Weekly Reader: Fearghus Academy: Crystal Shards by I.O. Scheffer; The Fight Becomes Internal and More Personal for Our Magical Friends
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: So now we return to that awesome school for magical students. No, not that one. The, in my opinion, better, more awesome school for magical students. Fearghus Academy from I.O. Scheffer's YA Science Fiction/Fantasy series of the same name.
In the first volume, Anna Addison is adopted by Nichole Harvey, an eccentric Earth mage, and leaves 1860's England and Earth behind and heads for the planet, Domhan. She changes her name to Artesia and begins training as a Fire mage to study at Fearghus Academy. She makes various friends such as Evelyn Smith, an overachieving Light user, and Eilam Deforest, a secretive Ice mage. Artesia and her friends are also the targets of Alptraum Engel, a magic user who wants to gather all the magic that she can, including twelve very powerful skulls. On one of their missions the students find one of those skulls but lose fellow Fearghus student, Antonia Maria, in the process.
In the first book, October Jewels, we are introduced to Domhan, Fearghus Academy, the characters, and the ongoing plots. It's a great start. This second volume, Crystal Shards raises the stakes by being stronger and more character driven. It throws the characters, particularly Artesia and Eilam into emotional turmoil that could change them forever.
The gang is sent on an assignment to discover how the nuns in a nearby convent are impregnated without having sexual intercourse. After uncovering the truth, their next conflict involves one of their own. Parvaneh, a student, disappears and is found again alive but deprived of her magic. She has to return to Earth and to Domhan, she is considered dead. We then learn the source of her kidnapping. Eilam's scientist parents were arrested for conducting unethical experiments. They have escaped and now want to continue their research on volunteers, whether they are willing or not, and they have no reservations on their age, mental status, or whether they are blood relatives.
Meanwhile Artesia and the others are trailing people who are in debt from some dark creatures. They are also told that Antonia is with this sinister group, but she is not the flashy, vibrant, friendly girl that they once knew.
Sometimes the second volume in a series can be a miss. The first sets up the world and if the third doesn't end the series, it often leads to a dramatic climax needing the next book to resolve it. If done badly, the second volume can be a lot of running around with no resolution. If done right, setting and plot give way to developing the characters and deepening our understanding of them. In this case, it is a second book done right.
One of the brightest spots in the book is the strongest character in this volume, Eilam. From their first assignment, Eilam goes through a series of changes which alter him from the kindly, trustworthy, but quiet young man that we knew. During the search in the convent, Eilam is left alone in a graphic room with dead bodies, a living baby still in his deceased mother's arms, and a demonic looking creature.
Eilam comes through that ordeal with a newly adopted brother by his adopted father, Mr. Peterson. Worse, he ends up with a strange affliction in which he suffers tremendous headaches and blackouts, especially when he sees or hears about religious things. That's not a problem for him, since he's an agnostic but many of his friends, such as Lulu and Artesia are religious, and even the mention of "My God" as a swear is enough to put him in great pain.
Despite this affliction, he continues to help his friends with their studies and Mr. Peterson with caring for baby Cadence. He tries to be the same person as always, loyal best friends with Artesia and sort of boyfriend to Telemachus, but his illness takes its toll on him. It gets worse when his birth parents are released. He winds up back in their house and is forced to endure the sadistic tortures that they implement on him and their so-called subjects.
Eilam spends a lot of time trying to prove that he is nothing like his parents, being a good and thoughtful person even towards those who bully him. But his good intentions fall apart when he is alone with them. The Drs. Deforest study their biological son's abilities and those of other guinea pigs, including another student that Eilam led them to (instead of them going after one of his friends).
They really are pieces of work that make Joan Crawford and Josef Fritzel look like Parents of the Year (Okay maybe not that bad, but close enough).
Eilam's father verbally and physically abuses him, at one point sticking his hand in a toaster. He also keeps him locked in with a dangerous prisoner who delights in torturing him. Eilam's mother does not come off any better. While she doesn't physically harm Eilam, she is just as manipulative. She never stands up for Eilam's mistreatment, considering her love for her husband more important than her son. She isolates Eilam from his peers by telling him dark secrets about the Domhan government and Fearghus Academy's intentions. It's unclear whether she is telling him the truth, but it certainly drives a wedge between Eilam and his friends and makes him more alone than ever. Come the next book and we will certainly see a character with massive PTSD and Stockholm Syndrome.
Eilam isn't the only character that goes through a lot of emotional turmoil. Artesia adjusts to her life in Domhan and Fearghus. What she once thought of as glamorous and exciting, she now sees a harsher darker side. When they go through the process of mourning Parvaneh, Artesia wonders how long loyalties last in this new world. Does the loyalty of her new friends and family last as long as she is considered useful? What happens to someone when they return to Earth? They are left alone without friends, family, or a purpose that no longer exists, a feeling that they were once capable of great things but now no longer can achieve them.
Artesia also has some dramatic encounters that leave her incredibly shaken. A dark creature working for Engel tracks her down and threatens her friends in Domhan and Earth. She is in fear of what could happen to them and is unable to express it because she is sworn to secrecy.
One of her friends finds out a secret about her past and while she calls that friend out for nosing around, the revelation brings her closer to her adopted home world than she thought.
By far, Artesia's strongest and most emotional moment occurs when she is reunited with Antonia or what remains of her. She has a hard time finding her flamboyant friend in the hardened cold blooded being before her. Artesia wrestles with the consequences of what she did and didn't do in the previous volume and how she and the other students played a part in Antonia's downfall. Artesia also sees for herself the true danger in Engel's ambitions in that she can change a once loving person into a soulless monster.
Crystal Shards puts Eilam and Artesia through an emotional wringer. It's clear that by volume three, they and the rest of Fearghus Academy will never be the same again.
