom. The two of them disappeared into the hallway, leaving Spencer and Wirt to look at one another.

            “I don’t like this,” Spencer said. “Did you see how fast Roland moved in on Alana? And she just went along with it. She obviously can’t see what he’s like. She’s completely under his spell.”

            Wirt nodded. He didn’t like the way things were going with Roland either, but he didn’t trust himself to say anything about that, in case it revealed too much about what had almost happened between him and Alana.

            “And blaming me for Priscilla?” Spencer added. “I did my best, Wirt. I swear I did. I went to class with her, and I saw her safely back to her room. I don’t know what else I could have done to keep her safe. Believe me, whatever happened to her, it didn’t happen to her on her way back from transmutation class.”

            “I believe you, Spencer,” Wirt said. He knew that his friend, already almost annoyingly conscientious at the best of times, would have taken extra care after his promise to Alana. “I think Alana blames herself more than you. We just have to hope that nothing has happened to Priscilla.”

            Wirt didn’t mention all the things that
might
have happened. The academy was a dangerous enough place at the best of times, but Wirt knew enough about fairytales to know that some of the things that followed Priscilla around didn’t have happy endings. She was generally careful, but how many times did you have to get it wrong, when doing so meant being cursed, or sent to sleep for years, or poisoned? And somehow, Wirt suspected that King Wilford wouldn’t react well to any injury to his daughter.

            No. They all had to hope that Priscilla would come through this all right.

Chapter 12

T
hey had to wait almost an hour before Ender Paine summoned them up to the solarium. He stood in front of the foliage there as the second years filed in, regarding them all with his usual impatience. Once they were inside, the headmaster started to speak.

            “As you know, one of our students has gone missing. More importantly, she is the daughter of one of the school’s major benefactors, and we cannot go around losing princesses any old how.”

            The headmaster’s tone made it perfectly clear that losing any of them, on the other hand, would have been entirely acceptable.

            “As such, you will all be expected to help in the search for Princess Priscilla. You are, after all, the ones closest to her. Form yourselves into groups and begin at once. That is all.”