The Arch Stone: Foxway Academy: Book 1

by Adam Faulkner

  Given my answers mostly consisted of blind shots-in-the-dark, I actually managed to get through it with a bit of extra time to work on the last section: spell identification. Forty spells to identify: Twenty spells to name from descriptions, twenty to explain the effect of. I had about fifty minutes to work through all of them. There were a few I recognised immediately. Field boxes, telekinesis, invisibility.

  After I’d tidied up the few questions I was confident on, I went on to trying to remember the rest of them. Mary had suggested a bunch of weird memory techniques to help me link the spells and effects together, but it did absolutely nothing to help me. I scrambled to find the answers in my head, doing everything I could to force them out of the depths of my head. However, focusing all my attention on my head might have not been the best idea. I’d managed to keep my little friends at bay for most of the exam so far, but digging into my subconscious was apparently permission for them to give their opinion. Which, as normal, seemed to be that I was a terrible failure capable of doing nothing but screwing up everything I did. I managed to push them down a bit and forced my focus back on the exam. There wasn’t really anything I could do to make myself remember, I just had to stare at the paper until something popped into my head. I got about half of them done confidently before I looked up and realised that I had ten minutes left to go.

  “Shit…” I muttered under my breath as I scanned through the list of spells, looking for anything that I could use to throw some guess or another onto the paper.

  Seven minutes. Sixteen more questions.

  Six minutes. I tapped my pen on the table, like I was trying to physically beat an answer out of it.

  Five minutes. I slowly wrote down another completely bullshit answer. Fifteen to go.

  Four minutes.

  Three minutes.

  Two minutes. I slowly started writing down another answer.

  A minute and a half. I sighed as I gave up halfway through the sentence.

  One minute.

  Thirty seconds. I put my pen down and leaned back in my chair.

  “Shit…”

  Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

  “Please put your pens down, the exam is now over,” The invigilator announced. I closed my eyes and exhaled.

  “Great…”

  *

  “That was not fun…” I groaned the three of us walked back to the dorms.

  “Stuck on the last section?” Matt guessed.

  “There’s… There’s just so much to remember…”

  “Well, it’s done now. No point stressing about it anymore,” August advised.

  “Yeah, I know… It just sucks that I studied so hard and still managed to screw it up…” I explained. “So, how did you guys do?” I asked, trying to put my mind off my own disastrous exam. Matt shrugged.

  “I could have done worse. I think I slipped up on a couple of questions in the second section though…” August smiled proudly. “I assume you did well then…”

  “I mean, I guess…”

  “You know, fake modesty really doesn’t work on you…” I joked.

  “Sorry…” August apologized.

  “It’s fine. I’m glad you didn’t find it as bad as I did…”

  “I’m sure you did fine.” August reassured me.

  “Either way, it’s not worth worrying about now,” Matt pointed out. “You’ve still got another AMP exam left, right?”

  “Don’t remind me…” I groaned. “I have no idea how I’m getting through it… It’s the formula-focused paper as well…”

  “So, it’s basically all maths?” Matt questioned. I nodded. “Do you have any of the papers on you?”

  “Yeah, why?” I asked as I searched through my bag for a practice paper. I pulled out a dog-eared booklet and handed it to Matt. He flipped through the pages.

  “I… I actually might be able to try and help you with some of it…” he offered, looking through one of the questions. “I never really clicked with the actual theory side of science at school, but maths was another story… I ended up with an A at GCSE…”

  “Wow, that’s pretty impressive…” I admitted. “In that case, I’ll honestly take all the help I can get… As long as you’re not too busy getting ready for your exams?”

  “Nah, I’m fine. There’s a Geomancy practical… I could do with practicing a bit for the English exam, but other than that… I could spare some time to help”

  “English?” I questioned. “They do actual subjects here?”

  “Of course.” August seemed confused. “What, did you think they only did the magic-based subjects? This place is registered as an actual school, though officially it’s a private school; they have to be able to show results for something.”

  “Yeah, I guess…” I pushed the AMP paper back in my bag and carried on walking, trying to make sense of the strange revelation that Foxway was an actual school…

  *

  After Matt spent three hours trying to make me understand maths, to little success, I decided that what was going to help me more than anything else was to get some actual rest. I walked into the house, threw my bag down and dropped onto the sofa, a process which had pretty much become my routine by this point.

  “Hey, Em,” Mum called in from the kitchen. A faint smell of something, that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, drifted out with her voice.

  “Are you cooking?” I asked in disbelief. “Like, actual human food?”

  “You know, I’m not completely incapable!” Mum protested. I stood up and waltzed into the kitchen.

  “So, what are you trying to cook then?” I asked. “Because it actually does smell pretty good…”

  Mum shrugged.

  It’s chicken something-or-other.” she suggested. “I kinda just threw some spices in and hoped for the best…”

  “Well, there goes that illusion…” I sighed.

  “Well, I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s probably edible, at least…”

  *

  “So, how did the exam go?” Mum asked as she pulled the top off of one of the takeaway boxes.

  “Yeah, not great…” I sighed as I bit a chunk off of a prawn cracker. “I mean, I knew I was going to do crap, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t make me feel much better…”

  “Exams are the worst,” Mum agreed. “I remember my final exam at uni, I ended up trying to cram last minute so much that I woke up with my head literally inside my pencil case…” she reminisced. “But, I just dragged myself out, did the exam, and… and to be honest, I felt like I totally screwed it up… I felt like everything I said was just straight out wrong, and I walked out feeling like I’d totally fucked up my future... And then the results came out, and I just barely passed. Like, two fewer marks and I would have failed the course… And I felt like shit about it. I knew I had the degree, and I was happy, but I felt like with the scores I’d gotten, I wasn’t going to be able to do that well for myself…” she admitted. “But then I left, and I looked for jobs, and I found my first nursing job. And I loved it. Then I moved on to the job I’ve got now, and I love it even more.” She patted me on the leg. “What I’m trying to say is… Exams don’t really mean that much in the long run, and regardless of how you do, there’s going to be a job somewhere in the world that’s perfect for you. So, just don’t worry about these exams. Anyway, you’ve still got two years left at this place. You’ve got plenty of time to make up the difference.”

  I smiled.

  “Yeah, I know…” I agreed. “Thanks, mum. You’re the best.” I looked down at the takeaway. “I mean, you’re cooking sucks, but other than that, you’re the best.”

  “That’s still a pretty good record,” she laughed. “Seriously though, it’ll all be fine, Em. Just do you best, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  What my Mum had said really had made me feel better about the exam. That said, as far as the Advanced Magical Physics was concerned, I still felt like it was a lost cause, so I
didn’t feel too bad for not spending the entire time between when I got in at just past six to when I eventually gave up the idea of staying conscious at nine trying to force all of the formulas into my head, whether my head liked it or not.

  *

  I sat at my desk, waiting for the final exam of the week to start. I was actually feeling at least something close to confident about it, to be honest. Me and Matt had spent hours going through the formulas, working out how I was going to try to remember how to use them. They actually did give you a few of the formulas at the front of the paper, but they didn’t give any context to them, so you had to remember what did what.

  When the exam began, I skimmed through the paper, scouting out the carnage that I imagined lied ahead. Honestly, despite the weird structure of the paper, I was surprised with how much didn’t look like complete nonsense. I mean, I still didn’t really understand it, but given we were allowed a calculator for the exam, once I’d remembered a couple of the formulas, I felt like I’d actually be able to pull along a few marks for myself.

  I flipped back to the front of the paper and started to slowly make my way through it, skipping the ones I had no idea about and focusing on the ones I had half a chance at getting right. I felt confident that I’d been able to pull a couple of marks in on it before I started to hit any huge problems. It was still hard, but I managed to at least push through the paper, answering what I could.

  As I walked out of the exam hall, I almost felt happy about how I’d done. I knew I’d probably failed the exam, but it still felt good to have been able to actually understand some of it. After the shit-show I’d found with the last two exams, not feeling like I was reading a different language made a nice change. I mean, I still wasn’t going to do great. I’d only managed to properly learn four or five of the twenty-odd formulas we were supposed to remember for the exam, so there still wasn’t a huge amount that I actually managed to fill in in the hour-and-a-half that we had for the exam. But that didn’t matter to me. I had actually managed to go in feeling like I’d achieved something. Regardless of what my grade ended up being, I’d actually remembered something properly. I’d put my mind to something, worked on it, and actually been able to say that I had been able to remember something. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

  *

  After everyone had finished their last exams, me, Raven, Matt, August and Mary found ourselves in a small but pleasant restaurant, celebrating the end of the hellish week. It wasn’t anything too fancy, especially given we were all basically broke, other than August…

  “So, what do we actually do for the rest of the year?” I asked. “I mean, it’s still a couple of weeks until the Architects’ Ball, but there’s nothing else to teach?”

  “Normally, they give us this next week to work on extracurricular stuff, extra credit projects and stuff. They’ll mark the papers while we’re doing that, and then the last week they’ll give us results, go through feedback, that kind of thing. Then the Ball’s on the Friday, and that’s it.” Mary explained.

  “That’s the year over, huh…” Matt laughed a little.

  “It feels weird…” August agreed.

  “No shit…” I sighed. “This time last year, I was thinking about grades and relationships and whatever the hell I was going to do when it was over… Not magic and crazy secret orders and, well, fighting for my life…”

  “Do you regret it?” Raven asked. “I mean… We’ve gone through some horrible things this year… And if we hadn’t met, you wouldn’t have been involved…”

  I laughed.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right… But honestly, despite all of this shit we’ve been through… My life means something now…” I replied. “So, no, I don’t regret it. Not at all… You’re my sister, Raven. I spent all my life wondering where you were, who you are… I wouldn’t change that for anything…”

  Raven wiped a tear away from her eye.

  “Me neither,” she smiled.

  “So, are we going to order, or just sit around being emotional all night…” August remarked. I laughed a little.

  “Sure…”

  The evening passed slowly, in the best possible way. After the little emotional moment at the beginning of the evening, things got a lot lighter. We talked about exams, and about the dance, and about what we were doing over the holidays, and what things were going to be like when we got back. And we didn’t talk about the Syndicate, or Elijah Blake, or any of the other bad stuff that had happened this year. We were actually happy, which was becoming more and more rare as the year went on. The voices in my head were even quieter than they had been, which had to mean something. Things were just… good…

  43

  The next two weeks passed without anything really happening at all. The extracurricular week was fun in theory, but in reality, we spent most of the time doing extra training with Professor Greyford, which was necessary but about as fun as it sounds.

  Actually, that’s a lie. It could be fun. Sparring with the others was always kind of enjoyable, even with the reality of why we were doing it in the back of our minds. But practicing the same spells over and over again did get boring after a while, and it did feel like we’d missed out on all of the fun stuff the school had organised for the students. There were loads of sports competitions for anyone to take part in just for fun, and I did feel a little disappointed that I’d missed out on the relaxation time, but I didn’t have the worst week at least.

  The week after, of course, was the week we got our exam results. Predictably, I hadn’t done too well… Beginner’s Magic could have been worse, actually. I ended up with a C, which was definitely higher than I had expected. Advanced Magical Physics was about as disastrous as I’d expected, though. I ended up with a low D, and that was probably only because the second paper hadn’t gone quite as bad as I thought it would. It didn’t really matter though. I’d planned on dropping AMP afterwards anyway. I still had to talk to the teachers about switching me to a different course, but Miss Artemis didn’t seem to think it would be a huge issue when I’d mentioned it to her, so I wasn’t going to worry about it too much.

  Anyway, with extracurricular week and results out of the way, there was only one major event left in the school calendar. The Architects’ Ball.

  The day of the dance, the whole dance committee had been allowed to skip classes and go to the venue for the Ball. Luckily, for the school’s budget at least, the Architects’ Ball was typically held in Foxway’s own venue, the pretentiously-named Grand Auditorium. Then again, the Grand Auditorium did earn its name pretty well; a massive, gothic building, built just behind the main building, which was actually capable of holding the whole school, which in itself was a couple thousand students, and one of the oldest parts of the school.

  Practically, there were pros and cons. We needed to bring quite a few tables in, for food and seating, which was one extra expense. We didn’t put enough tables in for the entire school, but the idea was that most of them were going to be standing for most of the time anyway, so that probably wasn’t going to be the end of the world.

  The upshot was that the auditorium was impressive enough that we didn’t actually have to put much into decoration. There were a few signs around, but we’d settled on a pretty traditional dance, without any fancy themes, so we largely left everything as it was.

  The main issue was heating. The size of the Grand Auditorium was great for the dance, of course, but it was also unheated, and therefore absolutely freezing, especially in the middle of December, meaning we were going to need to place some kind of heating enchantment across the whole room, which was going to take a few people to do. I skimmed through a book about field enchantments, trying to work out how they worked so I could help myself, but they were way more complicated than I expected. In the end, Hinako, Jamie, Scott and one of the first-years who’d volunteered to help with the setup took a corner each, spending a god five minutes trying to sync up the temperatures of the enchant
ments. It was actually kind of funny to watch, to be honest, especially when Jamie accidently made it start snowing on her corner, but I did feel bad I couldn’t do anything to help.

  “By the way, I did find you your date…” Mary grunted as we lifted another table across the room. I sighed.

  “I thought I’d told you to drop that…” I groaned. Mary put the table down and pointed at the first-year who was trying to heat the room.

  “Charlie Blackwood.”

  “I mean, he looks nice enough.” I shrugged.

  “They.”

  “They?”

  “They.”

  “I mean, sure, why not.” I shrugged. “So, what are they like?”

  “Not sure,” Mary admitted. “They’re pretty quiet, spends a lot of time in the library. But from what I do know, I think you two would at least have a fun night,” she decided. “So, do you want me to introduce you?”

  I sighed.

  “Sure, why not. I guess it can’t hurt…” I gave in.

  After the heating enchantment had been put up, Mary brought Charlie over to me.

  “Charlie Blackwood, Emilie George.”

  I looked at Charlie. They were average height, with short, messy hair, and wearing a long-sleeve shirt buttoned to the top.

  “Hey.” I held out my hand.

  “Hi…” Charlie awkwardly smiled at me.

  “So, you two are going to be going to the dance together. You’ll meet outside of the school gates, and it’ll all be great,” Mary enthusiastically assured us. “Right, I’ve got to go make sure the food’s got somewhere to be stored, so you two can just talk for a bit, and I’ll see you later.” She turned around and darted away.

  “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her move so fast…” I decided. “She’s definitely excited about this Ball…”

  “I mean, it’s supposed to be a pretty big deal…” Charlie shrugged.

  “Apparently… Can’t say it’s really my kind of thing, but if Raven’s even excited about it, it can’t be that bad.”