Fragments of Alchemy: The Code Keeper

Chapter Seventeen ~ The First Lesson ~ Part 2

"Thea!" someone called, and she turned to see Todd waving his hand at her from a table across the room.

"Hi!" she called as she walked up and sat down.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning." She smiled at him. Finally, after walking through the halls alone, she felt safe by her Mentor's side. But that made her think about how he had erased her memory because a tutor had told him to. Should she really trust someone who would do such a thing?

"You have some blueberry," Todd said, pointing to the edge of his lip. "Just there."

Thea wiped her mouth quickly and looked down at the table. "Thanks." She closed her eyes, tilted her head toward the ceiling, and then rolled her eyes at herself.

"Listen, we gotta talk," Todd said.

Thea looked over at him, expecting him to finally apologize for erasing her memory.

Todd gestured at Thea's vest. "You're not serious about becoming a Spectrum Scholar, are you?" Todd had a displeased frown on his face that made Thea look away. He didn't even wait for Thea to reply. "You don't know what this means, Thea. You can't possibly understand, but believe me when I say, you really ought to choose a Focus Fragment."

Why Todd felt like he could tell her what to study, Thea didn't know. But she had always been in charge of what she learned, and she didn't want that to change, especially now that she would be learning Alchemy. This decision could completely change her life, and like her parents had always told her growing up, she was the only one allowed to decide what to do with her future.

"No, what I ought to do is follow my heart" Thea said, surprising herself just as much as Todd. "I'll be a Spectrum Scholar if I want to be. It's my life."

Todd sat up straighter and shook his head. "That's just it. This isn't just your life anymore. Listen. Last night I talked with my Mentor, and he gave me some advice. This is our lives. We're supposed to be partners and work together. But if you're a Spectrum, then we won't have time to meet together and prepare for our Joint Trial, and we'll drift apart. While you're busy learning basic lessons in every Fragment, I'll move on to advanced lessons in my Focus Fragment."

"I'll drag you down, you mean," Thea said. Inside her vest pocket, C.C. began to fidget, and Thea noticed that her heart hammered in her chest. She quickly sat forward and put her hand over the pocket.

Todd sighed heavily. "This isn't just about me either, okay? I'm trying to help you. You don't know what it means to be a Spectrum Scholar."

"How about you explain it to me, then," Thea said, her tone of voice shrill and sarcastic.

Todd held up his hands. "It's hard to explain, but it doesn't matter anyway. I can plainly see that you've made up your mind. Just ... promise you'll be careful, alright?"

A chill traveled up Thea's spine. "Careful of what?"

Todd gave Thea a significant look and said, "There are three Spectrums now. There's no time to explain it all, but trust me when I say this is serious. Promise me you'll be careful?"

Todd's sudden concern for her gave her pause. She instantly felt bad for snapping at him. "Okay, I'll be careful. ... I'm sorry if I was rude," she added.

Todd nodded dismissively. "It's not fair of me to tell you what to do. I get that. I just ... I'm worried ... about all of this." He stared at the tabletop, suddenly lost in thought, and Thea couldn't help but wonder about what it meant for there to be three Spectrum Scholars. "...There's our tutor now, Maleficus Arkose." Todd nodded off to the side, and Thea turned to look. Maleficus was a Latin word for sorcerer. Howinteresting for the tutor's titles to be Latin!