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 itupthat 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—theresponsibility—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 calledbeyn. 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,elixiris 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’dalwayswanted 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.Thatwas 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.
After class, I joined the flow of students headed down the broad main corridor toward the foyer of the Seminary, where Wilder waited near the bottom of the wide, split central staircase. He stood with a girl around my age and a guy with rigid rust-colored cuffs affixed to his sleeves, in the style of the kingdom of Falkrest, Aethermere’s seafaring neighbor to the north.
Wilder laughed at something the Falkrestor said, tossing his dark blond hair, and my heart caught in my throat as I watched him. He seemed so at ease here, among some of the sharpest young minds in the world, but that didn’t surprise me. I’d always known how gifted he was.
But I got an odd feeling as I watched him, like maybe Desmond wasn’t the only one who’d changed during the years my amnesia had devoured.Ihad changed, clearly. And while Wilder still seemed charming and outgoing—as welcome in any group as he’d always been—something felt different about the way he conducted himself now. Maybe it was because the stakes were higher than in our home village.
Or maybe I simply wasn’t yet accustomed to seeing him here, in this place whereIwanted to belong, among strangers who shouldn’t have felt like strangers.
Maybe I wasn’t accustomed to sharing him with the world.
When he turned and saw me, he smiled. He said something to his friends, who glanced my way, then headed up the stairs with the crowd, leaving Wilder and me alone in the foyer.
“How’d it go?” he asked as I came to a stop at his side.
“It was actually kind of amazing.” I mounted the first step, bringing myself to eye level with him, and my breath caught at the intimacy of the new perspective. At how immediate his gaze felt from mere inches away. “Professor Robards is very passionate about alchemy,” I said, rushing ahead to disguise my sudden nerves. “And I suspect his class will be a great refresher for me. I’m really hoping it’ll trigger my memories of concepts I’ve already learned.”
“That’s about all it did for you the first time,” Wilder said as we began climbing the stairs. “Considering that your mother taught you most of the base-level stuff when you were a kid.”
“Well, a reminder can’t hurt. He’s starting them with the history of signature notation. Next week, I’ll have thirty-six essays to grade on the subject, and after that, they’re expected to start developing their own notation styles.”
“That’ll make their work difficult to read for a while, until they decide exactly how long their flourishes and how tight their swirls should be.”
