The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)(43)

At a loss as to what to do with himself, Alex stormed through the hallways toward the mechanics lab. It was the only place he could think to go, to try to blow off some of the steam gathering fiercely inside him. He recalled Lintz’s words: “There’s nothing like clockwork to calm the mind.” That was exactly what he needed—something to calm his racing mind. There was so much he wanted to say, and nobody to say it to.

He burst into the lab, unsurprised to see the place empty. Since the curfews and extra sessions had been in place, the other students had been unwilling to spend their free evening hours doing even more work. Alex had been the same, until that moment.

Moving over to one of the workbenches in the far corner, out of sight of the door, he scooped the five mechanical mice from their dusty shelf and placed them on the wooden tabletop. Checking his pocket, he realized, much to his dismay, that he had left the damaged sixth one back in his dorm room. Still, he figured five clockwork mice would be enough for him to practice on.

His hands were shaking as they held the miniature screwdriver he needed to get into the clockwork of the small golden creatures. Adrenaline still pulsed through his system, making his heart thunder as he struggled to calm himself down. With some difficulty, he managed to remove the mechanisms from the first mouse and began to plot how he would reinsert them so each piece was an inversion of its previous form. On a scrap of paper, he wrote instructions and sketched the design. Just the focus of that minor task steadied the tremor in Alex’s hands as he lifted the first few pieces of sleek metal clockwork with a pair of tweezers and reinserted them into the mouse’s body. The methodical nature of it permitted a blanket of calm to settle slowly over Alex as he fixed the mechanisms to his anti-magical requirements, piece by tiny piece.

When the mouse was suitably whole again, Alex held his palm over the delicate arch of its golden back and let the icy anti-magic flow from his fingers into the clockwork. He watched it ripple fluidly, like oil, and moved his fingers gently to try to manipulate the energy within. The mouse’s back legs twitched, giving Alex a glimmer of hope before the discouraging sight of smoke dashed it entirely.

Undeterred, he moved on to the next mouse. This time, he managed to get three limbs twitching and the turn of one ear before the plume of acrid blue-tinged smoke rose from the inner clockwork. He was getting better.

The third mouse was the closest to success. The hind legs moved forward and backward, pushing the mouse across the splintering tabletop, though the front legs refused to budge. It lasted a good while, zipping along the surface, until the cogs jammed and disheartening spirals of thin smoke wisped in the air.

Realizing he had the rear legs figured out, Alex played around with the clockwork mechanisms of the front section, rearranging them before he was satisfied enough to run his anti-magic through the metal cogs. The mouse sprang to life, racing around the bench with its black eyes glittering. Alex grinned, watching the tail whip from side to side and the ears twitch as the delicate nose snuffled. He tried to manipulate the mouse again, drawing his fingers into a fist to get the creature to stop. To his delight, it did. As he released his fingers, the mouse set off again, scurrying lightly across the wood, easily navigating the dips and cracks in the bench with its graceful feet.

It had the same strange realism that the mouse in his dorm room had displayed, brimming with the magic of whoever had sent it, only it was his handiwork that had given the mouse renewed life. He instructed the creature to walk up into his hand and held it closer to his eye line, observing the intricate inner workings and the swirl of black anti-magic that spiraled within the small eyes. It was a beautiful sight to behold, and, as he removed his anti-magic from within the clockwork, he realized he no longer felt the course of anger and frustration rushing through his body, nor the foggy chatter of a thousand questions in his head. Lintz had been right; clockwork did calm the mind.

Alex was intrigued by the possibilities as he glanced around the room more closely. Lintz’s trunk lay in the corner, and Alex wondered how easy it would be to break the lock. Never mind magic, a hammer would probably do it, he thought. After a moment of half-serious contemplation, he pushed the idea away, knowing the chest was probably full of Lintz’s private creations. It certainly wasn’t for Alex’s eyes.

Seeing the mouse work had inspired him. He still had the list Ellabell had made him, of suitable books for learning more about clockwork and magical mechanics. The Battle book had spoken of bombs and traps, made from clockwork, being thrown across a battlefield or buried beneath the earth for wizards to fall into, setting Alex’s mind alight with all the possibilities that lay in the practical application of his hands and some metal. It wasn’t necessarily the defensive or offensive potential of the clockwork that drew him in, but those aspects certainly weren’t off-putting. In a place like the manor, Alex knew he needed all the help he could get, especially if it was something small enough to fly under the radar. Like a mouse, for example.

Frowning in thought, Alex picked up the fourth mouse he had experimented on and refueled it with his anti-magic, watching in childish delight as the creature burst into life once more. As it skittered across the workbench, Alex gathered the fingers of his right hand into a fist and made the mouse freeze. Concentrating, he turned his other hand in a circular motion, watching as the anti-magic within the clockwork spun, faster and faster. Finally, he extended the fingers of his left hand in a quick gesture and watched with a mix of awe and regret as the mouse exploded violently in a shower of glowing metal particles.