Alchemist Academy: Book 1 (22 page)

I sat in the single chair facing her desk. The room felt smaller the second time around, and the mystique of the strange-looking bearded men on the walls had worn off. I took a deep breath and waited for Verity to speak.

“Yesterday, you made a very powerful stone.”

I leaned forward and jumped on the statement. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I just dumped all the ingredients in.” Why was I being so defensive? I leaned back in my chair and tried to find a comfortable spot.

Verity took a small black bag and set it on the desk. The contents of the bag were most likely the remains of Ira. Or they could just be the common defensive stones all the professors carried around. Well, actually it seemed like everyone carried stones around. The way she looked at me, I thought I needed one on hand, just in case.

“I’m not disciplining you, I’m rewarding you.” She brightened up enough to make her piercing eyes sting less. “If you could make that booster stone, I wonder what your limits are. I wonder if you could indeed make the stone I requested yesterday, but chose not to.”

“I just get tired, is all. Making the stones is very draining.”

“Perhaps.” Verity smiled again. She seemed amused. “Is there something in the drinking water at Summerford?”

“I…. What do you mean?”

Someone knocked at her door.

“Can you get that?” Verity asked.

I walked to the door and opened it. Next to Priscilla stood Bridget. When she spotted me a wicked smile spread over her face.

“Look at this, two specials from one town, and at the same time.” Verity stood behind me and I felt sandwiched between the two.

“Some are more special than others,” Bridget said.

She was a special like me?

“That’s all, Priscilla.”

Verity motioned for Bridget to come in, but she was already strutting into the room. Pulling back her shoulders, she passed me. I wanted to shake her right then and there, and tell her all of this was so much bigger than our petty feud.

“I heard you broke the single-day record of stones made in room twenty-eight?” Verity asked.

“Yeah, it wasn’t hard once I figured it all out.” Bridget sat on the chair.

I searched for another place to sit.
Guess I’ll be standing.
Whatever. Let Bridget hang herself.

“Do you need me for anything else?” I asked.

“Yes. Please, be patient.” Verity opened her cabinet.

Bridget got up from her seat and tried to see into the cabinet. She sat down once Verity had turned around with some materials. Turning in her seat, she looked up at me and winked. Could there be an evil wink? It looked like one. I frowned, not understanding.

“Now, Bridget, your friend here—”

“We’re not friends,” Bridget stated.

“Don’t ever interrupt me again.” Verity smacked the top of her desk.

Bridget slumped in the chair and crossed her arms.

“Allie couldn’t make this stone. I was hoping you would give it a try.”

“What does it do?” Bridget asked.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s a test to see if you can make it or not.”

“I don’t know. I can give it a try.”

Verity winced. “It’s not something you can simply
try
to do.”

“I’ve only been here for a day, but one thing I know is, I can make these stones like no one else.” Bridget looked over at me.

“Good. Then show me,” Verity said.

Bridget pulled her chair closer to the desk.

“Just stand.”

I hid my gaping mouth with a fake yawn, but I wanted to scream to Bridget not to make that stone. I didn’t know what Verity planned on doing with a time stone, but I doubted it was to study it. I considered striking the bowl off the table. No, I had to wait for my moment. I had to get the life stone first; after that, all bets were off.

Bridget stood up from her chair and leaned over the desk, observing each item in turn. My heart began beating fast and I breathed hard through my nose. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to make it. I hoped she wouldn’t, but Verity had set out the challenge and I was sure Bridget would use her entire soul to make a stone I couldn’t. She poured the liquid into a bowl and mixed the solids, the same as I had. There was no mist or clunk of a stone rolling around the bowl. Just a mixture of nothing.

“Did I pass?” Bridget asked, swirling the spoon around.

“No, you failed.” Verity turned to me. “Allie, you’re moving up to room five, and yes, before you throw a little hissy fit, you can bring your pet Malki along. As far as you go, Bridget, you’ll be moving to room ten.”

I shook my head. “Room five? I thought….”

“You thought no one made it past room ten? Well, when you can make a booster stone the way you did, we’d be wasting your talents teaching you anything less. I will see to your lessons personally.”

My eye twitched and I wanted to scream at Verity about the things I knew she was doing and the people she kept in the storage room, but I only nodded. Telling her now would most definitely jeopardize Mark and keep me from getting that life stone. I leaned to my right, trying to get a better look at the cabinet holding all her goodies. The lock looked like a simple cabinet lock.

“You two can go now.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I led the way to the teachers’ hall with Bridget on my heels. She slammed the door behind me and even with my long strides, I heard her heels clicking along at a faster pace.

She brushed up against me and eyed me from the side. I glanced, not expecting to see her pleading look. It stopped me in my tracks, ten feet from the hub door.

“What?” I asked.

Bridget took a deep breath and glanced around the hall. “Listen, Allie, I know I gave you shit at Summerford.” She closed her eyes for a second before scanning the hall and leaning closer. “This place is scaring the crap out of me. They
want
me to hate you, but I don’t. They’ve asked me to do everything I can to make you hate me. They have … things they’re holding over me, so I’ll continue to pretend I hate you, okay?”

Each word shocked me more than the last. They were holding something on Bridget, and she didn’t hate me?

“Yeah, sure.” Then I wondered if she was playing me, luring me in for some big prank. I tilted my head and tried to figure out her sincerity. “Are you crying?”

She wiped her face. “They keep making me relive my trigger, or whatever they call it.” Her crimson face shook as she spit out the words.

I knew what she was probably reliving. Mark had coaxed it out of her and had used a time stone to take it back. Bridget didn’t remember it, but it still haunted me.

Bridget looked back at Verity’s door. “I could have made that stone, but something told me not to help that woman.”

I stared at the door. I had the same feeling, yet even with a crying Bridget in front of me, I didn’t feel safe telling her that. “Look—”

She hugged me.

I tensed, expecting an attack, until her quivering jaw rested on my shoulder and her ragged breath landed on my neck. I hugged her back with my fingertips touching her back and my eyes open.

She backed away and wiped her face again, taking in a deep breath and sucking in her snot. “I’m sorry, but summoning the kind of hate I have for several hours today nearly broke me. How do you do it?”

“I don’t know. I just feel it for a brief time and then let it go.”

Bridget shook her head. “I can’t let this go.”

I opened my mouth to let her know that I knew what she was going through, but she wouldn’t believe I had traveled back in time with Mark to right the wrong we’d done to her. I closed my mouth.

She laughed and wiped her face. “I guess I can consider myself lucky. Most of these saps can’t seem to make anything.”

Not comfortable with this new girl in front of me, I went back to the fundamentals. “Bridget, how is it you’re an alchemist?”

“My mom is one. Oh, I’m so sorry, I forget about your mom.”

At one point she and I had been friends. She knew a lot about me and used most of it to make fun of me, but she never mentioned my mom. It was a line she didn’t cross, and I guessed that was one nice thing I could say about her.

“No biggie. Did your mom tell you about this place?”

Bridget looked at the high ceiling. “Not until a few days ago. Some guy named Darius was at our house a couple days after my mom showed me how to make a few stones. I thought she was going to have a heart attack, until he told her he was from the Academy and was taking me there.” She laughed. “She seemed so happy to send me here. Why would she be happy to send me to a place like this?”

“Seems to be a theme.”

She smirked and raised an eyebrow above her puffy eyes. “You and Mark have a thing still, right?”

I had an old knee-jerk reaction to avoid her eyes, but I continued to look at her as I answered. “Yes.”

“Good for you. I about died when he took his shirt off today.” She laughed and some of the friendly person I’d grown to like in my childhood reappeared.

“Yeah, well, they all treat him like a dog here because he can barely make stones.”

“Your pet. I heard Verity.”

I wanted to tell Bridget that Mark was ill, that he was dying and needed a life stone to save him. I could use a Blue on my side. I needed all the help I could get, but as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t trust her.

After the urge left, I said, “We’d better get back to our houses.”

“Blue
house
,” she sang in her gangster voice, throwing a hand sign that looked like the letter “B.” “Let me leave now, and you follow in a minute. I don’t want them thinking I’m colluding with the enemy.”

“Okay,” I said.

Bridget walked the last ten feet and opened the door to the hub. I waited the allotted minute and went through the door. I picked up my pace as I thought about Verity going back to the back room with the life stone. That would be my best chance of stealing it from her. Maybe a few of those freeze stones would stop everyone while I did it. I would only need a second, and then I could use the life stone on Mark. I didn’t care about the consequences afterwards.

I strode past the first Red house, searching the faces for Carly and Mark. I wanted to avoid them. I needed to get to the Reds’ lab and make a few stones before we snuck to the back room holding that boy and his dad.

“What’s with the stones?” Mark pointed at my black sack.

I shrugged. “Protection.” I glanced down at the bag and made sure it was closed tight. There was no reason to explain why I needed so many freeze stones. They’d find out soon enough.

We made our way down the endless hall and found the passageway into the storage room. Hiding behind a stack of boxes, we moved a few to give us a view of the dad. He was still sitting in the chair, with his son sitting in front of him. The dad hadn’t moved an inch, still frozen in time. His son was sitting in a near-motionless state as well, slouched in his own chair, sleeping.

An hour passed and I knelt down next to the boxes, trying to find a comfortable spot. My body was cramping, and I wanted to stand and stretch. Lifting my arms, I hit one of the cardboard boxes. Just my luck, it fell and hit the floor, and stones fell out of the box and bounced around.

The son stirred from his sleep and looked our way. “Is someone there?”

We ducked down and didn’t move. His chair scratched across the floor and I held my breath as we huddled next to the stack of boxes. I closed my eyes and listened to the room. A few footsteps sounded, and were they getting louder?

A click and a thump echoed around the room, too many feet for a single person. I opened my eyes and dared a glance over the box.

“Is everything okay?” Verity asked, walking into the room. Deegan moved in behind her and stayed near the back wall. Verity ran a finger over the shoulder of the dad and moved closer to the boy.

The boy frowned and glanced at our boxes. “Yeah, I think I’m hallucinating. I haven’t slept much.”

“You’re a fine son, Daniel. Are you ready to help your dad?”

“Did you get the stone to help my dad?”

“Almost. We just need one more thing, but it’s going to be difficult for you.”

“Anything. You just name it.”

I knew the eagerness in his voice. I too would have done anything to help my mom, to bring her back. I also knew the danger of it and what Verity was about to have the boy do. I took a deep breath and waited for my moment.

Verity moved to the dad and ran her hand over the side of his face. She leaned in close and I saw her mouth moving next to his ear. Then she leaned back and said, “As you know, to break him free, we need a life stone. But what you probably didn’t know is what it takes to make one.”

“Just get me the ingredients. I feel as if I could make the philosopher’s stone right now,” Daniel said with his fists clenched at his sides.

“I’m sure you feel like you could, but this one only takes a couple of stones, held by a person who loves their father very much.”

“I do. I love him.”

“I know.” Verity turned to him and with her gloved hands took out two stones from her pouch. Her gaze passed over our stack of boxes and I ducked down. I loosened the top string on my sack and picked my targets. I wasn’t the best thrower, but how could fate let me fail when Mark’s life depended on it?

Mark, wide-eyed, shook his head, glancing down at my hand.

Carly touched my arm and shook her head as well. They didn’t understand that I had to get the life stone. And once they made one … I touched the bag of stones at my side and adjusted the glove on my hand. My fingers tightened over one of the stones.

“You just sit in that chair and with your bare hands, touch the stones together,” Verity instructed.

At her words, I lifted up to watch her hold her hands in front of Daniel.

“These two stones.”

“That’s it?” he asked.

I controlled my breathing and timed my attack. Deegan would be looking my way, but I thought I could take Verity by surprise easily enough.

Verity cocked her head and shrugged. “Yes, but it’s very powerful. You have to make sure you hold the stones together all the way to the end.” She talked as if she was addressing a child.

“How will I know when it’s the end?” He licked his lips and stepped toward her.

I knew something terrible would happen if he touched those stones together. I’d have to find another way for Mark. I wouldn’t stay behind this stack of boxes and watch a kid die. Breathing deeply, I kept my hand deep in my stone sack. I wasn’t sure which stone I was holding, but it didn’t really matter. They would all work fine.

“Trust me, you’ll know when it’s over,” Verity said. “Are you ready?”

Daniel sat in the metal chair facing his dad and nodded. “Give them to me.”

Verity smiled, and her gaze passed over our boxes. I froze in fear, but her eyes didn’t lock on me. I watched as she got close to the dad and leaned in with a wicked smile. Whispering into his ear again, she caressed the sides of his face and tilted his body forward a tad, giving him a perfect line of sight. She winked and turned back to the son, pulling the stones from her pouch.

This was it. I had only one chance to get it right.

Daniel wiped his hands on his jeans. Verity held the stones out.

My insides screamed to make it stop. I grabbed the stones with every intention of jumping out and hurling them at Verity. Mark touched me and I felt a cold sensation melting over the back of my hand. I opened my eyes wide and they stuck there. My mouth hung open in shock and rage filled me with so much heat I thought I could start a fire just by touching the boxes next to me. But I couldn’t move.

He whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I wanted to kick him and scratch his pretty face. How could he have put a freeze stone on me? I couldn’t use my throat muscles to yell and warn Daniel. Even worse, I watched as Verity placed the two stones in his palms.

“Merge them, quickly.” Verity moved out of the way so as to allow Daniel and his father a direct view.

No!

Daniel clapped his hands together and the stones cracked. A light grew from within his grasp, and Verity took a few more steps back. The light reached a blinding level in a few seconds.

I wanted to squint, but I couldn’t even blink. The light grew so bright, I couldn’t see him anymore. Then came the scream, a deep guttural noise, steadily rising in volume and tone, until it was an inhuman screech. I wanted to cover my ears. The whole room filled with the white light and the sounds of a person dying. I wanted to kill Mark for making me watch something so horrible.

Daniel’s screams continued and I thought of his father, sitting directly across from him. I didn’t even know his name. I felt a tear sliding down my frozen face. He and I were locked into seeing the horror, but I’d never hugged Daniel or tucked him into bed; I’d never told him a story or shared a life with him. I couldn’t imagine the pain the dad was going through, watching his offspring being consumed directly in front of him and not being able to move a muscle or look away.

Feeling a warm sensation around my face, I blinked and shut my eyes and blocked out some of the blinding light. Even behind my eyelids, colors danced in my vision. Now, if I could only move my hands to cover my ears. The scream seemed to be never-ending. It wasn’t humanly possible to have that much breath released from someone’s body. The stones had to be draining him of everything from the inside.

Then it stopped. A second into the deafening silence, the light ended and the room fell dark. I opened my eyes at the sound of a stone hitting metal. The bright light had burned into my vision and I had trouble focusing on anything in the blur. I blinked hard, trying to clear my eyes, and found the chair Daniel had been sitting on. A stone lay on the steel chair, rolling around its concave surface before stopping. It was the last remnant of Daniel and the creation of a life stone.

I stared at the stone. It was something I’d been consumed with getting and there it was, a few seconds’ dash from my grasp. But now, knowing how it had been created, I didn’t want anything to do with it.

“He had some real gumption there at the end, don’t you think, Dave?” Verity addressed the dad. She walked to the chair and picked up the stone, holding it above her, turning it in the light.

I desperately wanted my arms to function. I wanted to make Verity and the rest of them pay.
Damned Mark!

I looked at him, wishing I could slap his face. He didn’t look at me, choosing to keep his attention on Verity. His whole body shook and his face was crimson. Little bits of spittle flew from his mouth.

“I hope it was worth it … you know, coming into my house, acting like you’re somebody important. Don’t worry, though. I’ll find a way to send the others a message about what happened to you.” She glanced back at the empty steel chair. “And your son.”

She walked past Dave and left the room, with Deegan following close behind. My mouth moved, but my throat still wasn’t functioning.

Mark hugged me awkwardly around my frozen limbs. “I’m so sorry. They would have killed you in a split second if you tried to interfere.”

“There’s nothing we could have done,” Carly added from her position on the floor. Tears fell from her eyes and she sniffled.

I didn’t believe her. They were both insane and wrong. We had just watched a boy destroy himself in a horrific way, directly in front of his father, and we’d done nothing. No,
they
had done nothing.

A warm feeling rushed around my neck and I swallowed.

“I hate you both,” I tried to say, but the words came out garbled. Looking at Mark’s face, I realized that he knew what I’d said anyway.

“I couldn’t let you die, Allie.” He shook his head and touched my shoulder.

I jerked, wanting to hit his hand off, but my arms still wouldn’t work. “Don’t touch me. I could have stopped it.”

Carly shook her head and wiped her face. “No, you couldn’t. She’s fast, too fast for us. I’ve seen her demonstrations,” she whispered. “Maybe if we all came prepared….”

The warm feeling spread over my body and I felt my fingers obeying my commands. Soon, all of my muscles began responding to my requests … not accurately, but at least they were responding.

I fell forward and Mark caught me. I tried my best to hit him and fell sideways instead. He ignored my outburst and lifted me to my feet before hoisting me up into his arms like a child.

“I think we’d better get out of here,” Mark said.

“Wait,” I interrupted. “I can walk.”

Mark set me down on my feet. Pushing him back, I stared at Dave. His son had sacrificed himself under the assumption that his dad would be saved. In the end, they were both lost now. I took a step toward him and put my hand up to halt Mark from stopping me. I had a few nasty stones in my sack and would use them if I had to, but my sneer alone kept him back.

With each small, unsteady step across the floor, I glanced at the doorway the teachers left through. I wondered if it led back to Verity. I knew if I could manage a throw, I would have staggered down the hall after the bitch.

Dave was sitting propped up, looking at the empty metal chair. I stared at his eyes and thought they might follow me, or that his expression might alter. But nothing changed. He looked dead, and I cursed myself for making the stone that had put him there.

I touched his shoulder and pushed him back a little, so he wouldn’t have to stare at the spot his son had just vacated. Leaning close to his ear, I whispered everything I wanted to tell him before I made my way toward the main corridor. I didn’t look at Carly or Mark as I passed them, but I heard their footsteps behind me as I walked down the long hall.

After a prolonged silence, Carly spoke. “It’s right here.” She pointed to a hall I had just missed.

I adjusted my direction and walked down the dark passage. The light from Carly’s glow stone lit the way from behind me. My legs loosened up and I managed a near-normal walk. I shook my whole body, trying to get rid of the last remnants of being frozen. I stopped at the portal room and turned to face them.

“I know I can’t say anything past these doors, so I’ll say this now to clear up any confusion. If you ever stop me from saving a life again….”

“We stopped you from killing yourself, you ditz, and probably both of us as well. The next time you want to put my life in danger, you’d better ask me first,” Carly said. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with a trembling hand.

I opened my mouth and raised a finger but then stopped. I hadn’t thought of them. I’d assumed I could freeze Verity, but what if I’d failed? What would she have done to the people who’d conspired with me? I pursed my lips together and didn’t say a word.