They headed back to their tower, going their separate ways. When Sam awoke, he was still tired and had no idea what time it was but suspected that it was before the first bell. He pulled out the almanac and started reading until he decided that he should eat before a day of classes.
He headed through the halls, nodding to a few students, but very few of them paid him much attention. By the time he got near the kitchen, he noticed that the alchemy tower door was again open. Tracen and the others were probably already down there.
Sam wanted to go down, if only so that he could see what they were doing. When he and Tara had gone at night, there had been no sign of whatever they had been up to.
But if he went down there, he would be drawing their attention. He wasn’t ready for that.
Instead, he went to the kitchen to see Okun.
He hadn’t seen the cook in quite a while now, long enough that he had started to question how well he was doing. Besides, Okun had been a part of as many attacks on the Academy as Sam. Maybe more, considering he suspected that Okun had been a part of the very first attack and had stayed within the kitchen to watch over the Academy.
He found the kitchen quieter than expected. There was a long counter, neatly cleaned, with stacks of pots on it, a washbasin with dishes stacked near it, several cooks near the back of the kitchen, and as he often was, Okun near the front, as if he wanted to stay closer to the door leading into the kitchen. He was rolling out dough, his beefy arms working at the dough. He glanced back as soon as Sam entered.
“Wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“I’ve been studying,” Sam said with a shrug.
Okun grunted. He dipped the dough into some flour and began to roll it out even more. “About all you can do these days.”
An idea came to Sam that he hadn’t considered before, though probably should have. “What was it like when the alchemists occupy that space?”
Okun grunted. “Depends upon who the alchemists were. When I trained, there was a head alchemist by the name of Grishanal. Skilled, and some would say powerful, but not nearly as powerful as some who preceded him.”
Sam glanced down at the vrandal, once again wondering what it might have been like that time.
“They intend to reopen the alchemy tower.”
“They have to at some point,” Okun said.
“I’m not so sure how I feel about it.”
Okun looked up at him then. “Because you don’t want to lose your place or because you are jealous?”
“I can’t deny that I have enjoyed having a place like that myself.”
“It was never going to be all yours. No place in the Academy can be. A man has to leave in order to find his own place.”
Sam thought of Chasten and how he had ultimately come back.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes I…” He trailed off, frowning. “You don’t need to hear about the complaints of a first-year student.”
Okun started to chuckle. “Depends upon the first-year student, I suppose. Once upon a time, I would have felt much like you did. But, more often, I have started to see that there are those with more potential, and perhaps it doesn’t matter what year you are.”
“Sometimes, I question whether I have the right potential.”
Okun rested his hands on the table and looked over at Sam. “You got a bright mind. Chasten talks of that. You wouldn’t have been able to use the almanac if you didn’t. Now don’t go letting yourself get all up in your feelings just because of what has happened and what you equate to your failings. What have you really failed at, anyway?”
He looked around before looking over to Okun. “I can’t use the arcane arts like others.”
“So?”
“So I’m at the Academy for the arcane arts.”
“That might be why you came, but that’s not why you’re here now. Figure out why you’re here now.”
Sam frowned. He often wondered how much Okun knew about why Sam had ended up at the Academy and increasingly felt as if he probably knew more than what he let on. It wouldn’t surprise him to learn that Havash had shared something with Okun. Then again, it might have been Chasten.
“Now. Why are you here now?”
“Food?”
Okun frowned. “I’ve got food, but maybe it’s a different kind of meal you were looking for.”
Sam smiled to himself. There was something about Okun that he always enjoyed, even if he didn’t know him as well as what he thought. “Food, and then I suppose I should get back to class.”
Okun grunted, and he motioned to a cupboard. “Help yourself.”
When Okun turned back to his work, Sam hurried to the cabinet, gathered some food, mostly bread and some cheese and some dried beef, and then headed out into the hall.
He started up the stairs and reached the main hall on the second floor. He knocked on the darkly stained door of Havash’s office, but there was no answer.
Sam stood in place for a few moments, waiting for the door to open. He hadn’t come to visit Havash in a while and didn’t feel comfortable here, especially because he knew the kind of questions his presence would raise.
After lingering for a few moments, he considered heading toward the hidden hall so that he could sneak through the Study Hall but decided against it. It was still too early, and the chances were good that somebody would notice him pulling the door open. He and Tara still wanted to keep the presence of the Study Hall secret for as long as possible.
He started to head down the stairs when the sound of voices came to him. One of them was familiar.
He picked his way carefully and noticed a grouping of sharan students making their way toward the entrance of the Academy.
His sister was near the rear.
“Mia,” Sam whispered.
She turned, and her deep blue eyes narrowed. She glanced to the others who had already slipped outside, giving them a precious moment to talk without anyone else present. How long would she feel like she had to hide from him?
Then again, Sam had been the one who had suggested that they keep their distance, mostly because he had wanted to ensure that she didn’t carry the taint of the Barlands.
“I don’t know if it’s safe to go outside,” he said, glancing toward the entrance to the Academy. “There was an attack.”
She glanced toward the door again, and he noticed her squeezing her robes, gripping it tightly. There was a faint white glow coming off of her as she touched the arcane arts. He didn’t see any lines of angulation, no patterns that suggested she had any control, but she was calling upon her magic.
“No one has told us what it was.”
“The Nighlan,” he said, getting close to her. She smelled differently than she had before, though maybe it was just that she was clean, like him. They no longer had to hide along the streets, searching for a place to stay, worrying about the storms. They no longer had to search for food, begging and stealing. “They attacked again.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “The Academy will protect us. They protect all of Olway.”
Sam smiled tightly. “We just have to hope it holds.”
“Why wouldn’t it? The Nighlan can’t defeat all of the Academy. Besides, pretty soon, they will face the—”
Mia didn’t have the chance to finish, as somebody called her name outside the door.
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning back to Sam. “They get impatient.”
“I just wanted to talk to you,” he said. “I feel like it has been ages since the two of us had an opportunity to even connect.”
Mia looked back toward the door, and he could see the debate waging in her eyes. She was still his sister, and he still knew the struggles that she had been dealing with, as they had been similar struggles to what he had been going through.
The difference was that she had potential.
“I think we still need to keep some distance,” she said.
“I understand. I really do. I just wanted to make sure yo
u were safe and that your classes were going well. We aren’t in any of the same classes, so I can’t tell.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed.
When the two of them had not been assigned the same class times, he hadn’t known if that was Havash’s way of keeping them separated or if it had been mere chance. Most of his classes were a mixture of students from each of the towers, so he would’ve expected to have had at least one class with her, but they had not. They had been in very different class times.
“They aren’t the easiest,” Mia said, picking her words carefully. “I don’t have your mind, Sam. I never did. It’s been hard for me to study.”
“You just have to take the time.” He never saw her in the library when the library had still been intact, so he wasn’t sure how she had been studying for her exams, only that she had done reasonably well so far.
“I’ve been more focused on trying to get to know others.”
She flushed slightly as she said it.
“Do you think that upsets me?”
“I know what your plan was when we first came here, Sam. I know you wanted me to make it in the Academy, and you wanted me to provide you with my stipend —”
“I don’t need your stipend,” he said. “I have been working on something so that when I do leave the Academy, I will have an opportunity to provide for myself.”
She nodded slowly. “How have you managed to stay so long?”
He squeezed his hand around the vrandal. “So far, the tests haven’t been about the arcane arts. At least, not about the application of it. I have been studying the theoretical approach to it, which has helped me.”
“There’s more to the arcane arts than just theory,” she said.
Once again, she started to glow softly, pale white light building.
She had always been skilled with the practical application of the arcane arts, but theory…
That meant to study.
That was something that Mia had never been diligent about. She had never wanted to work. Then again, Sam had never wanted her to work, either. He had hoped that she would have an opportunity to simply be cared for and that she wouldn’t need to suffer the way he did. And he didn’t mind. How could he? This was his sister; he had committed to protect her and to see her safe through everything. He just wished that he could do a better job at it.
Maybe he could.
All along, he had believed that he could help her, but once they had reached the Academy, he had allowed himself to be pulled away from that.
“I might be able to help,” he said. “We could meet—privately, of course—and I could work with you on some of the theory.”
Mia frowned at him. “What would you want from me?”
“Nothing more than just to see my sister,” he said.
She took a deep breath and then nodded slowly. “I could use that,” she said. It saddened him to see the relief sweep across her brow. How hard had she been working, and how much had she struggled? “I know I can do this, Sam. I know that I can learn what we need. It’s just…” She looked back toward the door. “So many of the people in my tower have known about the arcane arts and about angulation and mathematics in botany,” she went on, her nose wrinkling with each subject that she said, “long before they ever came to the Academy. It feels like I’m playing catch-up with them. I can’t ever quite reach what they know.”
“You can. That’s the thing about the Academy. Anyone can catch someone else. You just have to be willing to put in the work.”
“I’m not so sure.”
The door opened, and someone called for Mia.
She looked back. “I really should be going.”
“I will get word to you. Somehow. I might have a place that we can go that none of your friends would even see you.”
She nodded and then hurried away, laughing as she joined whoever stood on the other side of the door.
Sam stood motionless for a few moments.
His sister needed his help. He thought that bringing her to the Study Hall might be a way to do that, but he would have to convince Tara. He wasn’t sure what she would say, or how she would feel, about Sam revealing the Study Hall.
As he stood looking at the door, he wondered how he felt.
This was his sister, but she was motivated differently than he was. What if she decided to reveal the presence of the Study Hall so that she could impress one of her classmates?
He tried not to think that way, trying to think of his sister only in the protective light that had brought him to the Academy in the first place, but those questions lingered in his mind. They stayed with him, long after he had turned away, starting up the stairs to the tolath tower, and long after he had stepped into the Study Hall, determined to find someplace to disappear for a little while.
Chapter Six
The courtyard outside of the Academy was quiet.
There was still energy here. Sam could feel it, almost as if there was something there that hung over him, a crackling sort of power that struck him, reminding him of what had happened here.
He couldn’t see any of the Academy instructors, though he knew they were scattered throughout the lawn. They had to be. There were metallic items stationed around the garden that hadn’t been there before. Some of them were obvious. Small cylinders that glowed with a pale green light. Several poles that seemed out of place angled oddly up against the wall. But it was other items that were new that drew his attention. Planters that hadn’t been there before, the flowers that now occupied them looking tiny compared to the rest of what was within the garden. Something that was shaped like a tree but was obviously not. All of this was alchemy.
He had no idea of the purpose behind it. All he knew was that the alchemy that was here within the garden was different than the kind of alchemy that he had been working on with the vrandal.
Sam was drawn to one of the metal poles and paused in front of it, looking at how it was leaned up against the fence, trying to see what it might be. He had studied plenty of books on alchemy during his time in the library, but he didn’t know the construction of anything like this, nor did he know if there was anything here that he might be able to uncover. He traced his hand along the surface of it, recognizing a couple of symbols, but nothing more. He was tempted to try the vrandal on it, wondering if he might be able to detect anything within it, but he wasn’t sure if doing so would activate it and possibly even alert whoever had placed it—likely Chasten—that he was testing it. It was better to stay clear.
Eventually, he moved on. He did turn to one of the flowerbeds, noting that it was not made of metal but out of wood, but it also had a series of symbols worked along the surface. Strange that they would have them here and like that. It was almost as if Chasten or whichever of the alchemists had placed it thought they needed to conceal the presence of alchemy here. Why would they care? Certainly, those within the Academy would know that there were alchemical protections here. It didn’t seem to him that there would be any reason for them to even concern themselves with shielding the protections they had placed.
He made his way through the garden and was surprised that he didn’t see anybody else there. Perhaps he just couldn’t see them. That made sense to him. Tara had proven how she could use the arcane arts and vanish. Maybe there were others here who could do the same.
He found a grouping of students closer to the Academy, and he veered away from them. They were olwand tower students, and he didn’t have any trouble with them, but Sam had found that it was simply easier to avoid any confrontations whatsoever. He was Barlands boy, after all. No one wanted to interact with them if they didn’t have to.
He took a seat at a bench. Normally, he was in the library, or in the alchemy tower recently, or someplace where he could read, work, or try to come up with understanding, but those places had been stolen from him. He didn’t feel as if he had a place within the Academy now. He could go to his room, where he could sit quietly, read through the almanac, but Tara couldn�
��t practice.
They didn’t really have any place they can go to practice like they once did.
And maybe that was what bothered him more than anything else. It was the fact that the Nighlan had started to strip away all of the places within the Academy that had once been his. He had so few places as it was. Back in his hometown of Erstan, he and Mia had made do with whatever they could. They had their broken-down building that had been decaying, but they had made a home out of it, a palace they had called it, and it had been theirs. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t necessarily safe, but it was theirs.
Coming to the Academy had brought Sam into a place of cleanliness, food and books, the mental challenge of his studies, and presumed safety. For a time, he had allowed himself to feel like he could make this his place. Then the Nighlan had taken all of that.
He no longer had the library. He no longer had the alchemy tower. He could eat. He could go to his classes. But he didn’t feel as if he was safe.
He had to stop thinking like that, though. He was still at the Academy. He had time. In the time that he had remaining, he could accumulate the stipend, find a way to sneak in the library and borrow as many books as he wanted until he was as well read as he thought he would need to be so that when he did leave the Academy—something that he remained certain would have to happen as he eventually failed to progress with the arcane arts—he would be able to set himself up. Now that he knew the truth of the Nighlan and the danger they posed, he could try to avoid them. He didn’t have to stay in Tavran, though Mia would be here. He didn’t even have to return to Erstan. There was nothing there for him. His family was gone. Mia was in the Academy, and there would have to be plenty of small towns and villages scattered throughout that could use a minor alchemist, which Sam thought he could set himself up as.
When that time came, he had little doubt that he would be asked to return the almanac. Probably the vrandal, too. That belonged to the alchemists within the Academy. It belonged to those who were supposed to be here.
The distant sound of thunder rumbled, and he looked up. At first, he was afraid that it was another attack on the Academy, but it was nothing more than simple thunder. He had been on edge and had not realized just how much the attack on the Academy had bothered him. He sat for a moment before getting to his feet. What was he doing here?
Alchemist Illusion (The Alchemist Book 3) Page 6