The Quantum Games(The Alchemists Academy)

Chapter 1





They used transportation magic to jump back to Ms. Burns’ classroom with the quantum ball. The place was, like most of the rest of the school, empty at the moment. The lines of desks were neatly arranged, without any students there, while there were bookshelves off to one side, beside Ms. Burns’ desk, which seemed to have been grown out of the living tree that the room sat inside. Possibly it had, since that was so how most of the teachers liked to arrange their rooms.

“Since you’re here, Wirt,” Ms. Burns said, “would you help me put away some new books on the shelves?”

There were a couple of large cardboard boxes sitting in front of the bookcases. They were open to reveal stacks of books piled haphazardly within. Those Wirt could see were leather bound and looked to be quite old.

“Where did you get those?” Wirt asked. “I mean, it’s not like you’ve been anywhere, because you’ve been here, teaching me.”

Ms. Burns smiled. “You have one of the most impressive talents for transportation magic I’ve seen, we live in a giant tree with transport tubes that stretch into other dimensions, and you still can’t understand how I could get hold of a load of old books? For all you know, I could have been darting all over the Hundred Kingdoms to fetch them.”

“Were you?”

“No, I ordered them from the book shop in the next village. But that isn’t the point, Wirt.”

Wirt tilted his head to one side. “What is the point then?”

“The point,” Ms. Burns said with a smile, “is that they are all sitting in boxes when they should be on my shelves in alphabetical order.”

Wirt wanted to say no, because after all, the teacher had just tried to force him into killing the deer, but Ms. Burns had also done a lot to help him over the vacation. She had taught him a lot about defensive magic and the use of the elements. She had pushed him to use more and more of his magical abilities, putting him in situations where he had to use them or face something worse. She had also almost certainly added her voice to Ms. Lake’s when it came to getting him allowed to stay there. Ender Paine certainly hadn’t done that out of the kindness of his heart, because the principal didn’t have any kindness that Wirt could see, and he tended to view students as an occasionally necessary irritation within the school.

So Wirt started sorting through the books and putting them up on the shelves. Most of them were written in languages he couldn’t understand. Some were in swirling, cursive scripts that he knew from having asked Ms. Burns before were in the language of the fey. Others had writing that looked angular and impossible to read, or so twisted that Wirt’s eyes skipped off the letters without taking them in.

“I’m impressed by what you managed out there,” Ms. Burns said, taking a seat at her desk.

“I thought you wanted me to kill the deer,” Wirt shot back, a little sharper than he intended.

“I wanted you to be ready. Of course, I expected you to miss.”

Wirt turned from the bookcase in shock. “You what?”

Ms. Burns smiled. “Everyone misses the first time, Wirt. That, or they can’t contain the power of the ball and it does unintended damage. It is simply how these things go. The ball takes focus, along with a real feel for what is going on around the thrower. That you managed to hit the wild dog without harming the deer was… impressive.”

Impressive. Wirt didn’t say anything. He was still angry that she’d made him throw the thing at all. All through this school, people seemed to be determined to make him into something that he wasn’t. Ms. Burns was just the latest in a long line of people who’d offered him a lot, but who clearly expected something in return.

Ms. Burns continued. “You need to be careful though, Wirt. The quantum ball is like all the other magical artifacts here. It has enough power to be unpredictable. Using it is a responsibility.”


“I thought you wanted me to use my magic?” Wirt demanded, pushing another book into place on the shelves. This one had red leather binding, along with a title he could read. Flames and Flammability: Adventures in Pyromancy.

“I want you to use it responsibly.” Ms. Burns stood then, moving around her desk until she wasn’t far from Wirt. “You will have a lot to do with your power. A lot of people will be depending on it. It’s important that you develop it the way you should, or the consequences could be unthinkable.”

Wirt put away the last of the books and turned away from the bookcase. “You keep saying things like that, but you won’t tell me why. No one here will, but everyone obviously has something in mind for me. You, Ms. Lake, the principal. Even the school governors.”

“What do you know about them?” Ms. Burns asked sharply. “Those things are dangerous beyond anything you could imagine.”

Wirt nodded, but he didn’t mention the whispering he’d heard when standing between the vile looking and misshapen statues of the school’s ‘governors’ or the things they’d been saying about him.

“Is there anything here that isn’t dangerous?” he asked.

Ms. Burns sighed. “I’m not a danger to you, Wirt. There are things I can’t tell you, but I have your wellbeing in mind with everything I do. I wouldn’t even be here otherwise.”

“But how can I believe that when you won’t tell me what’s going on?” Wirt demanded. “Besides, even Ender Paine probably thinks he’s doing what’s best for me.”

“Ender thinks he’s doing what is best for himself,” Ms. Burns said. “He wouldn’t have given you a scholarship otherwise.”

“At least I know that about him. With you… with Ms. Lake…”

“I don’t think Vivaine plans to do you any harm. After everything, she takes the safety of the students very seriously.”

“You see,” Wirt complained, stepping away from the books, “there you go again. After what? All that business of her being part of putting Merlin to sleep?”

“Exactly,” Ms. Burns said. “Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s as much as I think she’d like me to say. I have to respect some of my roommate’s privacy.”

That was another thing Wirt wouldn’t get used to in a hurry. The fact that not just one, but two of the teachers could live quite comfortably in an apartment on the bottom of the school lake. Like most things about the school, it was something he had to get used to in this world.

“Can I go now?” he asked instead.

Ms. Burns sighed. “Yes, Wirt, you can go. This will actually be our last class for a while. The new term is starting soon, and the other pupils will be starting back, so I will be busy with a whole new class of would be magic users.”

That was enough to bring out a small spark of gratitude in Wirt. “Thank you for helping me so much. I think I’ve learned a lot.”

Ms. Burns nodded. “You have. It might even be enough to offset the advantages that Spencer and Roland have by learning these things their whole lives, given what I’ve seen of you. Ideally, of course, the headmaster would do the fair thing and give us more time…”

“But that isn’t going to happen,” Wirt finished for her. “He doesn’t exactly believe in fairness.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Ms. Burns said. She looked almost like she was remembering something then. “You should hurry back to your room,” she suggested. “And use the tubes. You know you shouldn’t transport yourself too much on school property.”

Wirt nodded, stepping out into the corridor just in time to run into another student, running in with a suitcase. The collision sent the other student sprawling, the suitcase falling open.

“Wirt!”

It was Alana. In the next few seconds, his eyes took her all in. How could a girl get prettier in just a few weeks? Alana’s face was flushed, and her long dark silky hair had fallen over her face, partly obscuring it, but she was still more beautiful than ever. Her big, dark eyes stared up at him while Wirt saw that she had grown taller and slenderer over the vacation. She was dressed in a light colored dress worked with darker patterns around the edges. It was a lot more old fashioned than the kind of thing she’d worn before the vacation, but it suited her. So did the scarf for the elite class she wore around her neck.

Wirt didn’t even realize how much he was staring until she spoke again.

“Wirt, it’s great to see you! Can you help me up? And maybe help me with this suitcase?”

Wirt reached out a hand to pull her up, and he must have pulled harder than he thought, because in an instant she was pressed close to him, his arm sliding around her waist automatically. This close, he could smell the sweet jasmine and citrus scent of her, while her dark hair tickled his features. Wirt saw her smile, and remembered the times they’d been that close before. Those times they’d kissed.

A pointed cough came from behind them, and Wirt turned, seeing another familiar face.

“Spencer, it’s good to see you.”

His former roommate was dressed in black, partly because it was a serious, uncompromising color, but mostly because it was one of the many things his father insisted on. His blond hair and blue eyes didn’t really go with it, but the serious, almost angry expression on his face did. Wirt was used to Spencer looking serious; he normally didn’t look any other way, but the anger was new. It seemed to give his friend a harder edge, one that Wirt wasn’t sure he liked.

“Alana,” Spencer said, holding out a hand to her. Alana pulled back from Wirt and looked over at him, hurrying over to take Spencer’s hand. While she did that, Spencer shot Wirt a look that was even less friendly than the last one had been. What had happened over the mid-term break to make him look like that? Was it the Quantum Games? They were meant to be competing against each other for the same place, but Wirt couldn’t see how that would make Spencer hate him.

What happened next made even less sense. Alana took Spencer’s hand and Spencer pulled her too him, enveloping her in a kiss. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. Instead, it was full, and passionate, and deep, going on for a long time while Spencer pulled Alana tightly to him. His hand was on the back of her head, taking control of the kiss completely, and Alana showed every sign of enjoying that. At least, she didn’t make any move to pull back from him.

They kept kissing, like there wasn’t anyone else around. Like they didn’t care that there was. Spencer kissed Alana like he didn’t intend to stop before the end of the semester at least, and Alana seemed to almost melt into his arms as he held her to him. It seemed that a lot of things had happened over the vacation that Wirt didn’t know about. Between the look Spencer had given him, and the kiss, which was clearly designed to show that Spencer and Alana were together, Wirt wasn’t sure that he wanted to know most of it.