“Where have you heard this?”
“From the hall monitors. And from my own observations,” Sam added, not wanting to get Tara into trouble. “I wasn’t sure if you just wanted to torment me.”
Havash watched him. “If I wanted to torment you, I would’ve left you and Erstan.”
Sam had started to come to that conclusion as well. He didn’t know whether he could trust Havash, but there was something that wasn’t quite right.
“So it wasn’t an accident?”
Havash glanced to the door again before looking over to Sam. “No.” He waved his hands, and a trail of pale white light began to build, swirling around both he and Havash. He noticed there was a pattern to it, but it was incredibly complicated. When it was completed, Havash turned his attention back to Sam. “I wasn’t sure what you might have heard. I wasn’t sure how much use you were going to be, either. You have surprised me, Mr. Bilson.” He frowned and tugged on his beard for a moment. “But it wasn’t an accident. Far from it. As far as I can tell, a dozen alchemists lost their lives. Perhaps more than that. The Academy has never had many pure alchemists, and those who remain within the Academy have done so for a very particular reason.”
“What reason is that?”
“Why, to protect the Academy, of course. And if there was an attack, I need to know who. And why.”
Sam squeezed his eyes shut, trying to debate how much he was going to tell Havash. He didn’t know whether he could trust him. He didn’t know whether he even liked him.
But Havash knew something.
“I snuck down one night,” Sam admitted. He kept his hand clenched tightly around the device. He wasn’t going to reveal that yet. “I saw a man.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t recognize him. But I heard another voice. Somebody calling to him. They used a name. Ferand.”
Havash’s eyes narrowed.
“What I’ve been able to learn, Ferand was once an instructor at the Academy, and he and several others were banished because they were working on behalf of the Nighlan. Or at least, that’s the rumor. I don’t know how true that is, especially as most people don’t believe that the Nighlan are real or a real threat.”
Havash cocked his head regarding Sam for a long moment. “You come from the Barlands, and you question the danger of the Nighlan?”
Sam shook his head slowly. “No.”
“Good. I was about to start thinking you a fool.” Havash inhaled deeply, and he leveled a heavy gaze on Sam. “If Ferand and the others were involved, they were after something. We must know what it was.”
He squeezed his hand. He could trust Havash, but only so far. “How will we find it?”
“Find what you can in the alchemy section. I will share what I know about Ferand. And we must do it before they strike again.”
“Will they?”
“If you saw Ferand in the alchemy section, then whatever he is after he has not yet managed to acquire. Perhaps the others banished with him, but perhaps something worse. There have been no Nighlan in the city—or the Academy—but if anyone could change that, it would be Ferand. Do this, and I will ensure that you stay for the entirety of the year. Beyond that, I can’t make any promises.”
The pattern of pale white around Sam flickered, and then it faded altogether.
Havash waved for Sam to leave.
As he did so, he was left with questions that he had no answer for.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The library was relatively quiet. After having spent the last week or so with everybody preparing for exams, and the general building bustle throughout the library, having the solitude was actually somewhat calming for Sam.
He had been searching for any information about the coloration that an Arcane Arts user would have when they were drawing upon their power. He hadn’t found anything. He had a stack of books on various aspects of the Arcane Arts, various aspects of angulation, and even some theoretical approaches to the Arcane Arts, but he hadn’t uncovered any truths within them.
It was getting frustrating.
Partly because he felt as if he had to dig into the answers about what had been going on and whether there was anything more here that he could find, but partly because he felt as if he should be able to find something but had not yet.
It got to the point where he had started to question whether there was another place for him to look. Even if there was another hidden part of the library, he was still only a first-year student and would be unlikely to be given an opportunity to go there. At least while there was a librarian in place. There were other ways for him to search, and he considered trying to sneak in after hours, but he wondered if that was the best use of his time. Havash had instructed him to find answers. He had to find what Ferand might be up to before he attacked again.
As he squeezed his hand around the alchemy device, Sam couldn’t help but feel as if he already had some sense of what Ferand was after, only he didn’t know if he could keep Ferand from chasing him down. That was a real concern now.
He had thwarted Ferand, and he had taken the device that he wanted. How long would it be before he came after him? From what Havash had suggested, Ferand wasn’t about to let something like that pass without challenging him.
Sam noticed a shadow moving in the library, and he looked over to see Doran moving between the stacks, replacing books.
Sam had interacted with him somewhat over the time that he’d been in the Academy, but for the most part, Doran ignored him, the same way that most of the librarians ignore the students coming into the library. At least, they had always seemed to ignore him.
He made his way over to Doran.
“May I help you?” Doran said, his voice barely above a whisper.
He didn’t look over to Sam, though. He had a stack of books on a cart, and he pushed it in front of him, grabbing one book and sliding into the shelf. He continued moving as he talked.
“I’m looking for something that I can’t quite find.”
“Any of the librarians may offer you some assistance,” Doran said, though the way he said it suggested that any librarian but him could offer Sam assistance.
“I’ve been looking,” Sam admitted. “And I can’t really find what I am looking for.”
Doran glanced in his direction for a moment. “What are you searching for?”
Sam had to be careful with how he phrased his search, especially as he wasn’t entirely sure whether there were certain aspects of what he was looking for that were real or whether they were more imagined. At least, he started to be concerned that they might be imagined.
“I’m looking for physical manifestations of the use of the Arcane Arts.”
Doran stopped, resting one hand on the cart, looking over to Sam. “If you’re looking for anything on angulation, you are familiar with that section.”
Sam hurriedly shook his head. “It’s not on angulation.” Though, he would understand why Doran would think that was what he was looking for. Angulation did involve physical manifestations of the Arcane Arts, but it was more about the physical representation of a user of the Arcane Arts. “I’m looking for something not quite as formal as that. More theoretical.”
Doran continued frowning at him. “I’m not sure that I have anything that would be more theoretical.”
“It doesn’t have to be completely theoretical,” he added hurriedly. “More about whether there are certain ways of determining the use of the Arcane Arts.”
Doran lifted a book, tapping it against the side of his cheek for a moment. “I think I understand.”
He motioned for Sam to follow, and they wound through the stacks, heading to an older part of the library, one that Sam rarely visited.
It was known as the Annex. Sam had found that term somewhat amusing, mostly because of how Erstan had been annexed by Olway. But this was an old part of the library and had a much lower ceiling and had fewer shelves along the walls. Sam hadn’t spent much time here. These books w
ere not all that impressive compared to so many of the others are found within the library, and considering how much he already had to search for, he had never really taken the time to come back here.
It was separate from the restricted section. That was a small room off the front of the library situated near the librarian’s desk. Even when Sam came after hours, the room had been locked, and he hadn’t been able to figure the only way to open it.
Doran stopped in front of a lower shelf, and he waved his hand. “What you want to find will be here.” He glanced over to Sam, a hint of amusement on his face before he strode back toward his cart and resumed shelving books.
Why had he seemed so amused by that?
Sam crouched on the ground in front of the stack. He began to look at the books, only to realize why Doran had looked at him with an expression of amusement in his eyes. These were beginner texts.
He pulled one out, sitting crosslegged, and began to flip through the pages. They were meant for children. Probably for children to read before coming to the Academy.
He smiled to himself. They were theoretical but not exactly the kind of theoretical approach that he had expected Doran to provide. They referenced the zero tenet indirectly.
He flipped through a few pages of the book before stuffing it into the shelf and moving on to another one. He worked his way along the shelf. Physical manifestations of the use of the Arcane Arts were not all referenced. At least, not obviously.
He had uncovered the way that users of the Arcane Arts might feel. There was euphoria, elation, pride, and other senses that they all described as coming from someone who had mastered the Arcane Arts, all tied to excitement in how they were able to reach for that power and what it meant for them.
While Sam thought that he understood that, especially as he had never known any arcane art, the idea that was what Doran thought he was looking for seemed useless.
There was one book that had some potential. It was an older work on alchemy, and for the most part, it seemed out of place here. The other books in the Annex were all of a similar style, and many of them seemed to be more colloquial than what he would’ve expected, certainly given his experience with the rest of the library. But this one was on alchemy.
Sam carried it back to his booth, taking a seat and began to flip through it.
There were certain aspects to it that struck him as familiar, especially given the way it talked about mixing the various compounds together, but there were several references he didn’t quite understand. He flagged those pages and began to flip through, trying to hide to understand what the book was referring to.
An almanac.
Somehow, there was some alchemy almanac that this referenced using in order for certain aspects of alchemy to be better utilize. Sam had never seen anything about alchemy almanac, though if there was some sort of compendium, something that would help him reference other aspects of alchemy, wouldn’t he want to find it?
He grabbed for the other alchemy book that he had stacked on the desk and looked for anything within it that might provide him with answers. There was nothing. No reference to an alchemy almanac.
He made his way over to the alchemy section. It was generally empty, especially as some of the books had been taken off the shelf, though Sam wondered if that was because of what happened in the alchemy section, or it was because there were others like him who are interested in alchemy and trying to read them, only to have the books not get returned. It would be easy enough to conceal that somebody had those books for an extended period of time, especially as no one would be interested in asking, revealing they were interested in alchemy. He grabbed several of the books, and he began to sort through them, searching for any reference to an almanac.
He found nothing.
He kept looking, going from book to book, before taking an older volume back to his desk. Sam had already read through it and didn’t remember any reference to an almanac, as this one was primarily related to the metalsmithing that an alchemist could perform, using the Arcane Arts in order to add various augmentations to such metalwork, but it was old enough that he thought that maybe there would be something in it that could be useful for him. Sam turned through the pages looking for something, but he found nothing.
He sat back.
As he looked at the other alchemy book, the references to an almanac, he wondered if there might be some key to alchemy that he could learn if he could find the almanac. What he wanted was to better understand alchemy. It seemed to him that would be incredibly useful, especially for when he had to leave the Academy.
But if it involved the Arcane Arts, and it wouldn’t really matter to him anyway.
Sam took the book that had been hiding in the Annex, and he carried it under his arm, tucking it beneath his robe. He left the other books behind.
He nodded to Muriel, once again sitting at the desk near the entrance to the library, and kept his arm pressed against his side as he carried the book.
As he neared the door, a worried thought came to him. What if they had some arcane art technique that allowed them to determine what he was doing, and how he was carrying the book? He tensed as he went to the door, and he took a few steps, glancing back the library, and waited, half expecting that Muriel or one of the librarians would chase him.
No one came after him.
Sam hurried to his room, stuffing the book beneath his mattress, sitting for a moment. He had to stay focused on what Havash asked of him, though. Sam had a hard time with that. For all he knew, Ferand was coming after him.
He looked down at the alchemy device still stuck on his hand. The metal hadn’t changed. It hadn’t seemed to impact him in any other way, either, and it didn’t hurt. Then again, Sam hadn’t tried to draw upon that power all that much, either. If there was something within the device that would help him, he thought that he needed to continue working with it, trying to understand what it was, but so far, he felt as if there was nothing.
If Ferand were going to come after him again, Sam wanted to be ready. He needed to have some mastery of the device.
That meant practicing.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sam had gone through the week in a blur. He had been attending classes, but he had mostly kept to himself, drawing the notice of James, who had made a point of asking why he had stopped speaking up in angulation, or why he didn’t push during mathematics. He didn’t challenge Sam on why he didn’t speak up against Havash again. Given what happened the last time, Sam didn’t need Havash getting any angrier with him.
Alchemy had been fairly consistent, though. Havash had continued to report through the same textbook that Sam had called him out on, but Sam just didn’t have the energy to challenge him anymore. At this point, it seemed easier for him to sit back quietly and no longer trouble Havash with his alchemy studies. It was still high level and still relatively basic.
He had started to wonder what classes might’ve been like before the attack, and so he had caught Tara one time after the evening meal in the dining hall. It might be better for him to catch her at another time, even within the Study Hall, but he’d not managed to find her so far.
“What is it?” she asked, though she didn’t look up from where she sat alone at the table.
Sam was tempted to take a seat next to her, but that would definitely raise questions. “Can you meet me later?”
She frowned at him and snorted. “You’re bound and determined to get people talking, aren’t you?”
“I just have a question for you.”
She held her gaze on him for a moment and nodded. “Later. I will find you.”
He had taken a seat at the table again, only to have James looking over at him, shaking his head. “Things aren’t going so well between the two of you, I take it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I saw the way that she was looking at others.”
Sam hadn’t paid any attention to it, but then again, these days, he was not paying much a
ttention to that much to begin with. He was hyper-focused on this one task, growing increasingly concerned that Ferand might come after him.
All Sam had to protect himself was the device. He needed somebody to help him, but he had a strange niggling desire to keep the alchemy device to himself.
He had been working with it over the last week, testing the power. While he didn’t feel as if he had any real mastery of it, there was certainly power to be had. Sam could focus, twist his hand in specific patterns, and he could cause a burst of power out of it. That seemed to be one use of it, but what if there were others?
If so, then he might be able to use it and draw upon even more power. Power that he shouldn’t even have. It was almost as if he had access to the Arcane Arts.
While Sam knew it wasn’t the same, the idea he might have access to something similar seemed almost impossible to believe.
“Are you going to be in the library tonight?” James asked.
Sam looked up, having been lost in his thoughts, and wondered how much James had been asking him while he lost his focus.
“I might,” Sam said.
He still had quite a bit that he needed to learn about the reason behind the colors. Green seemed to matter. Maybe that was alchemy, though given that he had not seen any other alchemists, he couldn’t confirm that. White was the Arcane Arts, but what if there were other colors? Sam still didn’t know why he saw them in the first place.
Maybe it was just growing up around Mia and having known her power his entire life, knowing that there was nothing that he could do like it, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe there was something useful to it.
“Maybe I should join you,” James said. “Seeing as how we’re going to have to keep studying. The next exam isn’t that far away.”
“Next one?”
“The midterms. It’s the most important one until we get to the end of the year.” He looked up at Sam, and he shrugged. “Though you don’t seem to be too concerned about it. Others get more excited about the possibility of being sent from the Academy as a disappointment. Not only for us but for our families, too.”
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