Magickeepers: The Eternal Hourglass (6 page)

Theo waved his hand and said something in what Nick guessed was Russian, and a crystal ball—bigger even than Madame B.'s—floated through the air, then settled on a pedestal on the corner of Theo's desk.

Theo looked at Nick and Isabella and winked. “Ordinary teachers have projectors and chalkboards. I have this. Behold… the
watchmaker.
”

Nick stared as the ball grew smoky, then turned a rich amethyst color, then red, and finally, as if a curtain had parted, the ball was clear. Inside it, two men dressed in what were clearly old-fashioned clothes began speaking. Nick leaned closer. Tools, gears, and hundreds of clocks in various states of repair (or disrepair) littered the walls and long wooden tables. Clearly, this was a watchmaker's shop.

Tours, France, 1824

“But tell me, Monsieur Houdin,” the man said, his accent thick with a Russian edge. “How does it work?”

The watchmaker, Jean Houdin, smiled enigmatically, his hair slightly askew and wild looking. “Magic.”

“But tell me.” The man's eyes were a pale, almost translucent blue, and he wore an elegant black suit. The buttons and cuff links were glittering rubies.

“The watch stops time itself. Its spell, my magical friend, will give you approximately thirty seconds. Thirty precious seconds of time, while everyone around you is frozen, with no memory of time stopping. None. Think of
the illusions you could do. Think of them. You will be the toast of Paris. Your entire clan will be hailed throughout Europe.”

The man shook his head. “We do not seek notoriety. We do not seek fame. We seek only to develop our art.”

“But I have heard,” Houdin whispered, “that you are favored by Tsar Alexander. That you travel with the royal family. That your own quarters in the palace are beyond the imaginings of a simple watchmaker like me. Velvet and satin, jewels and gold-encrusted plates. I have heard that Tsar Alexander relies on you, on your crystal balls.”

The man with the ruby cuff links grew somber, almost menacing. “Do not believe all that you hear, watchmaker.”

“Just once, I would like to gaze into a ball. To see what… you can see.”

“Only those of the bloodline can.” The man took the watch—a pocket watch made of pure gold—from Houdin and turned it over and over in his palm. “I will make you a deal, Houdin.”

“Yes?”

“I will trade you. My hourglass…for your watch.” The man in the cape lifted a handsome leather trunk onto the table where the watchmaker was displaying the watch. The Russian unlocked the trunk and withdrew a large hourglass with writing around its rim. “I wish to join modern times.

It's 1824! I wish to have a watch, not an
hourglass.
That is what I want.”

Houdin leaned close to the hourglass. “The sand… it looks like it is gold.”

“Indeed it is. This hourglass is priceless.”

Inside the hourglass, the golden sand swirled, like a Saharan sandstorm, spinning and moving, endlessly shifting shape.

“It is magnificent!” Houdin touched the engraved rim. “Look how the sand moves as if wind stirs within the glass! The magic of it. The craftsmanship...”

The Russian smiled. “Do we have a deal?”

Houdin was mesmerized by the swirling sand. “I don’t know.”

The Russian withdrew a small velvet sack from his pants pocket. “Look within.”

Houdin opened the bag and peered inside. He gasped aloud. “That diamond is the size of a quail's egg.”

“Do we have a deal then?”

Houdin nodded.

“Tell me how to cast its spell.”

Houdin leaned in close and whispered in the man's ear.

The Russian smiled. He opened the watch. He pulled on its fob, stopping the motion of the second hand. Then he said, “
Je suis le roi de temps.
”

Houdin instantly froze. He appeared to not move or blink— or even breathe. The Russian smiled and collected his diamond. He left the hourglass on the table and laughed out loud at his own trickery. He exited the shop, whistling to himself, and entered the busy street as a horse-drawn carriage rushed past him.

A few moments later, Houdin moved again. He shook his head and yawned. Then he looked at the hourglass. He furrowed his brow.

“Now how did this get here?” he asked himself. Then he squinted, a look of wonderment on his face.

“The diamond!” he shouted aloud to only his many watches and clocks. “My pocket watch!”

He ran out to the street, craning his head in either direction. Horses drawing carriages clip-clopped by on the cobblestone streets. But the man in the cloak was gone.

And the hourglass stood, its gold sand glittering in the lamplight on the watchmaker's table.

“That man,” Theo pointed, as the figures in the crystal ball started to fade, “the man in the cloak, he was my great-great-grandfather.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” Nick said, “that going way back in time, our relatives were liars and cheats?” Nick thought
the pocket watch that the man stole looked remarkably like the one Damian owned. Thieves! His family was from a long line of thieves.

“Let me ask you something, Nicholai,” Theo said, clasping his hands together. “When you go to a museum, where do you think those artifacts came from?”

Nick shrugged. “I never thought about it. And I think I’ve only been to a museum once anyway. And it was boring.”

“Boring? Clearly, you don’t know the first thing about museums. That will change now that I’m in charge of your education instead of your father.” He sighed.
“Americans!
Well, antiquities, my dear Kolya, have been robbed and stolen, gained by trickery and forgery, and even murder, throughout time. Magic relics are no different.”

“Magic relics?”

He nodded. “Magic takes many forms. The relics can make some spells more powerful, more potent. My great-great-grandfather foolishly believed he was becoming part of modern society by trading the hourglass for the watch. But in reality, the Eternal Hourglass was far more powerful than he even realized. He never should have let Houdin get his hands on it.”

“Who was Houdin?”

“An illusionist. The father of modern illusions. Trickery with ether, sleight of hand, and magnets and automatons.”

“Was he related to Harry Houdini?”

“Houdini took his stage name from Houdin.”

“So was the watchmaker a Magickeeper?”

“He wasn’t one of us, but he bribed and traded for magic relics. After the hourglass was traded, it then switched hands many times throughout history—and has been lost to us. Like so many of our relics. We spend a great deal of time hunting for them. The lesson here, Kolya, is that we learn from the past. We must honor and treasure every bit of our magic as sacred.”

“THEO!” The crystal ball filled with a lavender smoky mist, and a man's face appeared inside it, swarthy, with huge dark eyebrows that perched like furry caterpillars over pale blue eyes.

Theo rolled his eyes. “Not now, Sergei.”

“PLEASE!” The face in the crystal ball looked directly at Nick. “Nicholai, tell your cousin that I am the best horse trader in Russia!”

Nick leaned closer to the crystal ball and touched it, not knowing what to expect. The head inside looked so real. “Excuse me?” He looked over at Isabella, then Theo, then back at the head inside the ball. “You said my name. Am I supposed to know you?”

“Yes. I am trying to sell him a horse for you. A special horse. For the show. An
Akhal-Teke!
For real!” The man's
face disappeared, and suddenly, Nick was gazing at a field filled with horses. Then the man's head popped into the crystal ball.

“Shop at CRAZY SERGEI’S horse lot. Where my prices are INSANE!” He gestured with his hands and crossed his eyeballs. “INSANE!”

“Get out of my ball, Sergei!” Theo ordered. “Or I will never buy a horse from you again.” He crossed his arms, a stern expression on his face.

“Fine!” Sergei said. “But this Akhal-Teke…I will sell it to the next person who comes to me with an offer. You know they are a dying breed. Maybe three thousand left in the entire world. And I have a golden one waiting for the new apprentice himself.”

“Enough, Sergei. Or I’ll tell Damian. And then no one in the entire clan will buy horses from you. Ever.”

“Fine! I go now. But Nicholai. Think about it.” At that, the ball went dark.

“What was that?” Nick asked.

“Commercial,” Isabella yawned.

“Commercial?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Theo replied.

“I don’t need a horse.”

“Yes, you do,” Isabella said.

“For what?”

“For the show,” she said, bored, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

“Wh-what do you mean, for the show?” Nick stammered.

“Damian thought of it,” Isabella said.

Theo nodded. “You look like him.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So,” Theo said, “in my brother's sheer audacity and genius, he's decided the best way to incorporate you into the show as his apprentice is for you to play a younger version of him on stage.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Look,” Isabella said. “You’re going to play Damian. You’ll ride on stage on a horse, do some spectacular magic. The audience will love it.”

“Audience? Look, I don’t even like it when I’m called on in class and have to read something out loud. I thought I was going to be backstage.”

Theo shook his head. “Impossible. It is your destiny to be on stage.”

Nick exhaled loudly. “Look, yesterday, I was a kid with a skateboard, a cheeseburger, and a sense of purpose about summer.”

“Purpose?” Theo laughed. “What purpose was that?”

“What every kid in the whole world's purpose is during the summer. Sleep in. Goof off. Don’t you people understand?

It's like…it's like practically the law. And I come here and you keep talking about destiny and now relics and a magic hourglass, and none of it makes any sense.”

“You can’t fight destiny,” Theo said softly. “Destiny is a part of who you are, my young cousin.”

“But I don’t want to be in the show.”

Isabella stared at him. “You don’t understand. This is what we do. You have to be part of it.”

Nick shook his head. “I can’t do magic like Damian.”

“But you’re going to learn,” Theo said calmly.

“And I can’t ride a horse.”

“You’ll learn that, too,” Theo replied.

“And not just any horse.” Isabella grinned. “An Akhal-Teke.”

“What's that?”

“They gleam. Their coats look metallic, like real gold. And they can ride across the desert without water. Like a camel,” Isabella said. “Perfect for Las Vegas!”

“You have the wrong kid. I’ve never ridden a horse in my life.”

“You will learn, cousin. You will learn,” Theo smiled, nodding. “You and your horse will be a magnificent addition to the show.”

There was a soft knock on the door, followed by a tall woman entering the classroom.

“You must be Nicholai,” she said. Her long black hair was woven into a thick braid that fell to the small of her back. Her eyes were pale—but instead of blue, like Nick's, they were flecked with green and gold, which matched her deep green, flowing dress, the collar embroidered with threads that glinted in the light.

He nodded, and she approached him, leaned down, and kissed him once on each cheek, the way he once saw French tourists greet each other in the hotel.

“I am Irina,” she said, her accent thick—like Madame B.'s.

“Am I related to you, too?”

“Of course,
dorogoi.
Your mother was my best friend—and my cousin.”

Nick wondered why he had never met a single person from his extended family before.

“When you were in a cradle, I came to visit you. While your Papa was out. Such a precious little baby. Your mother…so happy.” Irina's eyes grew wet. “I cannot speak of such things now.” She walked over to Theo's wooden desk, knocked three times, and spat over her left shoulder three times. Nick tried not to stare, but really, he still didn’t understand why they spit over bad news.

“Now we speak of good. I am grateful you have come home to us.” She turned to Isabella. “Come along, Sister. You and Sascha have rehearsal.”

Isabella stood. Sascha lifted her immense head, licked one paw, stretched, and then rose. The tiger, her white fur and black stripes luscious and full, immediately fell in step beside Isabella, claws making a scraping noise as they scratched the polished wood floors, muscles rippling.