The Alchemists Academy Book 2: Elemental Explosions (6 page)

            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 in. 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

T
he 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.”