“I tripped,” Sam said, getting to his feet. “I’m sorry about the shelves. I can help sort the books—”
“There is no need.” He turned back to the other boy. “There is no fighting in the library. You are well aware of that, Gresham.” He turned down to look at Sam. “And you are new here. This will be your only warning.”
With that, he disappeared back between the stacks.
Gresham glared at Sam, and he looked as if you wanted to say something more, at the same time as he started to glow with the same pale white light that Sam had seen when someone was drawing upon the Arcane Arts. Did he want to attack Sam again?
One of the others with Gresham tapped him on the shoulder and nodded. “We should go. Didn’t you have someone you were supposed to be meeting?”
The sneer on Gresham’s face faded just a little bit. “That’s right. I don’t want to keep her waiting for too long.” He looked over to Sam. “I’ll be seeing you later, Barlands boy.”
They disappeared into the stacks.
Sam sat there for a few moments. Now he had an older student who didn’t like him. And he had even more reason to be careful about revealing himself to his sister. If Gresham learned that they were together, Sam had little doubt that he would take it out on Mia.
He took a seat in his alcove and found the librarian glancing in his direction every so often. Sam definitely didn’t want to anger him. He needed access to the library more than anything.
So he grabbed the books that he already had, opened them up, and began to read as quickly as he could. He had a hard time focusing, though. That was unusual for him. Still, he crammed the knowledge down into his mind, determined to hold it there and be prepared for when he left the Academy.
Chapter Thirteen
When thunder rumbled, Sam sat upright from where he had been studying in the library.
It was late, and he knew that he didn’t have much time before closing time. They didn’t let books out of the library with first-year students. Besides, he was more than content to sit in the library and read, tearing through book after book, especially after another strange day with Professor Clarice talking about the first tenet. This one happened to be on angulation. There seem to be something to what she was going on about that stuck with him. It was the way that she described the drawing of Arcane Arts, how it would stretch infinitely outward unless acted upon by a necessary angulation or influenced by something else.
The book that he had discovered focused primarily on the first tenet, though it wasn’t called that. It was titled The Arcane Arts: A Primer in Angulation. He had figured that a Primer would be a nice basic volume to help him grasp some of the earlier concepts in a way that he might be able to deflect some of his own ignorance, but he found that it was far more complex and theoretical than anything else he had ever read on the subject. It was older, too. It referenced books that Sam had not even seen, but as he read through it, he realized that some of the concepts, and some of the comments, were referenced in some of the other books that he had found.
The thunder came again.
Sam looked up.
There had been storms during his time at the Academy. Not nearly as heavy or as frequent as he was accustomed to in the Barlands, but storms, nonetheless.
When it came again, it was quiet, but it seemed to tremble through him.
Not thunder. That had to be an explosion of some sort.
Sam gathered himself, looking around alcoves nearest him. There were two that were occupied, both with older level students and neither from his tower. In the library, no tower was superior to another, and the students didn’t segregate quite as much, but mostly because the alcoves segregated them. He didn’t see anybody else reacting the way that he did read. Maybe there was nothing here. Still, Sam couldn’t shake the feeling that something had exploded.
He glanced over to the books. He still had time before the library closed, and it pained him to leave any earlier than necessary, but curiosity won out. He gathered his books and made his way from the library, passing by one of the younger librarians, a dark-haired woman by the name of Muriel who smiled tightly at him as he left.
“You’re leaving early today, Sam.”
“I’m tired,” he said, glancing around. There hadn’t been another of the rumble of thunder, but he still couldn’t shake the strangeness he felt from the last.
“It’s good to take a break from time to time. The library will always be here. Your mind may not be if you push it too hard.”
He smiled. Muriel had been decent to him. All of the librarians had been, honestly. They were not kind, though Sam didn’t know that he would call anybody that he had met in the Academy kind. But they were pleasant enough.
Another trembling rolled through him. This time, he watched Muriel as it did. She gave no sign that she was even aware of it. That was strange.
He nodded to her again and hurried out of the library, into the main hall, where he paused. When he thought about what he had felt, it had been down.
Sam hurried down the stairs and saw a few students in the hall, some coming in from outside, and he glanced in their direction. One of them was Gresham, and he was walking with a blonde-haired girl, his arm possessively around her shoulder, as he guided her through the door and toward their tower.
Gresham either didn’t see him or didn’t pay him any notice. Either way, Sam was thankful for it. But his robes were dry. Not thunder and not a storm.
What was it, then?
He was drawn along the hallway.
Down.
When another trembling came, he was certain that he felt it. He froze. Not only did he feel it, but there came a flash of greenish light from the door at the end of the hall. Greenish light was different.
Sam had always seen a glowing around Mia when she used her Arcane Arts, but it had always been a bluish-white kind of light. She had been uncontrolled in her use of power, so it typically was a blur. It was only when he came here that he started to see more discrete images when someone used the Arcane Arts around him. When Gresham had attacked, the lines that he had drawn upon were distinct and easy for him to make out. Those lines of power had struck Sam in the shoulder, and he still remembered the sharp pain as they slammed into him.
But he’d never seen greenish light before.
Something was happening in the alchemy section. Was this why Havash wanted him to investigate? He started down the hallway when footsteps caught his attention.
He stepped off to the side, getting closer to the kitchen, where he hurriedly stepped inside. He had visited the kitchen a few times since the very first day that he’d been here, and so it wasn’t completely surprising for him to enter the kitchen. A few familiar faces looked in his direction, before resuming their work.
“Still hungry?”
Sam looked over to see Okun, the large cook who had welcomed him the very first day that he had been in the Academy, standing and rolling out dough on one counter.
“I thought I heard something, and then…” He wasn’t quite sure what to say. What could he tell Okun without revealing that he had thought that he heard something in the alchemy section but wasn’t entirely sure? More than that, what could he tell Okun about the reason that he had ducked into the kitchen. He had the door opened just a crack and looked out to see a pair of deep gray robes flowing past. Professors.
They reached the door to the alchemy section and then paused.
“Care to tell me what’s going on today?” Okun hadn’t turned away from where he was rolling out the dough, and he had a bored tone to his voice.
“There’s another student who doesn’t care much for me,” Sam replied.
Okun snorted. “Making enemies already? Can’t say that I’m surprised. You are older than them.”
“That’s not the reason,” Sam said.
“No?”
“Because I’m from the Barlands,” he said. He felt comfortable talking to Okun, and he wasn’t sure why, only that he fe
lt like he could share with him.
“Who is it?” Okun said, finally pausing.
“An older student named Gresham. Well, he’s a more experienced student, but I don’t think he’s older than me.”
Okun snorted and began to work at the bread again. “You sure can pick them.”
Sam poked his head back out through the door, watching. He couldn’t tell what was going on, only that he saw a few flashes of light. Bluish white light. Arcane arts. Were they using it against whatever was down in the alchemy section?
“How did I pick anything?”
“That one. His father sits on the council. Gives him a little bit of cockiness, if you ask me.” He shook his head. “Though rumors around the Academy are that he is one of the brightest of his age, so maybe it’s well-deserved.” Okun shrugged. “The difference between confidence and cockiness is not much, however. Most of the time, it’s just a matter of perspective.”
“I didn’t mean to upset him,” Sam said. “I don’t really even know what I did, other than tell him where I was from.”
“Someone like that would be enough,” Okun said. “His father don’t care much for the Barlands. He didn’t want Olwsy involved. Been railing on the council to just claim the mines and leave the people to the Barlands.”
“That’s pretty much what they did,” Sam muttered.
Okun shrugged. “You would probably know better than me. I can’t really say much about it, seeing as how I don’t get caught up in the politics. I’m just a simple cook.”
Sam stared. He hadn’t heard any further rumbling, which he figured was for the best. There were no further flashes of that greenish light, though he had seen it. He was sure of it. And as the pale blue-white light began to fade, there was movement toward the kitchen. Sam ducked back, but not before hearing voices.
“Still something active down there,” one of them said. Sam couldn’t quite make it out, but it sounded something like Clarice.
“We have it sealed off,” another voice said. This was calm and soothing. Ben. It had to be. He had struck Sam as one of the more decent instructors, even though he wasn’t actually an instructor.
“You relied upon an outsider.”
“I didn’t rely upon him,” Ben snapped. “That would be the Grandam.”
“I will have to ensure that my protections are in place…”
The voices trailed off as they moved past the doorway, and though Sam was tempted to poke his head out to try to see what else they might have to say, he knew better than to follow a pair of professors, especially in light of whatever they were trying to seal off from the rest of the Academy.
When he turned back, he found Okun watching him.
“What happened down there?” Sam asked.
“Not many can say,” Okun said after a few moments. “And those that know don’t talk to the likes of me.” He started rolling the dough again, and Sam stepped fully into the kitchen and took up a place along the counter, watching Okun. There was something quite soothing about how he rolled the massive wooden rolling pin and then flicked it again.
“You have to know something. Even cooks hear rumors.”
“That’s all we hear,” he said. He looked up at Sam. “Why do you care, anyway? First-year students need to be focused on their studies, learning about things like math and chemistry and angulation…”
Sam started to smile. “Sounds like you know more than you’re letting on.”
“As I said, I hear rumors.”
“I’m just curious. They made such a big deal of telling us how that area is closed off.”
Okun started to laugh. “Not only can you pick them, but you got a dangerous curiosity to you, as well.” He snorted. “The kind of curiosity that can either help you thrive or…” He pounded his fist into the dough.
“Or what?”
Okun arched a brow at him, and another smile split his face. “Figured you gathered what I meant when I did that,” he said, smacking at the dough again. “Hurt.”
“What can hurt me there?”
He’d heard the rumors that there was an accident that left several people killed, but Sam didn’t know enough about it to know whether it was anything to be worried about or whether it was more of a scare tactic to keep curious students from venturing down.
“Can’t say that I know what might hurt you there. I haven’t tried.”
“Even though it shouldn’t do anything to you?”
Okun crossed his arms over his chest as he regarded Sam. “What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. They just said that it wasn’t supposed to be dangerous to those without magic.”
“It was alchemy,” Okun said as if he were resigned to having to admit that much. “Can’t say that I understand it. Can’t say that I understand what happened. But what happened in there was awful. As far as we know, at least half a dozen alchemists lost their lives. That’s not even including the students that were injured.” He paused for effect. “Most of those students haven’t come back. They went off to see if they could be healed, and…” Okun shrugged. “Not a single one has returned.”
“So you know more than just rumors,” Sam said, watching him carefully.
“I told you I hear things,” Okun said.
“What kind of alchemy could kill a half a dozen alchemists and injure students?”
Okun snorted. He turned back to the dough, and he was shaking his head. “You’re asking the wrong person. You might even be asking the wrong questions. Alchemy is different than the Arcane Arts. But mixed with the Arcane Arts…” He shook his head again. “That’s where you start getting into danger. You had best just focus on your studies. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you before Gresham gets a chance to get to you.”
Okun started to grin, but Sam found his attention turned back toward the door, starting to work through what might’ve happened and how he was going to find some way to uncover it.
More than that, he had to wonder if whatever was down there was still active. If so, maybe it would be dangerous to him regardless of what Havash claimed.
“Go on and grab something to eat, and then scurry off. I need to get preparations for the morning finished. Unless you want to lend me a hand, of course?”
The way that he said it suggested he didn’t expect Sam to actually agree, but why wouldn’t he? There wasn’t anything he would gain by returning to his room. He’d already read all of his textbooks, and he didn’t have anything else to do.
Besides, he liked Okun, and he figured having a chance to learn about baking might give him one more way he could find his place after leaving the Academy.
“I can help.”
Okun frowned at him. “Don’t tell anybody, then.”
Sam frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t need anybody thinking I coerced students into helping me in the kitchen. Still, I could use a hand. I’m working a man short tonight. Get over here. I can show you the basics. I’m going to work you, though. If you’re here, I’m going to use you.”
Sam nodded. “I’m not afraid of a little work.”
Okun regarded him for a moment. “Seeing as how you are from the Barlands, I imagine you aren’t.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sam was distracted in his studies over the next few days.
He went through the motions, trying to keep up with his class assignments. So far, everything had been theoretical for the most part. Eventually, they would become a practical application of what was learned, and that was what worried him most. If he were to prove that he belonged, it was going to take something more than just him reciting what he had learned in some old textbook. He knew that.
Every so often, he caught Havash watching him in the alchemy class. The topic had remained incredibly superficial, merely skimming across alchemy, though Sam had to consistently remind himself that it was meant to be a theoretical application and not anything deeper.
It was at the end of the third day of helping Okun in
the kitchen that Havash approached him after class.
The lesson on alchemy had been completed, and students were starting to file out. Sam had been in his usual seat atop the highest tier in the classroom, forcing him to lean forward so that he could see Havash as he was giving his lecture.
As he climbed down the stairs, keeping one hand on the wall, so they didn’t slip and tumble down the steep incline, Havash spoke up. “I would have a word with you, Mr. Bilson.”
The few students who had remained in the classroom glanced toward him before heading back out.
Sam froze.
Havash generally ignored him, or when he did pay any attention to him, it was more of an irritated type of approach. Sam had been careful not to draw any attention to himself, trying not to make it seem as if he had any relationship with Havash.
When the other students had cleared, Havash waited for Sam to descent.
A pale bluish-white light began to streak out from him, a series of interlocking lines that crisscrossed over the door. He used that to block them in, Sam suspected. Sam had seen some theory on that style of angulation in his studies, though he had no idea what it was intended to do.
Perhaps that would be the next thing he could look into. If he were to research how various types of angulation could intersect, maybe he could anticipate when somebody might do the Arcane Arts around him.
“I have been waiting for you to share with me your findings, but you have not. Have you decided that you and your sister would rather return to the Barlands?”
“I’ve been trying,” Sam protested. “You didn’t exactly give me a timeline.”
“I gave you an assignment,” he said.
Sam nodded hurriedly. “You did. And I’ve looked into it, but…” He knew that Havash wasn’t going to be assuaged by him telling him that there had been a hall monitor that made Sam getting to investigate a challenge. And he doubted that Havash would care. “There was something there a few nights ago,” Sam said.
At the least, he could offer that much. Maybe Havash didn’t know about the thundering or about Ben and Clarice going to place whatever strange arcane power over that door. That was what he had seen, though he had also seen hall monitors continuing to go down into the alchemy section to patrol.
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