Orphans of Chaos (The Chronicles of Chaos)

What if your teachers taught you everythingexcept who you really are? For Amelia and her friends, the strict English boarding school she lives in is all she has ever known. The sprawling estate, bordered by unknown territory on all four sides, is both orphanage, academy, and prison. The school has a large staff, but only five students, none of whom know what their real names are, or even how old they are. Precocious and rebellious, all five teenagers are more than just prodigies. Amelia can see in four dimensions. Victor can control the molecular arrangement of matter. Vanity can find secret passageways where none existed before. Colin is a psychic. Quentin is a warlock. And, as time goes by, they're starting to suspect that none of them are entirely human . . . John C. Wright previous fantasy novels, the Epic Chronicles of Everness, were lavishly praised by both readers and reviewers. Now he embarks on an ambitious new saga that explores the overlapping boundaries of science, mythology, and the imagination. A tale about five orphans raised in a strict British boarding school who begin to discover that they may not be human beings. The students at the school do not age, while the world around them does. The children begin to make sinister discoveries about themselves. Amelia is apparently a fourth-dimensional being; Victor is a synthetic man who can control the molecular arrangement of matter around him; Vanity can find secret passageways through solid walls where none had previously been; Colin is a psychic. Each power comes from a different paradigm or view of the inexplicable universe: and they should not be able to co-exist under the same laws of nature. Why is it that they can? Contents 5 1 The Boundaries 7 2 The Experiment 17 3 The First of the Secrets 24 4 Headmaster Boggin 59 5 To Walk with Owls 77 6 The Board of Visitors and Governors 90 7 Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea 103 8 The Azure Light 115 9 Otherspace 129 10 Dreams and Misdirection 139 11 Paradigms at Breakfast 150 12 The Magic of Mere Matter 169 13 The Forest White and Still 187 14 I Do Not Like Thee, Dr. Fell 198 15 The Silvery Ship 209 16 Goosey, Goosey, Gander 220 17 Lord of the North Wind 231 18 Atop the Bell Tower 242 19 Solitude 254 20 Company, of a Sort 265 21 The Seventh Day 279 22 Tales of the Demiurge 295 23 Dreams and Desires 311 Five teens, the only students at a strict English boarding school, know they are different from other kids their age, but as they learn more about their abilities, they begin to suspect they are not entirely human