The Secret of Spellshadow Manor (Spellshadow Manor #1)

But, a week later, Alex had not thought of a better plan any more than he had mastered even the simplest of magical exercises. He had at least become more familiar with the hallways, but was feeling increasingly trapped, and growing increasingly closer to despair. When Alex had first arrived, Aamir had said he had a few weeks before he would seriously be expected to start performing magic, but the days were slipping by at a worrying speed.

Natalie, for one, was progressing beautifully, and believed that in just a little more time she would be ready to try the gates again. He felt he had no choice but to continue pursuing their current plan, as worried as it made him. After managing several more solo trips to the gates, he was convinced they were impenetrable. He couldn’t even touch them for more than twelve seconds, and he couldn’t imagine they were unguarded by more dangerous magical means.

At Natalie’s suggestion, Alex had started making a sincere effort to befriend Jari and Aamir. She pointed out that they probably knew lots of things he didn’t, and even suggested they might want to help.

“Don’t you think everyone here must want to escape as much as we do?” she had asked earnestly.

“They might be too afraid,” he had countered, thinking of Aamir. “They might decide to rat us out to ensure their own safety.”

“Just be careful, then,” she had insisted.

Now, he found himself following Jari and Aamir into the mechanics’ lab. The two of them were working on a project, the scope of which was mysterious but intriguing to Alex. He sat on a stool beside their workbench, watching the two boys bickering as they stared down at a minute piece of machinery through magnifying glasses strapped to their heads, each holding a delicate pair of instruments in their hands. The room was full of little clicks and whirrs, the sounds of clockwork all around him.

Indeed, the walls of the large, yet crowded room were hung with clocks of every shape and size. What was more, they all seemed intent on telling a different kind of time. One ran between “start” and “finish,” and seemed to be stuck on the latter. Another had been carefully calibrated to chime five minutes before class would begin. And another, rather ominously, appeared to be counting down, with only a few hundred hours left before it was out of time.

“So,” Alex said, interjecting himself into his roommates’ argument, “if technology doesn’t work here, how does all this function?” Alex had been carrying his cell phone when he left Middledale High to follow Natalie, but it must have slipped from his pocket during his struggle with her on Spellshadow Lane because he no longer had it. Natalie hadn’t been carrying a cell phone at all and neither wore watches, so he hadn’t been able to test the no-technology theory the boys had informed him about a few days ago.

Jari swiveled, and Aamir took the opportunity to begin poking and prodding at the piece of machinery that lay on the table.

“We mostly use clockwork,” the blond boy said, his expression sage-like. “Electrical engineering just doesn’t work, but we can use a little magic and good old-fashioned physics to keep basic things like this going. Not to mention, once you mix magic and clockwork, there’s really all manner of things you can do.”

Alex watched as Aamir reached down, a little bloom of golden fire slipping from his fingertips and into their machine, which shuddered, then lay still.

“Told you it wouldn’t work,” Jari said without looking.

Aamir let out a grunt of irritation.

Alex looked down at the gears. They fit together so elegantly, so precisely, that he found himself drawn to them. Here was something he could grasp easily.

“What does this do?” he asked, looking down at the project.

“Well,” Jari said, “it’s supposed to get up and walk around a little, only Aamir here doesn’t know how to make a proper set of hydraulics.”

“Oh, and you do?” Aamir retorted.

Jari leaned down, looking the device over.

“Pull your magic out,” he said.

Aamir sighed, then reached out, retrieving the little bloom of golden fire.

Alex watched with interest. “Couldn’t you have done that?” he asked Jari.

Jari grimaced. “It’s damnably hard to get someone else’s magic to do what you want—all the books on how to do it have been hidden away. And dispelling it altogether is…well, impossible, for us.”

He adjusted the magnifying glass over his eye, tilting forward until the glass lens was almost touching the machinery. He made a couple of minute adjustments with the tool in his hand, then looked over at Alex.

“Care to put the finishing touches in?”

Alex ran a hand through his hair. “Well, I would, but I still can’t do any magic.”

Jari laughed. “No need for magic. Here.”

He pulled a magnifying glass from nearby and handed it to Alex, who strapped it over his eye. At once, the machine below him lurched into focus, each tiny gear sparkling and plain to see.

“See where that cog connects to that other one?” Jari said, pointing the two places out.

Alex nodded.

“Now watch this.”

A lick of gold wisped its way out, settling into the gears. At once, they began to turn, ever so slowly, as if in response to the power. Alex stared at it with fierce intensity. The machine was almost ready to move, but there was something missing. A link between the two cogs that Jari had pointed out.

The boy handed Alex a small pair of tweezers, squeezing the end. He looked at the tips of the tweezers through his lens and saw they were pinching the missing piece.

Slowly, painstakingly, Alex inserted the gear, then fastened it in place. When he was done, his hand was stiff from having been held so still throughout the process, and his neck was aching, but he felt satisfied that he had done a good job. Jari made no comment throughout, only nodding, and Aamir stared down at the machine in concentration without interfering.