Magickeepers: The Eternal Hourglass (5 page)

“So how do you make the snow fall? Is there a snow machine somewhere? On the roof?” Nick knew investigative journalists had been hunting for the source of the snow for years.

Damian stopped in his tracks and turned around to glare at his little cousin.
“It's magic.
It's not some Disneyland trick. Everything you see here on these top floors is magic. And all of it is real.
Do not doubt what you see
, Nicholai. This is where you belong. It's where you’ve always belonged. These are no illusions.” He swept his hand toward the windows. “Magic.” Then he started down the hall again, his long stride meaning Nick had to struggle to keep up.

“Magic,” Nick whispered to himself. “But they’ve never heard of air freshener?” The closer they got to the end of the hall, the more horrific it smelled.

Damian opened a door. “This is your bedroom. I had them prepare it for you.”

Nick peered in. “Wow…” All his life, he had lived with his father in whatever hotel his dad worked at. His room in the Pendragon was so small that he had just a narrow foot of space between the bed and the dresser (just enough to slide out a shirt from the bottom drawer). Not the case here—this room was
huge.
The ornate furniture was intricately carved. The four-poster bed had tigers and bears carved into forest scenes, and the mattress was covered with a dark purple, velvet bedspread with gold threads running through it. Nick walked in and stood next to the bed.

“What's the crest?” he asked, pointing to the bedspread. The same crest was on the box his grandfather had given him.

“Our family's crest.” Damian stood next to him.

Nick thought of showing Damian the necklace that had been his mother's but decided against it. Instead, he looked around the room. “Everything in here looks really, really old. And breakable,” he said, spying a set of bookshelves, some of them holding gold-and-jeweled eggs and porcelain boxes.

“These are your heirlooms. Everything in here was once in your mother's room when she was a girl. And
before her, your grandmother's. And before her, your great-grandmother's.”

Nick blinked hard several times. All he and his father had of his mother were old costumes and some photographs. He moved toward the dresser and touched its gleaming surface, the burled wood polished so shiny he could almost see his reflection in it. He walked over to the closet and opened it. “What are these?”

“Your clothes.”

“These
aren’t my clothes. Where are my T-shirts? My jeans? You’ve got to be kidding me if you think I’m wearing this stuff.” Crisply starched white shirts hung next to shiny black dress pants that he wouldn’t be caught
dead
wearing.

“But you will. Now come along to breakfast. You can change before school.”

“Whoa. Wait one minute. It's
summer break.”

Damian faced him, eyes flecked with anger. “Listen to me, little cousin, there is no summer break for the Shadowkeepers. They’re looking for you. They’re looking to destroy the rest of the clan once and for all. There is no break. Ever again.
This
is your life now.”

“I didn’t ask for this to be my life. My life was just fine.”

“It may have been fine, but it wasn’t your destiny.”

“Destiny? Who writes your dialogue, dude? Destiny? My destiny was to ride my skateboard and spend the summer
goofing off. What's the point of coming to live at the Winter Palace Casino, being part of your show, living in a room like this, if I have to go to school? If I have to wear weird clothes and eat crepes with fish eggs?” Nick looked around. “If I have no television. No video games. No…cheeseburgers. My skateboard is back home. I don’t even know if my dad will remember to feed my goldfish. He's probably floating belly up.”

He expected Damian to yell at him—and he didn’t care. Summer school? He’d rather spend the summer locked in his old room than go to school, so Damian could yell all he wanted.

Instead, Damian walked over to him and patted his shoulder. “Look, you have a lot to learn. The ways of the clan, our history, magic.”

“I get to learn magic?” Now
that
could be interesting. “Real magic?” He thought of the snow falling. If he could learn how to do stuff like that, it would almost be worth fish eggs for breakfast.

Damian nodded. “You begin after breakfast. You’ll see. Now come meet the family.”

Nick followed as they went back out into the hall. The stench was even more overpowering there. Nick detected the pungent odor of cabbage. Lots and lots of cabbage.

Damian opened a door, and Nick screamed and took two steps backward. An enormous white tiger pounced at him, its
face coming so close to his that he felt its damp whiskers and smelled its faintly fishy breath.

“Sascha!” A thin girl who looked a little younger than Nick, with long brown hair and pale blue eyes, snapped her fingers. “Come!”

Nick's heart pounded so hard, he could barely hear her. All he could concentrate on was the hot breath of the tiger. The animal turned its head to gaze at the girl, faced Nick again with what he swore was a promise that he would be eaten later, and retreated to the girl's side.

With a little distance between him and the tiger, Nick sized it up. Even sitting on its haunches, the tiger was taller than the girl standing next to it.

“What the… ?” he said, breathless.

“Sorry,” the girl said, wrapping an arm around the tiger's thick neck and rubbing her face against its fur. “Sascha is a tad mistrustful of strangers.”

“Nicholai, meet your cousin, Isabella. Second cousin, actually.”

The girl stuck her hand out. “Nice to meet you.”

Nick didn’t move. “If I shake your hand, is that tiger going to bite mine off?”

The girl laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Sascha obeys me. You are perfectly safe. Come meet her properly.”

Tentatively, Nick stepped across the hall and shook Isabella's hand.

“Go ahead. Pet her. She's really a giant pussycat.
If I
want her to be.”

Nick petted the giant tiger on the head. Her fur was the softest, most velvety thing he had ever touched. His fingers slid down into the fur, disappearing in its richness. His heart pounded at being so close to such a powerful animal. The tiger stood perfectly still. “How is she so well-trained?”

Isabella looked at him with disdain. “What a silly question.”

Nick rolled his eyes. He hated when anyone talked down to him. “Right. Magic.”

“Come along,” Damian said. “Breakfast. Then you two have school.”

Nick glanced over at the girl with the tiger. Great. Now he had to go to school with her. And probably the tiger, who, though totally cool, was still staring at him like he was breakfast.

Sighing, Nick followed Damian into the dining room. Inside was a long table that probably could seat a hundred people under a chandelier that dripped with crystals. The table was laden with a feast on silver platters, steaming plates of crepes and bowls full of caviar. Pastries and plates of fruit crowded the center of the table—though most of it looked like prunes and things he wouldn’t eat if Damian paid him to do so. Ornate teapots stood on a sideboard.

Around the table sat people in costumes. The men wore pressed black pants and white shirts—like those that hung
in Nick's closet. Some wore ornately embroidered, colorful vests. The women were costumed in elaborate dresses, and many wore heavy jewel necklaces. The dresses were all made of rich fabrics and lace inlaid with gemstones, the threads gleaming as if they were real gold. At the head of the table sat a woman who looked ancient—and yet not. She appeared to have fallen asleep, her head leaning back against her chair. Her hair was pure white and pulled into a bun like Nick had seen women wear in history books, with diamond-encrusted combs holding it into place. He could tell she was very old by her gnarled hands, which curled around a porcelain teacup painted with gold, and yet her face was unlined, with slightly pink powdered cheeks. Nick looked at them all, feeling as though he had stepped onto a movie set. As if he had stepped back in time.

“Everyone, this is Nicholai,” Damian announced.

An assortment of greetings rang out from the people around the table. Then the eyes of the ancient woman opened wide. Her eyes were the same color as Nick's own.

“Grand Duchess,” Damian bowed slightly. “This is Kolya.” He lightly shoved Nick toward the head of the table. On either side of the woman sat two more tigers even bigger than Isabella's, yet they looked—well, old. Like the Grand Duchess herself. Their eyes also seemed wise. Ancient.

“He-11-o,” Nick stammered.

She crooked her finger at him. Nick walked closer.

“You have returned to us, Kolya,” she whispered, her voice tremulous.

Nick nodded hesitantly and looked around the table. Everyone had stopped eating and drinking and was looking at him. Some smiled. A few women dabbed at their eyes with lace handkerchiefs.

“Eat!” the old woman snapped. She looked at the tigers on either side of her. “Make way,” she commanded. Each tiger withdrew. One went to a corner and sat, like a sentinel. The other tiger moved under the table and curled at the old woman's feet. “Sit down,” she told Nick. “By my side.” She patted a chair.

Nick reached the stiff high-backed chair and sat down, the smell of fish, cabbage, and stewed prunes overwhelming him. He took small spoonfuls of food, his stomach rumbling with both hunger and disapproval of the menu.

He looked around for juice, but didn’t see any. As if she had read his mind, the Grand Duchess snapped her fingers, and an ornate silver teapot rose from the sideboard and glided through the air, poising over a teacup in front of his plate. Nick looked down the table and saw that every dish sat in silver tureens and platters with silver legs and claw-shaped feet. No one passed plates. The plates and platters walked on their own to serve diners. Blinking back
astonishment, he watched as the silver teapot tilted in midair. The darkest black liquid he had ever seen poured into his cup, steam rising.

“We drink tea, Kolya.”

He lifted his teacup and took a sip. He almost spit it out. Not only did it burn his tongue, it was also bitter.

Nick set his teacup down and began eating, nearly gagging on his food. What he would have given for one of Grandpa's all-you-can-eat adventures!

Isabella and her tiger sat at the other end of the table. Periodically, she tossed bits of food in the air, which the tiger caught in her mouth. He wished he had a tiger that obeyed him like that. No one would tease him as the new kid in school if he had a tiger.

The Grand Duchess leaned back against her chair and appeared to fall asleep. Soon, Nick heard her soft snores. He continued eating, aware that family members were stealing surreptitious glances at him. He bowed his head and tried to avoid looking at any of them.

A short time later, a man entered the room dressed in long black robes. He wore dark, horn-rimmed glasses, and his black hair was cropped close to his head.

“Isabella… Nicholai,” he announced. “Time for school.” He clapped his hands like he was a king. “Come!”

Inwardly, Nick groaned. If he were at home, he would
still be in bed watching cartoons and eating sugary cereal right from the box. This was shaping up to be the worst summer ever.

T
HIS IS OUR CLASSROOM?” NICK SURVEYED THE ROOM WHERE he and Isabella were to be tutored privately. It reminded him of Madame B.'s, full of books and jars of strange ingredients. Just as in the library, some of the books were not only in different languages, but different alphabets. The jars were filled with powders in every shade of the rainbow, and liquids—some of which glowed ominously. Spiders—big, fat, hairy spiders that gave him the creeps—sat in jars, their legs twitching, webs spinning up to the lids that Nick hoped were on tight. Mice in gilded cages sat on their haunches, staring at him and occasionally running their tiny paws over their whiskers. As Nick walked, they turned their heads as if they were watching him.

His teacher sat at a large wooden desk at the front of the room, its legs ornately carved like tree trunks twisted with
vine. The teacher's robes billowed up around him as he settled into his high-backed chair, as huge as a throne, and he pointed to two smaller desks in front of him.

“I am Theo, Damian's brother. Today, Kolya, you begin your journey into magic.”

Nick narrowed his eyes, looking closely at Theo. “That makes us cousins, too, then?”

Theo nodded. “You are related to everyone in the clan either by blood or marriage. Now, we must begin. You have a lot of catching up to do.”

Isabella leaned her elbows on her desk. Her tiger sprawled on the floor, looking like a large rug. She breathed slowly and steadily, occasionally twitching her nose and once even curling her mouth into a smile, as if having a dream.

“And I’m really going to learn magic?”

Theo nodded. “But as with all lessons, we must learn from the past. We must look backward before we can cast our eyes forward. Isn’t that right, Isabella?”

She sighed. “Yes, Theo.” She turned to look at Nick. “You’ll learn very quickly that Theo loves history. It's his favorite subject.”