Free The Alchemists Academy Book 2: Elemental Explosions by Kailin Gow

they almost certainly meant the exact opposite. They meant people getting hurt, or worse, in Wirt’s experience. And the people in question? Wirt had a horrible feeling that they were going to be close to him. After all, Roland had said that he had been getting close to a girl as part of this plan, and one girl he had definitely been getting close to recently was Alana.
                So why was Wirt still lying in the dark, doing nothing? Shouldn’t he get up, conjure a light, and leap over to accuse Roland? Of what though? Talking to boxes? Somehow, Wirt suspected that wouldn’t get him very far. Oh, he could go to Ms. Lake, or even to the headmaster, but then it would just be his word against Roland’s, and Wirt didn’t even know what it was the other boy intended to do.
                No, he needed more information before he could act. He needed to know what Roland planned, and exactly what was in that box. Which meant that for now, all Wirt could do was roll over and try to get back to sleep. Somehow, he didn’t think it would be that easy.
     

 
    Chapter 9
     
    W irt hopped back as flames licked at his feet, then stumbled as a small, scaly form slammed into the back of his knees. Thankfully, Alana rushed forward to shoo a baby dragon back before it could get too interested in Wirt. Not that Wirt imagined the little creature would want to hurt him deliberately, but the small dragons seemed not to understand that humans weren’t as durable as they were. Instead, they treated them just the way they would their fellow dragons, which seemed to include flaming at them to get attention.
                “Remind me why we’re here,” Wirt said.
                Alana smiled. “Mostly because someone did so well with the unicorns that Sir Percival is prepared to trust us with his pet project.”
                The project in question was a huge cave, located on one of the further reaches of the academy’s transport system, where small dragons, barely hatched for the most part, frolicked and flamed their way through childhood. The idea was to build up dragon numbers by giving the little creatures a safe place to grow up. It seemed to Wirt like an odd thing for a former dragon hunter to do, but then, Wirt guessed that it might just be Sir Percival’s way of ensuring that he had plenty of dragons to fight in the future.
                In theory, the knight was meant to be in there with Wirt and Alana, supervising as they babysat the little creatures and teaching them more about the conservation of magical species. Unfortunately for Wirt and Alana, Wirt had made the mistake of mentioning where they were going to Llew on a visit to his cave, and now the dragon was sitting outside with Sir Percival, reminiscing about old times while Wirt and Alana had to do all the work.
                There was a lot of work, too, mostly because the dozen or so small dragons there were boisterous little things, every bit as playful as a human toddler, and about as coordinated in some respects. Already, a small green-scaled one had managed to fly into a wall, and had howled until Alana had gone over and rubbed its injured nose better.
                Of course, one of the others had promptly tied her shoelaces together, managing to hold a human form just long enough to finish off the knots before gamboling off back into the main group. Apparently, dragons of that age were far too young to go around transforming themselves into other forms, but someone seemed to have forgotten to tell the dragons that. They shifted and changed almost at random, so that at any given moment, Wirt and Alana were trying to control a mixed group of multi-hued dragons and human toddlers, at least one of whom would take a few stumbling steps towards one of its fellows before leaping on it in full dragon form.
                “We should give them their lunch,” Alana suggested after an