Magickeepers: The Eternal Hourglass (20 page)

Nick undid the pouch completely and poured sand into his hand. “I will do it!”

“You foolish child. Don’t you realize they will do whatever they can to get the hourglass? You are throwing your league in with them, but they want the relic just as much as I do. They would kill you for the relic, just as I will. This is an age-old battle for relics, and you’re just caught in the middle.”

Nick shook his head. “No. They want the relic to
honor
magic. To do good with it.”

“Is that why they have stolen the relics through time? They are nothing more than thieves. They store them in their vault. They hoard them.”

“Go ahead, Kolya,” Theo said. He stood behind his younger cousin. “He's wrong. It's the family. It's all we have ever cared about. Protecting each other. Loving each other. Throw the sand away. It's the love we have that matters.”

“Like you loved Tatyana?” the monk asked. “You led me to her like the pebbles Hansel and Gretel left in the woods.”

Nick felt Theo's hand on his shoulder. “I may have led you to her, but it was out of love that I went there.”

“Then why don’t you tell him?”

“Tell me what?” Nick asked.

“Don’t listen to him. He twists words into lies,” Theo said.

“Tell him who his real father is, Theo. Why he's the prince.”

Nick looked in panic at Theo. “What is he talking about?”

“He's talking nonsense.” And then, with an anger Nick had never seen on Theo's face, he flew like a wild bird through the air and struck the monk, who was sent reeling backward.

“Give me the sand!” the monk said.

Theo screamed out, “Nick, dump the sand. It doesn’t mean anything. The family is everything.”

Nick looked around the desert scene. Isabella was still lying on the ground, unconscious, with Irina tending to her. Damian looked like he was bleeding. It was only Nick and Theo against the monk.

“Dump the sand, Nick!” Theo commanded. “He will not get what he came here for. Not as long as we are united.”

Nick pulled his sword and sent the gleaming blade across the desert sky. It struck the monk's face, drawing blood. Nick gasped. It was exactly as Boris had told him—the sword, used rightly, would find its mark.

“Dump the sand, Nick!” Theo urged.

Nick hesitated.

“Nick… for once, you have to trust me.”

Nick nodded. Though he knew his mother had died to
protect the sand, he opened his palm, and the golden flecks floated away on a morning breeze.

“Noooooo!” screamed the monk as blood dripped from the slash on his face.

“That cut is for Boris!” Nick screamed. He took the pouch and upturned it, sending the rest of the sand scattering. It was caught up in a gust, and he watched the gold flecks flying through the air.

Theo then waved his hands and spun around, pulling the sands up into a swirling sandstorm cloud. The sand spun, faster and faster, like a tornado's funnel cloud, and then Theo sent it directly at the monk. The sandstorm picked up the Shadowkeeper, pulling him into the swirling mass and sweeping him away, toward the desert's far horizon. Nick could hear the monk's anguished cry, carried like an echo across the desert.

Nick watched as Theo's face was consumed by concentration, until he finally fell to the ground, exhausted, the sandstorm nothing more than a speck in the distance.

Nick knelt by Theo's side. “Are you okay?”

“I am if you are.”

Nick nodded. Then he ran to Isabella's side. “Wake up, favorite cousin. Wake up.”

Her eyes fluttered.

Nick hugged her. “You’re okay!”

She nodded, her face still pale, her lips dry and chapped. “Nick?” “Yeah?”

“Before we go back home…can I try a piece of pizza?”

Nick threw his head back and laughed. “Pizza and cheeseburgers. I don’t care what anyone else says.”

D
AMIAN STRUGGLED TO STAND, AND NICK AND THEO WENT to his side to support him. “Look, over there,” Damian pointed.

The Eternal Hourglass stood, upside down, in a sand drift.

“He must have dropped it when Theo sent him flying.”

The five of them limped toward the hourglass. Damian frowned. “I’m glad he didn’t get it, but it's one of our relics. Lost forever.”

“Maybe not,” Nick said, smiling.

“What do you mean?”

Nick pulled out a pouch from his other pocket. “This is the sand.”

“What?” Theo asked incredulously. “What was that sand you poured into the desert?”

Nick grinned. “Desert sand. I scooped some up. What traveled on the wind was just sand. Not Eternal Hourglass sand. In the end, the mighty Rasputin was fooled by a simple sleight of hand.”

Damian laughed and ruffled his hair. “Genius, cousin! Genius! A trick worthy of the family. Worthy of your rightful place among us.”

“Can we go home now?” Nick asked.

“And can we get pizza?” Isabella asked.

“Both,” said Damian. He walked unsteadily over to Maslow and patted the horse. “He was a wise choice, don’t you think?”

Nick nodded.

Damian stared at him. He didn’t say anything, but for Nick, the gaze was enough.

“We better fly. We have a show tonight.”

Inwardly, Nick groaned. But he realized now that was Damian's way. It was about the show, which united them all together. And the show must go on.

“Here you go, Grand Duchess,” Nick whispered.

After Damian had magically transported them home, and after they’d had the promised pizza, taken showers, watered Maslow, and recovered from their injuries, Nick brought the
now magically repaired Eternal Hourglass up to the Grand Duchess's room and set it gently in her lap.

She ran her crooked, ancient fingers around its rim, pressing on the Cyrillic lettering. “It's true, you know.”

“What is?”

“Time stands still for no man. I sometimes wish for the days of my youth. The days before the evil that was the monk. The days of the Little Pair and the Big Pair. Grief lessens with time, but it still seems to ignore time, to feel as fresh sometimes as a knife wound.”

“But we have this relic back now, Grand Duchess. It's ours again.”

She nodded. “But he lives.”

“Maybe he will stay away. Go hunting other relics.”

“Maybe. I think
you
, my young Kolya, are the relic he desires most.”

“Me?”

“You are a Gazer. One born to each generation.”

“So Damian…and now me?”

She smiled enigmatically. “Theo and now you.”

She lifted up her heavy crystal candy dish. “Sweet?”

“No, thank you.” Nick looked out at the snow falling on the casino. The newspapers and television had declared the new show to be the biggest success in the history of Las Vegas. He was being hailed as a daredevil, as a new magician in his own
right. The incident with Maslow running loose on the Las Vegas Strip was cleverly “spun” by a casino spokesperson— his third cousin Dmitri—as merely a publicity stunt.

“Grand Duchess?” Nick asked.

“Yes, dear?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Certainly.”

“What did Rasputin mean? When he told Theo to tell me the truth about being the prince? What else is the family hiding from me?”

The Grand Duchess pulled a diamond comb from her chignon—five gems the size of dimes across it—and repositioned it in her snow-white hair.

“I cannot tell you that, Nicholai. There are secrets those two brothers keep. I can only tell you that after your mother died, they changed.”

“How?”

“Theo stopped performing.”

“He used to perform?”

“They were an act. The two of them together. An act that—perhaps until last night—had never been equaled anywhere in the world. But after that, Theo devoted himself to family history, to the legacy, to relic hunting, to teaching. He's buried in books and history, never resting, never sleeping. I think, all these years, Theo has been waiting for you.”

“But in the desert, he was stronger than Damian.”

“Come closer. I have a secret.”

Nick leaned in. The Grand Duchess leaned close to him, and in a ghostly whisper said, “You are stronger than both of them. You just need to find your destiny.”

Nick nodded and stared out at the snow. He worried about the family, about the monk coming back. Now he knew why the Grand Duchess spent her time pondering the snow. It was the responsibility weighing on her. He felt the weight of the family on his own shoulders.

He wished he had never seen a Shadowkeeper. The vision still came to him sometimes. Their faces melting into black oil, sprouting wings, their agony. He didn’t want that vision in his brain. He didn’t want any visions. He wished he was still back in his room at the Pendragon, which seemed so long ago. She was right. Time didn’t stand still.

His destiny, like time, marched on.

And like releasing the sand, there was no going back.

N
ICK WALKED INTO THE CLASSROOM. THEO WAS WRITING in a massive book with a fountain pen filled with magic invisible ink. Nick knew it was the only kind he used.

“What's that?”

With a flourish, Theo wrote the last letter in what Nick guessed was Cyrillic and then shut the book.

“Family history. I continue recording each event, every birth, every death, every cataclysmic event, every relic found, every battle, every secret. You are now part of
history
. You helped defeat Rasputin…this time.”

“What did he mean about the truth, Theo?”

Theo shook his head. “What is truth?”

“You speak in riddles. Everyone does.”

“Maybe that's the family way.”

“But why doesn’t everyone just come out with it?”

He laughed. “Maybe that's the Russian way. You know, Russians, for centuries, were known for one trait: brooding. I used to wonder why. Now, I think it's all about this.” He patted the book.

“There you go again. What are you talking about?”

“The history of our family is tied to the history of Mother Russia. It's not a happy history. The more you learn of her, the more you will understand why the Grand Duchess stares out at the snow all day long.” He knocked on his desk three times then spat over his shoulder three times. “We speak no more of dark things. Only good.”

Nick sighed. Obviously, he wasn’t going to get any more answers today.

“I need to go get ready for the show.”

“One more thing.” Theo stood, walked over to Nick, and handed him a book. “Don’t tell Damian. And use it wisely.”

Nick looked down and opened the cover. The pages were blank, but at his touch, they filled in with Cyrillic. And then a name appeared on the inside front cover.
Tatyana.
“This is my mother's book of spells.”

“Remember…like your sword, the crystal, all magic, abuse it and you will find that the truth is even more difficult to ascertain.”

Nick nodded and walked out of the classroom, down to his own room. Once inside, he set the book down next to the imperial eggs. He wanted to find out more about what happened to his mother. But maybe Theo was right. Maybe truth wasn’t as easy to find as he thought.

Nick lay down on his bed, and before he knew it, he was sound asleep.