“Hey! Get up!”

Archie snapped up from his bed, nearly hitting his head on the top bunk. A boy in a green Chef’s jacket leaned in from the doorway.

“Who the hell are you?” Oliver croaked.

“Baker. I’m a fourth-year. Head Chef Colby caught me late last night and made it my responsibility to make sure you lot don’t oversleep. Now get up! There’s breakfast. Mace had a nervous breakdown and has been making omelets for three hours now.”

Baker left, and after much dragging of the feet, the boys got dressed and made their way to one of the kitchens upstairs, finding an older student in a yellow jacket muttering to himself amongst a graveyard of eggshells and a countertop full of omelets.

“It’s not right, it’s not right,” the boy muttered.

“Uh—Mace, is it? Do you mind if we grab some of these?” Archie asked.

“But—but they’re not right.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“They won’t…fluff!” Mace whipped the spatula above his head, sending a bit of partially cooked egg onto the ceiling.

“Have you tried—”

Mace brought the spatula down toward Archie. “I’ve been here since sunrise. I’ve tried! I’ve tried! Nothing you could suggest is something I haven’t tried!”

Barley tugged at the back of Archie’s shirt, pulling him away. Oliver and Benedict grabbed their plates, rushing as to not spend an extra second in the presence of the crazed omelet-maker.

They went down to the lounge, found a table, and ate in relative silence. They had stayed up too late talking and now paid the price, nursing headaches and rubbing tired eyes. As they started to wake up and finish their breakfast, Aubergine popped into the lounge and walked over to Archie’s table.

“Hey boys!” Aubergine said with a manic excitement. “You been down to the lake yet? Class starts down there in about fifteen. I’m excited! Are you excited?”

Aubergine pointed at Archie, putting an unbearably bright spotlight on him. All he could manage to do was nod. And then just like that, Aubergine was off.

“Wait, fifteen minutes?” Archie asked. “We gotta go!” He stood up and started to walk…nowhere. “Wait, how do we get down to the lake?”

The other boys shrugged. “Which way did Aubergine go?”

Archie looked around and spotted the boy who had woken them up. “Hey…Baker! How do we get down to the lake?”

Baker looked down at his unfinished breakfast and sighed. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

The boys followed Baker down the hall like ducklings in a single file line.

“There’s the stairs,” he said, pointing out a little alcove with a spiral staircase going down. “But you don’t want to take those.”

“Why not?” Archie asked.

“Have you seen how high up we are? Spinning around those stairs, you’ll puke halfway down. What you want is the elevator…here.”

They turned the corner and arrived at a thin wire door that separated them from the empty elevator shaft. Baker pointed at a wheel that had been mounted near the gates. Archie sized up the hefty wood and long handles, wondering if he could even turn it.

“Turn that to pull the elevator up,” Baker said. “And yes, it’s as hard as it looks. But, once you guys learn a thing or two, you’ll be able to do this.”

He reached through the wire gate and strummed his finger across a large beige strand that stretched up and down the shaft. Archie stepped up for a closer look.

“Is that…a noodle?”

“Yep.”

“Like the tram!”

The noodle contracted, producing a grating noise further down the shaft. As it contracted, it pulled up a large wooden platform with its own turning wheel and metal guardrails. Baker opened the wire gate and stepped onto the platform.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The boys piled on. Even with Barley, they all fit comfortably. The older student touched the noodle again, causing it to expand and send the platform down.

The boys stared up in wonder as the top of the elevator shaft disappeared.

“How’d you do that?” Archie asked.

Baker grinned. “What is it, your first day or something?”

The platform slowed as it approached the bottom floor where a large tunnel with wooden supports ended in the bright light of the outdoors.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“You’re meeting Aubergine, right?” Baker asked. “Oof. He’s tough. Real tough. You do NOT want to be late.”

“What’ll he do?”

Baker squinted. “If I were you, I would have already started running so I wouldn’t find out.”

The boys looked at each other. First, they replicated the previous night’s stillness. Then they recreated the chaos.

“See ya!” Oliver said as he broke into a sprint down the tunnel. Benedict stomped after him, followed by Archie, followed by Barley.

“Thanks!” Archie yelled back as he picked up speed. He passed Barley with ease, then Benedict. Archie was of average height and a little skinny, but his wiry strength was made for running.

He looked behind him. Barley had already slowed to a brisk walk, taking heaving breaths between each step.

“We lost Barley!” Archie said.

“We’re not gonna make it!” Benedict yelled.

“Every man for himself!” Oliver yelled.

No complaints from Archie. He hit top speed, closing in on Oliver. They rubbed shoulders and bumped each other, Oliver refusing to let him pass, before Archie finally managed to break away. He ran past a few other first-years, who walked casually and exchanged confused looks as Archie zoomed by.

Archie’s lungs caught fire and burned as he spilled out of the tunnel and onto a dirt path that cut through grassy fields. As he ran, he looked around. Students were sprinkled around the fields, none seeming to be in any sort of rush. To the left, a massive orchard hosted a variety of farm animals between its rows of trees, goats and cows foraging for fallen fruits. To the right, older students worked fields of crops and attended a row of stone greenhouses.

Ahead, a massive lake, over a mile wide, was fed by two rivers, one from the northwest and one from the north. Water exited the lake in a single, massive river that went south around the mesa, running through the Roots before continuing toward the ocean twenty miles away. Archie’s feet thundered on the wooden bridge that spanned the river.

Finally, Archie arrived at Aubergine. The Red Jacket headmaster sat on a stump at the edge of a forest that spread for miles in each direction, chatting away with a few students that had already arrived—Cress, Sutton, and some other kids that Archie hadn’t met.

Aubergine looked at Archie with a puzzled expression. “What’s the rush?”

Oliver and Benedict came running neck-in-neck. Half a mile back, Barley stepped out of the tunnel.

“You…told…us…fifteen…minutes,” Archie panted.

“Oh!” Aubergine laughed and looked around at the other students to get them in on the joke. “Archie, right? I just wanted to put a little fire under your pots! We’re not starting for another ten or so.”

Archie laid down on his back and fought the nausea, taking controlled breaths to keep from vomiting. Oliver lost his fight, prompting a chorus of screams from the girls as he keeled over and puked.

Aubergine laughed. “You boys need to work on your fitness! Tell you what, I take a run out here every day right when the sun comes up. It’s about five miles around the lake, perfect for a morning jog.”

He’s crazy.

The rest of the class arrived in regular, not-elbowing-each-other-to-get-by fashion and sat in the grass around Aubergine. Yarrow followed Julienne around like a puppy. Cress made new friends. Barley’s face remained pale for ten minutes, and even once the color returned, he still struggled to find his breath.

And finally, last of all the students and arriving just before Aubergine began, Nori appeared. Archie locked eyes with her for a moment, hoping she’d come sit with him. She did not.

“Alright, I think that’s everyone,” Aubergine said. He turned his head to each student with a quick snap, looking into their eyes. “Yep, we’re ready. We look ready.”

He clapped his hands together. “Alright! So, just a reminder, I’m your headmaster, Aubergine. Aubey to my wife, Aubergine to my peers, and to you…well…I’m Headmaster Aubergine.” He chuckled to himself.

His jokes were poorly executed. His movements were goofy and exaggerated. Even his most serious remarks had trouble rising out of the muck of his inherent silliness.

Archie liked him.

“So, you are now officially students of the Academy of Ambrosia. And this is officially your first lesson. Next week, you’ll begin regular classes. But before we get to that, it’s important that you understand exactly what it is that you are learning here.”

He reached into his pocket, pinched fingers pulling out a seed.

“Ambrosial essence,” he explained. “Oh—not this. This is just a seed. But through manipulation of Ambrosial essence…”

The seed cracked and a sprout grew three inches in a second. Then another three inches. A bud formed. Another three inches. The bud sprouted into a hibiscus flower. Ooo’s and aaah’s and little claps came from the students.

“When Ambrosia died, she gave her magic to the world in the form of something we call Ambrosial essence. It can be found in the ground, in the sea, in the air. In you. When it comes to Ambrosial essence, we are all porous things.

“Now, I just used my essence to open up the ‘pores’ of this seed. It has essence in it, and I’ve added my own. That essence can be used in a great many ways. Just now, I used up that essence to grow the seed unnaturally fast.”

He pulled another seed from his pocket. “Whereas I am now loading essence into this seed with the intention to nourish, but not to grow. ” He was silent for a moment, eyes focused on the second seed. “No discernible change. However, I have put just as much essence into this seed as I have this flower.

“The flower has consumed that essence in order to grow. When it dies, it will decompose, producing enough essence to bring equilibrium to the process. Just as you all will when you die. Just as Ambrosia did.

“The seed, on the other hand, has retained that essence, rationing it. The flower, having been asked to grow so quickly, used the essence all at once and rather inefficiently. The seed will use the essence as it grows—not to enhance its speed, but its quality.

“Even just this one extra moment of care that I have given the seed will show in the results. If I were to make a tea from the quickly grown flower, it would pale in comparison to tea produced by the seed when it eventually grows.

“That enhanced tea would be more nourishing. It would be easier to infuse with other magics. When we perform our magic, we convert the essence into effect. So if I turned the fast flower, with its lesser quality, into a tea that helped people catch their breath, I might be able to relieve Barley enough so that I might be heard over his panting.”

Everyone laughed but Barley, who continued to suck in air in ragged breaths.

“Whereas if this seed bloomed into a higher quality flower and I made the same tea, Barley might not have run out of breath in the first place.

“As I hinted at, the process for these events started with me. A bit of the Ambrosial essence within myself was consumed to catalyze the essence around me. Now for me, this was a minor cost. But for an amateur student such as yourself, just one of these acts might be all you can manage.

“It’s not just a matter of me having more essence than you. It’s about efficiency. Mastery. You can make a flame with a log. I can make a bonfire with a twig.

“That mastery is what you are here to learn. Your Head Chefs will ask you to perform acts that will drain you. And while your essence will replenish itself naturally over time, that recovery can be aided through consuming foods infused with essence.

“As such, I would advise you not to skip meals. Should you feel like you are on the verge of passing out, please let your Head Chefs know. And snacks are highly encouraged.”