The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)

“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 pieces 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?”