Alchemist Academy: Book 2 (11 page)

The hall smelled like an old gym locker and had the dampness to match. The stone walls and cramped ceiling felt similar to the Dark Academy. Kylie wouldn’t allow anybody to go along with me, and Mark protested until I threatened to freeze him.

Kylie stayed a few paces in front, holding a flashlight.

I kept looking past her, trying to get a better look down the hall. “How did you find out about this hall?” I asked.

“My mom told me about it and how we’d meet before I even came to this place,” Kylie said, sounding a bit annoyed. “Did you really go through all that stuff at that other academy?”

“Yes.” I hadn’t even told them everything. I hadn’t mentioned the life stone, or Ira and her pet. Just thinking about it got my blood pumping.

“What a horrible place, making you make those stones like that. All the hate. I don’t think I could ever make stones for people like that.”

“Once you’re there, you don’t really have a choice in the matter. They started with lies and then pitted us against each other to push the anger to the edge.” I felt my wrist, where I’d worn my red swatch.

“Yeah, but why didn’t you all just take the place over? I mean, if President Foster got all weird and started making us hate each other and forcing us to make stones, we’d riot.”

I very much doubted the kids in this place had it in them to riot. “They set it up like a competition and told us the only way to make stones was through hate and anger. Besides, we went in there thinking it was this place. We thought we were going to learn to be alchemists.”

Kylie laughed at that, but I didn’t find it so funny.

“How much farther?” I asked through gritted teeth. Part of me wanted to throw her into the portal room and see how much better she’d fare at the Dark Academy.

“We’re here.” Kylie turned and shone the light in my face.

“Hey.” I raised my hand to cover my eyes and felt a stone strike my palm. My body froze in place and I stared through my fingers, watching a woman approach from behind Kylie.

“Kylie, who’s with you?” she asked.

“You didn’t have to freeze her.
Jeesh,
Mom.” Kylie pulled on her braid. “Sorry, Allie. My mom is sort of an ‘ask questions later’ kind of person.”

I wanted to slap her face, but my hand wouldn’t move.

“Allie?” her mom asked, stepping closer. Her black hair didn’t reach past her ears and she was holding another stone in her hand as she approached.

“Allie Norton, as in the daughter of Cathy Norton,” Kylie explained.

She covered her mouth and took a step back. “Are you serious?”

“For real. She told us all about another academy, a dark one.”

They were speaking as if I weren’t there, and the banter had me enraged. A thin, clear shell confined me, and I tried to break through it; one of my fingers moved.

Kylie’s mom chuckled and stepped closer to me with a wide smile. She dropped the stone into her pocket and brushed back her bangs. “You’re Cathy’s daughter?” She moved to within a foot of my face, squinting. “I see the resemblance, but you look softer. Like a puppy version of your mom.”

Questions bit at the end of my tongue and I groaned out a few incoherent syllables.

“I’m Gwen, and I’m sorry for freezing you, Allie Norton, but I have to protect my daughter. I’m sure you understand.”

My lips moved, but my throat still felt stuck. I shook from the effort to release it from its stupor.

“I’ll tell Cathy you’re here. She’ll be thrilled you’re safe. We’ve heard rumors of the dark hunting a few young ones in L.A.”

“My mom,” I mumbled.

“Don’t worry, she’s fine. But that Academy launched one nasty stone during the last attack. We didn’t even know they had the capability of making such a stone. We lost some good people that day.” Gwen cocked her head sideways and stared at me. “You don’t know who made that stone, do you?”

I wasn’t sure, but I think she meant the stone Deegan used to launch up to the surface while my mom attacked the Academy. Bridget and I both made one of those stones. Hearing that it hurt people made my stomach curl.

“She’s made a few stones here already. She does it with anger.” Kylie raised an eyebrow.

“Take me,” I said.

“No, no. It’s far safer to have you here.”

“Mom?” Kylie shifted her feet. “We’ve been going out at night—”

“What?”

“We didn’t want to keep eating their niceness.”

“Stupid girl. You have no idea what’s going on out there. We’re near war. Things are spilling into the rubes’ world…. Dammit. There’s more, isn’t there?”

“They took Iggy,” Kylie blurted.

“What?”Gwen stomped toward Kylie. “What do you mean, they took Iggy?”

Kylie wiped her eyes and stepped back from her mother. “We were at the store, and then the power went out and we tried to get away, and they grabbed her in the commotion. We tried to go back, but she was gone.” Her voice trembled.

“I need to tell the others.” Gwen looked away from Kylie and back down the hall. “If they’re getting so bold as to snatch a student….” She whipped back around to face us. “I’m not sure how much longer the Academy will be safe for you. However, until we have a proper plan in place, you all need to stay here. We might be able to send a few people to help secure the building. Foster won’t like it, though.”

My fingers moved and my jaw tingled as I thawed. “You need to take me to my mom. We have to free the kids from the other Academy. I made promises.” My body shook with emotion. Thinking of what Bridget and Carly might be going through was unbearable, and the idea that this woman was my best chance of getting to my mom but she wasn’t taking me….

Gwen took a deep breath. “There’s a war coming, and we’re going to need more stone makers like you. Did you tell Foster about the kidnapping?”

“Yeah. He’s going the diplomatic route,” Kylie said. “Talking with some guy named Quinn about it.”

“As if Quinn would take a call from Foster.” Gwen rolled her eyes and shook her head. “We tried reasoning with them, but there are rumors they’re getting close to finding the stone. It’s making everyone crazy, on both sides.”

“
The
stone?” I asked, and felt my elbow and shoulder joints loosening.

“The philosopher’s stone,” Gwen said, and shook her head. “I’m probably saying too much.”

“No, you haven’t said enough,” I said through a clenched jaw. “How is my mom? Is she close? Has she mentioned me?”

Gwen wouldn’t look at me; she kept glancing down the hall. “Yes. I’m sure she can’t wait to get back together with you. I can’t really say where she is at the moment. Listen, can you guys get back here next week, at the same time? I’ll do what I can to get Iggy back.”

“Okay. Same time next week,” Kylie repeated.

“Oh, Kylie. I’m so sorry you’re in the middle of this. But don’t you dare leave the Academy again unless it’s with me.”

Both of my arms moved now, and my legs were listening to my commands even if they felt like they were moving through peanut butter. I turned to watch Gwen embrace Kylie in a hug. I wouldn’t normally want to ruin a mother-daughter moment, but at this point, it was better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

I tossed a stone and struck Gwen on the arm. She froze in place. A little bit of her own medicine.

“Mom?” Kylie said, panic setting in as she tried to get out of her mom’s embrace. “What did you do?”

“I’m so sorry, Kylie, but I need to get back to my mom.”

“What are you doing?” she asked as I rummaged through her mom’s pocket.

I pulled out the purple stone I’d been looking for. A perfect-looking portal stone, similar to the one Darius had used on me. It had to be one of the twin stones Wendy had talked about. It should take me right back to where Gwen had come from.

“That’s a portal stone.” Kylie craned her neck to get a view of my hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and ran down the hall. It felt terrible to freeze them and steal the stone, but sometimes the reason warranted the crime.

I hobbled as quickly as my bogged-down body would allow, hoping I didn’t trip on an errant crack in the floor. Kylie yelled after me, still stuck in her mom’s embrace. Looking back wasn’t an option. The idea of getting closer to finding my mom consumed me.

At the end of the hall, I ambled up the stairs and cleared the distance across the dark commons of the Academy. If someone saw me, they might have thought I was running for my life. I entered the living quarters and spotted a couple on the couch. It might have been the same couple who’d been on the stone room floor, but I didn’t wait for a visual confirmation. I had to get upstairs and tell Jackie and Mark.

The elevator went nauseatingly slowly and I pumped the button, hoping it would feel my urgency and speed to the sixteenth floor. When the doors finally slid open, I wedged my body through and ran to Mark’s room first.

Fully recovered from the freeze, I hammered my fist against his door.

He opened before my third hit. “You okay?” He lunged out of the room, but I was already making my way to Jackie’s.

By the time I got to her door, she had it open. “What’s going on? Did you speak to her?”

They’d known all about my plan, but none of it had gone down the way we’d discussed. I caught my breath and then unleashed what I had done. “I left them down there, frozen in an embrace. I stole her portal stone and ran. She wasn’t going to take us to my mom.”

Mark raised an eyebrow and inspected the bulge in my pocket. “You have a portal stone?”

“Yeah.” I showed them the purple stone. “This has to be a twin portal stone. It should take us right to wherever my mom is, and we can finally get to doing what we set out to do.”

“Did she say where she came from?” Mark asked.

“Well, no, but she mentioned my mom and said she would tell her where I was.” The idea of the stone not taking me to my mom was inconceivable.

“That thing could take us to the freaking winter wonderland we experienced at the Dark Academy,” Jackie said, eyeing the stone.

“Then I’ll go by myself,” I said, and turned my back to them. I held the stone closer to my face and inspected the yellow streaks on it.

They didn’t get it. I knew for sure that on the other side of this stone I would find my mom. Nothing could stop me from doing what I needed to do. I pulled one of my gloves off and held the stone over my hand.

“Wait,” Mark said with a hint of defeat. “I’m with you, Allie.” He placed his hand next to mine.

Jackie huffed and shoved her hand into the mix. “Whatever. Another day of this place is one too many, anyway.”

I felt a cushion of grass under my feet and cool fall air blowing over my face. Even in the darkness, I noticed the trees above had started changing their colors. Golden leaves littered the ground around us.

Maples, maybe?

Where were we?

Mark grazed my hand and nodded to a flickering light bouncing off a distant tree. A campfire?

“Don’t move,” a man’s rough voice said from behind us. “Slowly, and I do mean slowly, raise those hands. You too, handsome.”

The words sucked the wind out of me, and I raised my hands the same as Mark and Jackie. Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed a large man wearing thick wool clothing and holding a large gun.
Does it have a chamber for stones?
It was too dark to tell.

“Keep them up,” he demanded, and I raised my hands farther up. “Where is Gwen?”

I searched for an answer that might not get me shot. “She told me to come in her place. I need to see Cathy Norton.”

“Why wouldn’t she come with you?” he asked.

“She thought it wouldn’t be safe to bring more than three people along.”

Jackie groaned.

“Your story sounds about as straight as a banana. I’d no more take you to Cathy than I would let this young man near my daughter.”

“She’s this Cathy lady’s daughter,” Jackie said, a tad annoyed.

I glared at her, but I don’t think she saw it in the dark, or maybe she chose to ignore it. The fact that I was Cathy’s daughter wasn’t something I wanted to divulge. I glanced back at the guy again and saw him studying me.

“Turn around. Just her.” He pointed to me and I turned around. His inspection moved closer as he took me in. “You do look like her, but she doesn’t
have
a daughter.”

The statement stung. My mom had never told them who I was, or that I even existed? Maybe he was just a low-level type, not privy to her private information.

“I assure you. She tried to rescue me at the Dark Academy just a few days ago, so I think she knows who I am.”

He looked confused. “Are you talking about the raid on the library?”

“Just take me to her and she can tell you herself.”

As he pondered that, the moonlight danced through the nearby trees, giving me enough light to see the scruff on the man’s face. He might have been in his mid-forties, a bit on the heavy side, and chock-full of skepticism.

“Can I lower my arms? They’re freaking killing me,” Jackie whined.

“No,” he growled.

She huffed and lowered them anyway. “Just shoot me if you want. I wasn’t blessed with arm strength.”

The man with the gun blew two sharp whistles and two other men came running over from the campfire with stones in hand.

“Caught these kids back where Gwen should have returned.”

I searched the faces of the two men in the dark. Each of them looked as rough as the one with the gun. They sneered at us and raised their hands as if to throw their stones.

“What happened to Gwen?” one of them asked.

“She’s fine. She sent us here once she found out I was the daughter of Cathy Norton.”

That stunned the two of them as much as a stun stone might have. They exchanged glances and then turned back to me.

“She doesn’t have a daughter,” one of them said.

“You two say too much. Shut up and let me do the talking.” The man with the gun moved around us. In the firelight I could see the dark steel of his multi-barreled gun and his grizzled face. It looked softer in the light, though, as if his harsh tone didn’t match his true demeanor.

“Just take me to her, please,” I said.

“Yeah, let’s get this over with,” Jackie added.

“They could be spies,” one of the other men said. I took a closer look at their faces. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now I could see that they were identical twins.

“They could have killed Gwen and taken the stone.” Their stone-throwing hands twitched.

“Settle down. This is Boyd and Roy, and I’m Niles,” the man with the gun said. “I think if you kids are lying about who you are, Cathy will be more than happy to have you dealt with. So I’ll give you one more chance to tell your story straight.”

I took a deep breath and thought about my mom standing on the other side of the hub at the Dark Academy. She had seen me, recognized me; she had to have come for me. The coincidence of our being at the same place at the same time was inconceivable. These men probably hadn’t gotten the true information; they acted on rumors and speculations. Once I saw my mom and she saw me, there wouldn’t be any more discussion of who I was.

“No,” I said.

“Fine, but there are certain requirements we have to follow when bringing in prisoners,” the guard said. He hefted the large gun onto his shoulder, tapping the trigger with his finger. “We have to bring you in cold.”

“What does that mean?” Mark asked.

“It means we put you down with a sleep stone,” Boyd began to say.

“And then we take you in blind,” Roy finished.

“No, that isn’t going to happen. We have no idea who these people are.” Mark glared at me. “Allie, we can’t trust them. We’ll be at their total mercy. They could do anything to us when we’re in that state.”

“Yeah.” Jackie sounded unconvinced. “I bet we can find your mom on our own.”

They didn’t get it. “You two can go back to the Academy. I have to do this, and if it requires me to be out while they take me to her, fine. My first waking memory will be my mom hovering over me and the sound of them whimpering in fear of the retaliation my mom will be bringing down on their heads.”

The twins shifted their feet and seemed unsure of themselves. Good. Some fear in them might make my suspended trip safer.

“This is stupid, but all for one, right?” Jackie said, and put her hands on her hips.

“I won’t leave you either, Allie,” Mark said, and in the dancing firelight, his eyes looked full of rage. His jaw muscles were bulging. Jackie seemed indifferent and took her time looking into the nearby swaying trees.

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s get it started.”

The twins lowered their hands and stuffed them into their jacket pockets.

Niles hung his gun on his belt. “Take off your gloves and hold out your hands.”

I took a deep breath and put my faith in the situation. Jackie’s voice rattled in my head, telling me this was stupid, telling me we should be using the stones we had and fighting our way out of this.

Niles pulled a stone from his pocket, blue with yellow swirls.

I pulled off my glove and held out my hand. Staring into Niles’ eyes, I searched for some sincerity and kindness but was coming up short. He seemed nervous more than anything else. I hoped it came from dealing with the daughter of Cathy Norton. He met my eyes as he lifted his hand with the stone. As soon as that stone touched me, I’d be immobilized and these men could do whatever they wanted with me. They could give me to Axiom or they could simply kill a weak target. It wouldn’t be hard to dispose of us.

My hand shook and I glanced over to Mark.

“Hell, no,” Mark said, and in a blur of a motion he kicked Niles’ hand and flung a stone at his face.

Niles was just as fast and blocked the stone with his shoulder. Mark jumped into Niles, tackling him to the ground.

“Mark, no,” I said.

Jackie threw a stone and it whizzed by and hit Boyd in the face. He screamed and flung his arms about as if he was falling. Roy was a split second behind Jackie and struck her with a blue stone. She collapsed to the ground as if someone had flipped a switch.

Anger flooded me and I lunged for Roy with my fists. I got two steps before I felt a stone touch my bare hand. I lost all control of my body as I plummeted to the ground.