All eyes now turned to Nick. This part of the new show was supposed to be simple, according to Damian (whose definition of "simple" was usually a lot different from Nick's). All Nick had to do was levitate through the air, landing directly in front of Penelope and Isabella. Then he would make the two of them disappear before calling for Maslow, climbing on his horse, and galloping across the stage. Finally, he would act as if he had second thoughts about his decision, wave his hand, and bring elephant and girl back.
Nick stared deep into Penelope's eyes. I can do this, I can d
o
this…he
breathed to himself. He felt the familiar electricity inside him: butterflies in his stomach, only more fierce.
Bats i
n his stomach, beating against his rib cage as if wanting to escape. In his mind, he pictured the magic exactly as he wanted it to happen. But then his thoughts flashed—a distraction—and all of a sudden, he saw the raven inside his head. He tried to shut out the picture, but when he tried to move Penelope with his magic, nothing happened. The elephant was a brick wall.
He opened his eyes. Penelope was staring at him, batting her lashes. Her eyes were enormous black globes, and now that he was face to face with her—or nose to trunk—he could see that General Tom Thumb had been right. Penelope's eyes seemed ancient, knowledgeable. As if she knew secrets going back to the dawn of time.
Isabella cleared her throat. "Ahem," she said, peering down at him expectantly.
He looked over his shoulder. Damian was scowling. Nick shut his eyes and tried again. He pushed with his mind. It almost hurt—like something punching him in the gut and knocking the breath out of him.
He decided to stop trying to do magic his way, because it wasn't working.
Sir Isaac Newton was a brilliant guy, h
e thought to himself.
Maybe he knew a thing or two about
magic. So Nick instead tried to think of all those confusin
g numbers in Sir Isaac Newton's formula. The numbers and strange figures and symbols represented the elements of magic: time, space, power, joy, love, despair, triumph, loyalty, belief. In a way, they represented the very roots of the Magickeepers.
Nick tried to move Penelope once more. Again, his lungs shuddered; again, he felt an invisible punch. He inhaled and concentrated. Still, nothing happened.
When he opened his eyes, the hot breath of Penelope was blowing in his face through her trunk.
"Stop it!" he snapped and slapped away Penelope's trunk with his hands. "Come on, Penelope! Are you trying to embarrass me in from of everyone? Huh? Because I don't appreciate it. You have to feel me trying to move you, Penelope! You're not cooperating."
Behind him, Nick heard the familiar
click-click-click
of Damian's polished black boots as he strode forcefully across the stage floor.
"What seems to be the problem, little cousin?"
"Penelope is not budging!" Nick's cheeks reddened. He hated looking stupid in front of anyone—it felt like when he had to read in front of the class at his old school. But he especially hated not getting something right in front of Damian. His older cousin made magic look so easy, and he had no patience for anything in the show that was not done to perfection.
"And you think it's Penelope's fault?" Damian looked down his nose at Nick.
"Yes. Well…it feels like she's not letting me move her."
"That's silly," Isabella said from high atop the elephant.
Nick shut his eyes and sighed. "It's
not silly. I can't explai
n it, but it feels like that elephant wants to make me look bad."
Isabella glared at him. "Stop talking about my elephant that way. You're being completely ridiculous."
"But I can feel Penelope resisting me. She's doing it on purpose, I swear!"
At that, the elephant blew into his face, dampening it with wet elephant spit that smelled of hay.
"Gross!" Nick yelled, wiping his cheeks.
"You deserve it!" Isabella called from high atop Penelope. "You're bullying her!"
"I'm sorry." He wished he could melt into the stage and disappear—but he hadn't learned how to do that yet.
Damian scowled at his cousin. "She weighs 11,000 pounds; perhaps you are not trying hard enough. Or your magic isn't strong enough. Perhaps we have put our faith in the wrong person, Kolya."
At that, he stamped his left foot and waved his hand, and Penelope and Isabella vanished. It was just like in the crystal ball with P. T. Barnum and General Tom Thumb. One minute, they were there, and the next…only air and the faint, lingering scent of hay.
"How did you do that?" Nick asked.
"By not offending Penelope."
"But—"
"An elephant never forgets. I suggest you practice more. No lazy magic. A little less pizza, a lot less card-playing, and a little more magic. And when Penelope and Isabella return… you should grovel for forgiveness. This was not Penelope's fault. Now off with you. I have no patience for you when you are ill-prepared for rehearsals."
"Ill-prepared!" Nick sputtered. "Ill-prepared?"
"Off with you!"
Nick stormed off the stage, cheeks still burning. He clomped to the back of the theater. Under the lights, Damian clapped his hands, and Isabella and Penelope—all 11,000 pounds of her—returned.
Nick sighed. Practice? Fine. Like all magic, he would study how to do it.
But practice?
Where was he going to find something that weighed 11,000 pounds to practice on?
CHAPTER
5
MICE AND SHADOWS
Nick walked through the lobby to a door with a large Do No
t
Enter! Employees Only! sign. On the other side of the door wa
s a very long, dark corridor. Precisely in the middle of the hall, two magical sconces immediately lit with flames shooting almost to the ceiling before they settled into candle-sized flickers.
Nick proceeded to the sconces and faced the wall. An elevator door, one that had blended perfectly with the wall, slid open. He stepped in. There were no buttons to push. The door shut, and with a
whoosh,
Nick was carried to the top floor of the hotel. He exited on the private family floor.
The hallway was empty and silent. No one was around. They were all in rehearsal, and he was alone. He felt a tingling up his spine, as if a spider was crawling up each of his vertebrae. His breath quickened, and he walked faster. Something didn't feel right.
Then he heard a
tap-tap-tapping sound on one of the tal
l windows that lined the hall. He turned to face the glass, and there it was—the raven again, its malevolent blackness stark against the swirling snow.
He felt some inexplicable pull, as if its eyes, which studied him so intently, were also hypnotizing him. Nick tried to break the raven's gaze, but he couldn't. The raven seemed to know him—seemed to want to speak to him. He felt a physical tug, as if a black thread were weaving a dark bond between them.
He squinted at the bird as it hovered in the snow. He was growing weak. Finally, with all the strength he could muster, he imagined a pair of golden scissors slicing through the black thread. Then Nick turned his back, hurriedly opened the door to his room, and slammed it shut. As soon as he was safely inside, he walked to his crystal ball and placed his hands on it, hoping to Gaze. But the ball was cold. Its smooth surface was almost icy.
"Please," he whispered. "I need to know why that raven is here." Ordinarily, at his touch, the ball grew warm, then hot, and then filled with visions. Theo had taught him to bond with his crystal ball, to think of it constantly so that visions would come to him whether he was Gazing directly into the ball or not. He and his crystal ball were one. Usually. A panic settled inside him like a stone near his heart. What if the raven was a Shadowkeeper's minion, and it was draining his magical abilities? Then he wondered if Damian was right. What if, for some reason, his magic
wasn't
strong enough?
The Grand Duchess, the ancient woman who had faced down the evil leader of the Shadowkeepers when she was a little girl, had once told him that his magic was even stronger than Theo's and Damian's. He backed away from the crystal ball and sank down on his bed. The Grand Duchess had to be wrong. His magic was fading.
Nick frowned. He hadn't wanted to be a Magickeeper when he arrived. He had hated the food, the costumes, and the fact that his summer of couch-potato freedom had been stolen from him by Damian. But the magic itself had kept it from being unbearable, and now that he had gotten used to his life, he liked it. A lot. He liked snapping his fingers to make his bed. He liked looking into his crystal ball, summoning Crazy Sergei, and having pizza and sweet-and-sour chicken delivered through his closet. He liked having a cousin he got to do everything with. He still loved his dad and grandfather, but he was from more than a family of two now. He was from a clan, a huge family. And they loved him.
He had to get his Gazing powers back. He didn't want to return to his old life again. He bet that they would send him away. Unless he could move Penelope, they would send him back to the Pendragon—to being an ordinary kid with notso-great grades, a tiny little room, and a life without magic.
"I don't want to be ordinary," he said aloud.
He fell onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
Caviar,
he thought to himself. It was the only thing he could do without. No matter how many different ways they served those salty little fish eggs, he hated them. Except for that, he needed the Winter Palace Hotel and Casino; he needed his new family. He was a Magickeeper. That empty feeling he'd had his whole life—of not belonging—had been replaced. This
was
home.
"Please." He spoke aloud, as if the entire line of Magickeepers before him could hear, like ghosts hovering near the ceiling. "Please don't let me fail."
He had never been good at anything but skateboarding. But ever since he'd come to live at the Winter Palace, he had started to believe deep down inside that he was good at something else…
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts, startling him.
Nick bolted upright. What if it was the raven? Could ravens knock? But then he realized that in his crazy life with the family—of course, a raven could knock. And polar bears could take him swimming. And tigers ate pepperoni pizza…and jellybeans. Nick walked to his door and peered into the peephole.
"Great." He cringed. Isabella and Sascha. His cousin was probably going to yell at him some more.
He opened the door, ready for her to scream. "Go ahead, let me have it. I was a jerk."
"Let you have what?" she asked.
"You're going to yell. So get it over with."
"I'm angry with you, Nick, but we have more important problems right now."
"Yeah. Like the fact that I can't seem to budge you and that 11,000-pound elephant of yours."
"No. Bigger problems than that."
"Bigger problems than an 11,000-pound elephant?"
"Yes. This!" she said, and she thrust a squeaking white mouse at his face.
"A mouse?" Nick raised one eyebrow. "You're weird, but… this is nuts, even for you. This mouse is a big problem?"
"No. Not the mouse. What he's
seen."
She looked over her shoulder and tiptoed into his room with Sascha padding silently behind her. "Hush."
Sascha stretched out on the carpet in front of the door—she always guarded the door. Isabella walked over and set the little white mouse down in the middle of Nick's bed.
"If that mouse poops on my bed, Isabella, I swear—"
"Shh! Listen to him."
"Listen to him?"
"I said hush!" Isabella put her finger to her lips. She sat down gently on the bed and looked sincerely at the mouse. "Go on, my dear, sweet, little Pasha. Tell us what you know."
The mouse sat on its haunches and squeaked. It moved its paws and wriggled its nose, and its ears perked up. Isabella nodded sympathetically.
"Poor thing. You see?" she said to Nick. "I think that's the problem."
Nick shook his head, exasperated. "No, Isabella, I
don't
see. I don't speak mouse! You do."
Isabella giggled and then covered her mouth apologetically. "I sometimes forget. Just the other day, Irina and I had the most marvelous conversation with Vladimir."
Nick glanced over at his hedgehog. "Vlad never talks to me. He mostly clicks and huffs. And eats mealworms."
"That was something he expressed quite clearly. More mealworms, please! He also says you snore."
"Isabella," Nick said. "Focus! What did the mouse say? And am I really asking you about what a mouse—a little rodent—has to
say
?"
"Yes, you are. And it's important. You see, Pasha and his family live down in the stalls with the other animals. They sleep in the hay, and they share their food. Pasha, in particular, likes spending time with Penelope. They have become very good friends."
"I thought elephants were afraid of mice."
Isabella looked at Pasha, who fell back on the bed and grabbed his furry white belly. He appeared to be laughing. Nick's cousin smiled. "A silly little tale. Completely untrue."