Chapter 6
“Do I know any of them?”
I scanned the quadrangle stretched out before us: a rolling lawn accented with artistically trimmed shrubs, geometrically shaped flower beds, and meandering stone-paved walkways.
Moving across the space were half a dozen young people dressed in variations of my student uniform.
Most wore gray dresses or slacks, but the occasional flash of a blue belt, a green ribbon, or a rust-colored vest caught my eye as well.
Wilder tucked his arm through mine, bumping against my satchel as we headed down one of the stone paths, and the gesture felt both affectionate and bit…intentional. As if the display of affection were signaling something.
I couldn’t decide how I should feel about that.
We’d spent half our childhood scampering through Innswood arm in arm, but this felt different.
Our relationship had clearly matured along with our bodies, and fifteen-year-old Amber would have been thrilled to see Wilder looking at me then the way he was looking at me now—as more than a playmate.
Or at least, as a different kind of playmate.
And the truth was that amnesiac Amber was more than a little thrilled as well. Wilder was confident and charming, and his eyes sparkled a brilliant shade of blue. His attention felt like the warmth of the sun on my face.
But the cavernous pit of my memory was difficult to bridge. How had we evolved from friends into lovers? What was the catalyst for that transformation? Had he suddenly looked at me differently one morning, over tea? Had our hands brushed in the tight confines of a shared lab space?
His attention followed mine, flitting from face to face across the quadrangle, his arm warm in my grip. “They’re underclassmen.”
“All of them?” I asked.
He nodded. “I don’t know the Fundamentals-year students yet. And I must say, they look young. But I know most of the Proficiency cohort.”
“As do I, I suppose?”
He considered the question for a moment. “At a glance, certainly. But I’d be shocked if you knew many of their names. You’ve always been less social than I.”
“Speaking of which…” I tightened my grip on Wilder’s arm. “Why does Desmond hate me?”
I caught his quizzical look from the corner of my eye, but his steps did not falter. “He does seem a bit cross. But I’m fairly certain that’s his natural state, at least since he graduated.”
“He wasn’t like that as a student?”
Wilder shrugged. “He was in his Mastery year when we were in Fundamentals, and he had little time or patience for us. But he does seem much grouchier since he joined the Alchemary staff. My conclusion has long been that adults have no time for fun.”
I glanced up at him. “Wilder, we’re adults.”
He shook his head solemnly. “We’re merely of age. There’s a difference.”
I considered his theory as we turned right onto a north pathway, headed toward the Seminary with its impressive central clock tower. “But he seemed quite specifically convinced that I don’t deserve to be here. Can you shed any light on that matter?”
Wilder stopped abruptly and turned to face me. “Amber, you are the most gifted student in our cohort. Quite possibly the most gifted student in a generation. If Desmond is angry, it’s because that’s what they used to say about him, before you came along.”
The Seminary—the academic heart of the campus—was an imposing building, both inside and out. It was three stories of brownish stone, with a spiraling turret staircase on each end, both capped in sloping, round copper roofs that had long ago oxidized into a green patina.
Inside, the first floor boasted large lecture halls, meeting rooms, and the library; the second floor held smaller classrooms, professors’ offices, and conference rooms; and the third floor was taken up with various laboratory spaces and storage.
Wilder led me left from the entrance, past the central split staircase and into the western wing of the building.
My heart thumped as we came to a stop outside an imposing set of doors.
They were tall and arched at the top, made of heavy, formal carved panels of a dark-stained wood, standing open like the gates of hell.
The buzz of voices from inside said I was among the last to arrive.
And that the Fundamentals-year students were very excited to attend their first class at the Alchemary.
I’d likely felt the same way, two years before. But today, I felt…unqualified. How was I supposed to assist a professor with a class I couldn’t remember taking?
“You’ll be great,” Wilder whispered as a girl in a black cloak brushed past us and through the open doorway.
“How do you know?”
He grinned down at me. “You’re always great. It’s rather annoying, actually.”
I laughed.
“And anyway, the bar’s not high,” he added. “When we took Intro, our TA pretty much just graded papers.”
“Ms. Fallbrook!”
I spun, startled, to find a middle-aged man heading down the hallway toward us from the western staircase, his long black cape billowing behind him. The professor—what else could he be?—had brown skin, prominent freckles, and tight, dark curls, shot through with streaks of gray.
“Professor Robards,” I said, taking a chance when he stopped beside me, in the threshold of the classroom. “How nice to see you.”
He gave me a pleasant wink. “Professors have no control over which teaching assistants are assigned to them, you know. But I made a point of mentioning your name every time I had occasion to speak to the Bluehelm’s assistant.”
“How very kind of you,” I murmured.
His focus shifted to Wilder, and he stood a bit straighter. “Mr. Gregory. I hope you are well. And that you’re not intending to follow Ms. Fallbrook into my class.”
“Indeed, I am not.” Wilder grimaced. “Once was plenty for me.”
“I assure you the feeling is quite mutual,” Professor Robards grumbled.
I stifled a smile, and Wilder bumped me with his arm.
The professor pulled his overstuffed satchel higher on his shoulder and gestured for me to precede him into the classroom. “After you, then?”
With one last glance at Wilder, who waggled his eyebrows encouragingly at me, I stepped into a large, bright lecture hall dominated by tall, narrow windows and dark, heavy wooden furnishings.
Silence descended, and three dozen wide-eyed faces stared down at me from several rows of tiered bench seating.
“That one’s yours,” Professor Robards whispered, gesturing at a small wooden desk to one side of the room, angled to face both the students and the substantial podium at the center of the front portion of the classroom.
The front of the podium was carved with the Alchemary creed—Mind, Matter, Spirit—in the familiar triangle shape.
Behind the podium, a long framed slate board was mounted on the wall, dusty from recently erased chalk markings.
I sat at the small desk and opened my satchel to retrieve a notebook and a quill, while he took up his position behind the podium.
“Good afternoon!” Professor Robards began, and his voice, with its deep timbre and cadence of gravitas, felt instantly, comfortingly familiar, even if I could not actually remember having heard it.
“My name is Lionel Robards, and this semester I will be teaching you Introductory Theories of Alchemy in a class called ‘Intro’ by most of my students. To my left—your right—you will find our class teaching assistant, Amber Fallbrook, who is currently the top-ranked member of the Mastery-year cohort.”
Top…?
My face warmed. I’d been told I was a top student, but no one had actually mentioned my ranking.
“—should feel honored to have been admitted into the Alchemary,” Professor Robards continued, and I realized I’d missed part of what he was saying. “But at the same time, you should feel the weight of expectation. Of responsibility.
“There are thirty-six of you now, at the beginning of your Fundamentals year. I want you to look around at these faces, because at the start of your Proficiency year, there will be only twenty-four. And at the beginning of your Mastery year? You.” He pointed to a boy in the second row, who wore a rust-colored scarf beneath his cloak.
“Twelve, Professor Robards.”
The professor nodded. “That is correct. One-third of the faces you see in this room will make it to year three. And only a handful of those will pass the trials and be invited to join the Alchemary.” He glanced around the room.
“Only the most gifted and hardworking among you will become my colleagues.”
Benches groaned as students shifted in their seats.
I shared their discomfort.
“So! Let’s begin with the basics. With the most important question: What is alchemy?
Other than the most powerful and difficult to learn of the arcane studies?
” Professor Robards stepped out from behind the podium, his eyes alight with passion for the topic.
“There is a force in the universe that propels it toward change. Constant, unceasing change, of every sort, and in every direction. We do not know what that force is. Though we can see it at work—though we can collect and analyze data based on what we observe—we do not understand that force itself. Part of what the Alchemary seeks to do is gain that understanding. What we know so far is that nature’s tendency in the face of change is toward entropy. Toward chaos and destruction.”
Robards slowly paced before the front row as he spoke, turning frequently to eye a seemingly random student.
“You can see this for yourself, everywhere you look. Living beings—plants, animals, people—die, and they decompose. Their physical matter breaks down into chaotic states, into particles too small to discern with the human eye. Though you cannot see or feel it, this planet is slowly slipping beyond the sun’s influence, and the brightest minds in the world agree that someday—our children’s children will be dust in their graves by then—our planet will be too far away from the sun to benefit from its life-giving light and warmth.
This chaos is clear in broken bones and shattered crockery.
In quiet, private discord and in raucous arguments at the emperor’s court, as well as in riots among the general population.
It is present in everything, at every level, visible and invisible.
Sometimes it is seen, sometimes only felt.
“But that trend toward entropy is as real as the stone beneath your feet. This is because disorder and destruction are easier to accomplish than order and creation, in the same way that it is easier to let a stone roll downhill than to compel it up that same hill.”
Professor Robards paused dramatically, and though I already knew much of what he was explaining—my mother had taught me basic alchemical theory when I was a child—I found myself hanging on his every word.
“Alchemy seeks to pull that stone uphill.
To guide nature away from entropy and toward order.
To nudge everything it touches toward a higher state of being.
“Alchemists have the ability—the responsibility—to influence that natural force of change. To seek to slow and to guide it. To reverse entropy, so that life—on any of those levels, visible or invisible, physical or mental, global or personal—can progress instead of breaking itself down. Alchemy seeks to elevate life, in all its aspects, toward a greater form.”
Apotheosis, Desmond’s discipline, focused alchemy’s goals specifically on the human mind and body.
Transmutation, which I’d evidently chosen, sought to transform inorganic materials into a higher state of being.
And Panacea, which was Wilder’s focus, worked to heal ailments and illnesses and to ameliorate organic material of a nonhuman origin, including both plants and animals.
“How do we accomplish this, you’re probably wondering?
” Another dramatic pause from Robards, and this time his smile developed slowly, like a blossom opening.
“Alchemy can distill that natural element of change into a physical form: into a substance called beyn. Once it has been distilled and purified, beyn can be added to any alchemical formula in ways devised by the scientists in residence here at the Alchemary. And what do those formulas make?”
A girl in the fourth row raised her hand.
“Yes!” Robards called on her enthusiastically, his entire arm pointed in her direction.
“Elixirs.”
“Indeed! As you know if you’ve done your preparatory reading, elixir is the general term for any alchemical compound.
Within that category, we have potions, decoctions, tinctures, ointments and liniments, serums and tonics, embrocations, and solutions, all of which fall into several categories of strength, called ‘grades,’ which require escalating levels of knowledge and skill to prepare. How many grades are there?”
Four, I thought from my desk.
“Four!” a boy in the highest row called out. “Beginner, intermediate, professional, and elite.”
“That is correct,” Robards said. “But next time, wait to be called on.”
The rest of the class snickered.
“Various elixirs can make your food taste better and slow its decomposition. They can treat illness and temporarily change a person’s disposition.
Alchemy can turn base metals into bronze and silver—someday, some believe—into gold!
It can reverse some of the stages of life—butterfly into cocoon? —or slow them down.”
Adrenaline spiked in my veins, and my blood rushed faster. That was what I wanted. I’d always wanted to be one of the people making those marvels happen. Changing the world.
I wanted to harness forces of chaos and repurpose them for my own will. That was why I had come to the Alchemary.
“All of that takes experience, and skill, and a very specially trained thought process. But it’s all possible! And you will learn that process here at the Alchemary!”
The students broke into applause, and I didn’t realize I’d joined them until I stabbed myself in the palm with the point of my own quill.