The Alchemists Academy: Stones to Ashes Book 1 (3 page)

Chapter 3

“
W
ake up, Wirt, or we’re going to be late.”

Spencer’s voice cut through the last hints of Wirt’s dreams, destroying any hope that the part where he had been transported to a magical kingdom might be one of them. Wirt rolled sleepily from the bed and regarded his roommate, who was already dressed in uniform black, set off here and there by flashes of silver.

“We’ll miss breakfast if you don’t hurry,” the other boy warned. Wirt made an effort to dress quickly, ignoring another offer of clothes from Spencer in favor of his own. He wanted to hang onto familiar things as long as he could.

“How do things work around here, anyway?” Wirt asked. He liked to know how things worked, if only so he could tell where he would end up getting into trouble.

“Well, we’ve got classes, obviously,” Spencer said. “You are in my year, so you will have most of the same classes that I do. Alchemy, Transmutation, Glamours, classes on the worlds that you might end up serving in as a wizard, special assignments, that kind of thing. There are usually a couple of free choice classes too, though some of those have started to get a bit odd. Recently, the Headmaster introduced one called “The Advisor and Royal Relationship”. My father wants me to take it.” Spencer passed him a class schedule, and Wirt saw that his name was on it. “Someone dropped this off for you. Are you ready yet?”

Wirt was, so they headed out from their room to the landing and the waiting transportation shaft. Spencer grinned. “Remember to think of the cafeteria. Though you probably
won’t
want to think about some of the food.”

He stepped into the thing and shot off downwards. Wirt gritted his teeth, forcing himself to concentrate on what he thought of as a typical school cafeteria, before making himself step out into space. The ten seconds that followed made him wonder how anyone managed to make themselves eat afterwards.

The room he arrived in was huge, set with small circular tables that seemed to mirror the one in Ender Paine’s office, around them sat more students than Wirt would have believed, tucking into cereal, or toast, or fruit. Most of them seemed to be boys, but there were a few girls here and there, mostly in clusters that looked out on the boys around them with what Wirt felt was a fairly typical mix of indifference and amusement.

He looked around until he saw Spencer, deciding that it was probably better to stick with someone he knew, and found him standing at a hatchway, taking a plate loaded with fruit and toast. Wirt joined him, but his eyebrows drew together. There didn’t seem to be any way to order food.

“How do you choose what you want?” he asked Spencer, who shook his head.

“You don’t, unfortunately. The dryads who run the kitchen got hold of a crystal ball a while back, so they are supposedly able to send up exactly what you want without being asked.”

“Supposedly?” Wirt did not like the sound of that. Spencer leaned closer, lowering his voice.

“I think the ball is on the blink,” he whispered, “because I
hate
toast. Plus, the dryads seem to be on some kind of healthy eating kick ever since this TV cook from one of the outlying worlds came in and complained about what they were giving us. You used to be able to get sausages and bacon and things. The trouble is, if you argue about what you get, you just end up with porridge. Lumpy porridge.”

“I like porridge,” Wirt said, opening the serving hatch. What he found was not porridge, though, but a croissant with an apple beside it. He took them both. Spencer led him through the clustered tables, and Wirt could not help noticing that they were attracting some attention. Most of it seemed to be directed at Spencer. Every table he passed seemed to have someone saying hello from it, while the occasional knots of girls glanced shyly at him. At them, actually. Wirt seemed to be attracting his fair share of glances, too.

Wirt was quite surprised to find the two young women from the day before at the table Spencer finally led him to. The blonde-haired one still wore an elegant gown, this time in a deep red silk that didn’t entirely suit her, while the dark-haired one was dressed in an outfit that nearly matched Spencer’s. She smiled as they approached.

“Hi Spencer. You’re showing Appearing Boy around then? And copying my wardrobe while you’re at it.”

“I’m copying you?” Spencer shot back. Wirt got the feeling that the banter between the two of them was a regular feature. “I thought you hated wearing black.”

“Yeah, well, anything to get in with the Head right now. So,” she turned her attention to Wirt, and he felt the full intensity of those deep, brown eyes, “enjoying your first day?”

Wirt shrugged. “There hasn’t been much of it, yet.”

“True. I’m Alana. You gave us quite a shock yesterday, just showing up like that, right Priscilla?”

The other girl giggled, looking away.

“So if you’re staying,” Alana continued, rolling her eyes, “does that mean that you’re on a scholarship?”

“I guess so,” Wirt said, “though I think I might be more of a ‘stuck here’ student.”

Alana raised an eyebrow. “Well, either way, it is nice to meet someone else who isn’t stinking rich. Unlike these two, of course.” She nodded good-naturedly to Spencer and Alana. “Spencer’s family could probably afford to buy the school.”

“Assuming father thought it was a good investment,” Spencer added, grimacing as he ate his toast.

“Assuming that, of course, while as for Priscilla…”

“Daddy already
did
think it would be a good investment,” the other girl said, with an accent so posh it could have etched glass. “Which is why the school is in our kingdom.”

“Your kingdom?” Wirt asked. Alana nodded.

“Maybe I should have gone for the slightly more formal introduction before. Wirt, I would like you to meet Her Royal Highness, Princess Priscilla of Aravalia. Technically, I think she’s also a countess or something, too.”

“Comtessa of Blairsbrook, Lady of Larovia and Duchess of Ilfshire. Though I tend to ignore the duchess part. I always think it makes me sound fat.”

Wirt did his best to keep the word “airhead” out of his mind. It was not terribly easy. Alana gave him a look that dared him to say something about her friend.

“Suffice it to say that Priscilla’s father, King Wilfred, likes to give her things,” she said.

“Just never the one thing I actually want,” the princess countered. “You get to do all the magical classes, while
I
am stuck with special lessons on being royal instead. I don’t
need
lessons on being royal. Lessons on turning people into things, on the other hand…”

Wirt saw Alana give her hand a reassuring pat.

“It’s not as much fun as it looks. Besides, you will have a court wizard to help you out with that kind of thing. Or a court witch, of course.”

From the way Alana smiled when she said that, Wirt had a pretty good idea of just whom she thought that might end up being.

“So, are you two roommates?” he found himself asking. Alana nodded.

“I do my best to put up with the mess. Technically, of course, I’m also Priscilla’s Peer Advisor as a condition of my scholarship, so it helps if we share.”

“Daddy wants to make sure that I have time to get to know my future advisor,” Priscilla said. “Alana is so clever and poised. Not like me at all.”

“I do my best,” the dark-haired girl said.

“Plus,” Priscilla added, “I think he likes the thought of someone else being around to help with my… problem.”

Oh good, Wirt thought. Not only was the beautiful rich girl the sort to giggle and wonder whether being called a duchess sounded fat, she also had the kind of problem that had earned itself a significant pause. Spencer came to the rescue in the silence that followed.

“Alana has always been good at keeping people in line,” he said. “She certainly did a good job with me. We go back a long way,” he added, seeing Wirt’s questioning look.

Wirt thought he saw Alana flush slightly at that, but he did not have time to question it, because Priscilla chose that moment to stand, hugging her friend.

“Well, I had best be going. Time for class and so on.”

“I’ll see you after school,” Alana promised, and the princess hurried off, the red dress billowing behind her in a way that made it look like she was being chased by a small hot-air balloon.

Wirt took advantage of the comment to reach down and bite into his apple. He only glanced away for a moment. By the time he looked back though, things had changed dramatically. They were not in the cafeteria, for one thing. Instead, he found himself seated at a desk in what appeared to be a small laboratory. At the front of it, there was a chalkboard, on which the word “ALCHEMY” was written in large letters. Spencer was sitting next to him, so Wirt leaned over.

“What just happened?”

Spencer shrugged, like the sudden appearance of a science lab was not a big deal. “Alchemy is all about changing things, so generally the teacher just changes whatever spot they’ll let him have into a classroom. In theory, it is so nobody who isn’t meant to be in the class can look in. In practice, I heard that it has something to do with every real classroom used for it getting destroyed.”

“I heard that, Spencer.” The voice came from the front, where an elderly man in a battered and rather stained white robe stood, a pair of thick half-moon spectacles perched on his nose. From where he sat, Wirt noticed that the teacher was missing both eyebrows. “Now, if everyone will give me a minute, we’ll begin with some simple sovereign remedies.”

The teacher snapped his fingers, and a flame appeared in midair, apparently unsupported. Over it, he arranged a stand and a bowl, before starting to add ingredients to it.

“Unicorn horn is generally regarded as the most important ingredient here,” the teacher said over his shoulder. Wirt saw twenty or so students start to make notes, and looked around for something to write on. From his other side, Alana pushed a couple of sheets of paper and a pencil in front of him. “Of course, that is nonsense. The same effects can be achieved just by…”

The teacher droned on. As he did so, words appeared on the board in front of him, along with diagrams that Wirt could barely begin to understand. The teacher was not doing any writing. Indeed, he did not seem to be doing much of anything until he looked up quite suddenly.

“I am afraid we have an unstable reaction, class. Places please.”

With that, he dove behind a desk with the kind of speed Wirt wouldn’t have believed possible from a man his age. Wirt felt a tug on his arm, and didn’t protest as Spencer dragged him below the level of their workbench. Alana was already crouching there. Wirt could not help noticing now that the desk was
extremely
solidly built. Even as Wirt thought it, there was a bang that made his ears ring, and the desk shuddered. For no apparently reason, a dozen white doves flew overhead.

“Am I still dreaming?” Wirt asked softly. He heard Alana laugh. She reached out to touch his hand.

“You come out of thin air, and you are still wondering that? It feels real, doesn’t it?”

It did. It also felt surprisingly nice. Wirt looked into Alana’s eyes again, and decided again that there were at least some good points to being trapped on another world.

“Right class, let’s try that once more, shall we?”