It doesn't come up for a bit, but Pendleson's only got so many alchemists. The rest of his school are art students, so that way he can just hide all the magic he's doing behind weird performance art. It's worked so well that even their own art students have never caught on that a good third of the faculty and students are basically wizards.
Harriet has been transported to a place where her dead Father is alive, her terrible powers are disabled, and she can finally live a normal life. But, things are not quite as they seem. Joining forces with the two worst students of the Pendleson Alchemy Academy, the three drop outs decide it's time to break out of school and carve their own paths.