“Thank you,” she said breathlessly, gathering the books to her chest.
“Sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Alex moved his hands away swiftly, realizing he still held her by the shoulders.
“Neither was I,” Ellabell admitted with a flustered smile, checking the floor to make sure she hadn’t dropped anything.
“I’m surprised you could see at all,” Alex joked, noting the giant stack of textbooks.
“Just a little light reading.” She blushed, trying to stop a few strays from escaping the hastily gathered books. “How did you get on, by the way?” she asked, with sudden interest.
“Get on?” Alex asked, confused.
“Yeah, you know…” She faltered. Alex racked his brain for what she meant, feeling the heat of his friends’ eyes behind him.
It rushed back to him, just in time. “Oh, right. The mechanics stuff you wrote down? Yes, of course. Good, yeah. I got on great. Found lots to be getting on with. That’s where we’re headed now, actually—to the mechanics lab,” he rambled, remembering the list of books she had given him, still stuffed at the bottom of his pocket with all the rest of his crumpled notes.
Her face seemed to brighten. “That’s great. I’m glad they were useful.” She smiled.
“They were—thank you.” Alex smiled back, relieved he had remembered in time.
“Well, I won’t keep you,” she said, shifting the books in her arms. “I’ve got all this to get through.” She laughed softly, her blue eyes sparkling with an infectious humor that made Alex’s smile broaden into a grin.
“Happy reading. And sorry for almost knocking you over,” he apologized again, trying to sound sincere as he reached out and touched her arm gently, giving it a light squeeze.
Ellabell’s cheeks flushed a pale shade of pink, and she looked back up to Alex with a frown. Her sweater was soft beneath his fingertips, and he knew he had lingered a moment too long. Alex removed his hand slowly, wondering at the sudden rosy tint to her face. It made her look extremely pretty, her blue eyes piercing.
“Well, I really should be going,” Ellabell mumbled, lowering her gaze as she skirted around the trio.
“Have fun,” Alex called after her, feeling slightly lame as he heard the words leave his lips.
Ellabell glanced over her shoulder, smiling shyly, before heading up the corridor away from them, her brunette ponytail bobbing as she walked.
“We’re going to the mechanics lab?” Natalie asked with a wry grin on her face.
Alex shrugged. “I thought it might take our minds off things,” he lied. “Plus, I need someone with actual magic to try and make the clockwork function.” He held up his own hands with a meaningful look. He was growing increasingly frustrated by how difficult it was to use his own powers, by constantly hitting a brick wall with his level of ability. With nobody around to teach him, it was proving tricky to be a self-taught Spellbreaker. After all, there were no textbooks on the matter to make it simpler. That moment in the cellar, when he had exploded Jari’s conjuration, had been a fluke; Alex had tried to replicate it a few times, to no avail. It had happened in the moment, at the perfect time, but he still wasn’t certain how he’d managed it. It was frustrating to watch his friends grow more powerful each day—Natalie shouldering some of the strain for him, doing the magic of two people—while he sat back, unable to show what he could do, or watch his own anti-magic grow in strength.
“You never mentioned the mechanics lab before,” Jari replied suspiciously.
“It just came to me. I’ve been meaning to get down there for ages. Now seems as good a time as any,” Alex replied brightly, remembering the small clockwork mouse he’d placed at the bottom of his pocket, smothered by countless crumpled-up bits of paper. He had been meaning to get to work on the mouse, and Ellabell had simply reminded him of it. “Why don’t we build some clockwork things instead of moping about, waiting for something bad to happen?”
“I suppose. It’s not as if we have much else to do,” Natalie said. They were supposed to be with Renmark for most of the morning, but since he’d been called away, they had the luxury of some spare time.
“Good.” Alex smiled, raising an eyebrow as he caught a sly look passing between Jari and Natalie. Ignoring it, he turned and led the way to the mechanics lab.
When they arrived, they were surprised to find the familiar figure of Professor Lintz sitting alone at one of the workbenches. He was the room’s sole occupant, his round frame hunched over something shiny on the wooden work surface. On a tight elastic band around his head, he wore a monocle-like magnifying glass, flipped down over one of his small eyes, as he focused intently on a miniature cog held between tweezers.
Alex, Natalie, and Jari held their breaths as they waited for Lintz to place the piece within the inner workings of his clockwork creation, all of them fascinated by the delicacy in Lintz’s pudgy hands as he maneuvered the piece into place. Lintz slowly removed the tweezers from the mechanical innards and used them to pick up the smallest screw any of them had ever seen, barely bigger than a grain of sugar, from a square of paper he had placed on the tabletop beside him. Gently, he placed the screw in the center of the miniature cog and twisted it skillfully into place, to hold the bits together.
Alex almost felt like applauding as Lintz laid the tweezers back down, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his robe sleeve.
Since Derhin’s disappearance from the manor, Lintz hadn’t been around much. Instead of his usual imposing figure, with his lively moustache jiggling on his upper lip as he spoke, the students had been left with instructions on a blackboard, the professor himself notably absent. Alex guessed this was where the professor had been—holed up in the mechanics lab, perhaps to take his mind off whatever it was he had done after taking his friend away that day.
As Lintz turned, becoming aware of their presence, the three students were quietly stunned by what they saw. His eyes had taken on a sad, vacant quality, his moustache sticking up at one end in a peculiar fashion, while the other curled downward. His rotund face was sunken in at the cheeks, adding to the fleshy jowls beneath his chin. His skin looked waxy and sickly, dark circles creating deep grooves beneath his eyes. He looked tired, but most of all, he looked finished—there was a lifeless quality to him, as if a curse had been placed upon him. Alex supposed there had been, in a way. Lintz must’ve been haunted by the ghost of a much-loved friend. He was almost a ghost himself, his robe tattered, skin an ashen gray.
Lintz barely acknowledged the trio as he turned back to the creature on his workbench, but they moved slowly closer to him, fascinated by the work. As they neared, Alex saw it was an elaborate clockwork owl, each gold and silver feather painstakingly put into place on the outer shell of the creature, forming layered plumage that gleamed in the light of the lab. Around the owl’s wide eyes, exquisite carvings had been etched into the metal itself; sharp-edged fleurs-de-lis that flowed out into twisting vines and spiny leaves, coiling and curving around the edges of the eyes, appearing white or black, depending on how the indentations caught the light.
A hatch in the owl’s stomach was open, and Lintz tinkered with the inside clockwork. A complex system of cogs and devices and metalwork made up the innards. Lintz twisted and checked the mechanisms, his focus never leaving the delicate handiwork. None of the three could take their eyes off the impressive creature. They watched Lintz insert and rearrange parts and pieces as he saw fit, his fingers moving dexterously, his hands steadier than a rock, without even a tremor to disturb his fine work.
Looking content at last, Lintz placed the tweezers down on his piece of paper and held his hands over the clockwork, closing his eyes. It was the closest thing to surgery Alex had ever seen. The familiar burning glow of magic appeared beneath the curve of Lintz’s palm, trickling up his fingers like molten gold as he poured the spell into the clockwork; it dripped from his hands into the mechanisms, flowing through with an oily ease, and the elaborate, minuscule piece
s began to move. A few turning cogs to begin with, until the whole being came alive beneath Lintz’s hands, the neck moving from side to side, the wings flapping up and down, practicing the movement, the small beak opening and closing.
Lintz closed the hatch on the owl’s stomach and locked it into place. He lifted the creature gently in his hands, the wings still flapping, and raised it into the air. It took a moment, but, after a rocky start, the owl flapped harder and faster, picking up a rhythm, until it lifted itself up, away from the safety of Lintz’s hands. It flew through the air, swooping low and surging skywards again, making a low hooting sound as it performed a lap of the lab. The clockwork moved fluidly, the magic keeping the owl in the air. A weak smile played beneath Lintz’s moustache as the beautiful metal owl began its second lap, the gold and silver feathers glinting with each ruffle of metallic plumage.
Finally, the exquisite bird came to rest on one of the shelves lining the mechanics lab, each one filled with endless boxes of screws and cogs and metal plates and solder—everything one could ever need to make whatever the heart desired.
Lintz scraped his chair back and walked over to the shelf where the owl had perched, reaching up to remove the magic from the creature. Within an instant, the golden pulse that gave the owl life had coiled back into Lintz’s palm, the cogs ceasing to whirr. The neck stilled, the wings frozen mid-flap. He took down the owl and carried it gently over to a trunk in the corner, lifting the lid and placing it gingerly inside. Then he clipped a padlock to the front of the trunk and softly patted the heavy wooden surface as he pushed the lock into place.
“Did you like him?” Lintz asked, saying his first words to the trio as he slipped the key to the padlock onto a chain around his neck.
“He was beautiful, Professor.” Alex nodded, awestruck by Lintz’s undoubtable skill with clockwork.
“I’ve spent a long time on that one.” Lintz smiled sadly. “Worth it, though, isn’t he?”
“My goodness, yes, Professor—I believe he is one of the most beautiful creatures I have ever seen!” Natalie gushed.
“I’m glad you like him,” Lintz remarked, an unexpected note of friendliness in his voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever shown him to anyone,” he added wistfully, patting the small key beneath the fabric of his robes. “Haven’t had much chance to do any of this business, really, until recently. Nice to get back to it for a bit, you know?”
“Absolutely,” Alex agreed.
“There’s nothing like clockwork to calm the mind,” Lintz went on. “What are you doing here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be in a lesson of some sort?” The professor’s eyes were drawn to one of the many clocks ticking away on the far wall. Alex thought the question was a tad hypocritical, considering that Lintz hadn’t shown up to teach classes for weeks.
“We were supposed to have the morning with Professor Renmark, but he got called away,” Jari explained.
A dark look passed over Lintz’s face at the news. “Did he now?” he muttered.
“Yes, Professor,” Natalie said.
“I’m afraid I must be on my way,” Lintz said suddenly, a curious look on his face, his mind seemingly already elsewhere. “Clear up after yourselves,” he added as he disappeared into the hallway beyond. The three of them were left alone in the mechanics lab, with no sound but that of the endlessly ticking clocks for a long moment.
“That was weird,” Alex noted as he wandered over to the trunk in the corner, checking the lock with a quick tug.
Jari hopped up onto one of the stools lined neatly around the workbenches. “Lintz is weird.”
“That owl was beautiful, though, no?” Natalie smiled.
“It really was,” Alex admitted. He checked out some of the shelves, reading the labels on the boxes. The bottom shelves seemed to be reserved for clockwork projects. Alex dipped down onto his haunches, running a hand along some of the creations—a frog, the metal tinted green; a small hummingbird, the metalwork tempered to be multi-colored, like the surface of an oil spill, pink and blue and yellow and green. A few others, though none of them were nearly as impressive as Lintz’s owl.
At the back of one of the bottom shelves, hidden behind the bulk of a half-made cuckoo clock, Alex’s eye was drawn to a cluster of clockwork creatures, gathering dust. A series of mice, all identical—five of them, their intricate, glinting metallic bodies smothered in a thick blanket of fuzzy gray. Beside the last of them was a clean outline on the dirt of the shelf, where something had protected the wood from the dust. The sixth mouse was missing.
Alex reached into his pocket and brought out the sixth mouse. It was exactly the same as the other five, the same size, shape, color, and design. Someone had taken the mouse from here and sent it to him, with the message tied to its back leg.
“Natalie?” Alex called, diverting Natalie’s attention from a beautiful music box.
“Yes?”
“Could I borrow you for a second?” Alex asked. He wandered over to the workbench in the center of the room and set down the delicate mechanical mouse.
“Where did you get that?” Natalie asked as she drew herself up to the bench. Jari flanked Alex on the other side, peering over his shoulder to get a better look at the mouse.
“Over there.” Alex pointed to the missing spot on the shelf.
“It is beautiful.” Natalie ran her fingers across the fine metalwork.
“I was wondering if you could run your magic through it—see what happens. Like Lintz did with the owl,” Alex said, setting the mouse up onto its dainty feet.
“I will try,” Natalie said. She placed a hand against the top of the mouse, a glow appearing beneath her palm. Smoothly, the misty fluid rippled through the mouse’s clockwork, the cogs beginning to move as the mouse sprang into life, scuttling across the worktop. The ancient, dusty mechanisms creaked slightly as the creature ran the length of the bench. Natalie’s face was bright with delight while she watched the mouse dart this way and that.
“Can you control it?” Alex asked, watching closely.
“I can try.” Natalie moved her hand slowly, attempting to manipulate the magic inside the mouse. The mouse stopped, cocking its head at Natalie as it crept back across the workbench toward her, its golden tail whipping sideways as it moved. Natalie turned her index finger in a circular motion. The mouse followed, turning in a circle, lifting onto its hind legs. Natalie flicked her finger sharply, and the mouse went flying backward, only to come creeping back up to the young woman whose magic ran in its clockwork. It stood with its head cocked, awaiting instruction.
“I want to try something,” Alex muttered, standing to fetch one of the toolboxes from the shelf. He pulled out some tweezers and reached out a hand for the mouse, which rolled easily out of the way. It was then that Alex noticed the eyes—no longer the glittering black he’d seen the night it came to him, but a dark gold shade.
“Shall I take my magic out?” Natalie asked, though she seemed to be having far too much fun with the clockwork creature for it to end.
Alex nodded. “Please.”
Natalie beckoned the mouse toward her and placed a hand over the back of it, drawing the magic from the inner workings. The golden glow ebbed from within as the creature’s eyes turned back to a dulled shade of darkened silver, closer to that of iron ore, the life gone.
Natalie handed the mouse to Alex, who held it gently in his palm for a moment, eyeing the clockwork closely before setting it down on the table, tweezers poised. It took him a while, his shoulders hunched in concentration, as he removed the parts and reinserted them, inverting the clockwork as best as he could—hoping it would mean what he thought it would mean. Jari chimed in with suggestions as he watched Alex work, and Alex was grateful for the fresh pair of eyes. After a few minutes, he fit the last few pieces back together again.
“Do you think it will work?” Natalie asked.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Alex grinned anxiously. Slowly, he placed his hand above the mouse’s spine, a
s he had seen Natalie do with her magic, and closed his eyes, feeling the cold brush of his anti-magic as it gathered beneath his palm. Then he opened his eyes, seeing the curls of black mist and icy flakes flowing down toward the tips of his fingers when he touched the intricate clockwork of the mouse. Much like the golden flow of Natalie’s magic, the darker anti-magic rippled liquidly through the mechanisms, beginning to move them slowly; a few cogs turned, though the mouse didn’t seem to want to go anywhere. As he waited, a puff of smoke wisped up from the inside mechanics, the cogs jamming.
Alex lifted the mouse to remove his anti-magic before the thing broke entirely. As he drew it closer to his face, he saw the back leg twitch—just for a moment, a tiny movement, but enough. It twitched again, releasing another puff of smoke. Reluctantly, Alex removed the coiling black anti-magic, a sheen of frost licking the metalwork.
It was a small success in Alex’s anti-magical clockwork endeavors, but it was enough to give him hope. He just had to figure out the inverted mechanics; if he could do that, he knew he might be onto something. He sighed heavily, his frustrations returning as he slipped the mouse back into his pocket. Yet again, without a guide, without a teacher, without a textbook, it was up to him to teach himself.
Chapter 8
Beyond the library window, the sky was a muted heather color, the first stars just starting to peek out as night crept slowly in. In the soothing warmth of the cavernous room, Alex and Natalie sat companionably in their favored armchairs by the window, gazing out every so often to see the soft twinkling of the stars in the twilight, growing brighter as the sun receded into night. Beyond the manor’s boundaries, his hometown wasn’t visible now, the landscape showing rolling golden hills instead, their gilded shine dimming in the gathering darkness. But home was still out there, somewhere.