His father didn't have to complete the thought. Nick knew what he had been about to say: You might be safer ther
e
than here.
"Nah." Nick had never been to the Hoover Dam anyway. He wasn't sure what Damian would think of the trip. Damian did not allow Nick or Isabella to leave the hotel grounds. Then again, sometimes what Damian didn't know wouldn't hurt him…
Sometimes, but probably not this time.
***
Nick and Isabella watched the Magickeepers checking into the hotel. Every few minutes, it seemed, cars arrived, and out poured people from all over the world. Or they simply materialized from nowhere.
The clan from Nigeria was very tall, with high cheekbones and almond-shaped, dark eyes. They wore brightly colored scarves wrapped intricately around their heads. The men carried long, carved staffs. Nick looked closely and realized that the carvings were of animals—and that the animals blinked and moved. One snake slithered up and down, up and down, coiling itself around the cane. The clan's rattan suitcases bulged with mysteries Nick was excited to learn about.
Next to arrive was a Parisian clan; their leader, a woman named Madame Pepper, had a shock of white hair and a pet alligator on a leash. Nick had seen her in a scrapbook that Theo had of a trip to Paris when he was younger.
"Do you want to tell me what she is going to do with an alligator?" Nick whispered to Isabella from their vantage point sitting on the grand staircase. They were peering through the banisters like two children on Christmas Eve trying to peek at their presents.
"All I know is it better not try to eat me," she said with a shrug. The alligator looked at them and licked it lips. Sascha instinctively moved closer to Isabella and nudged her.
The Greek magicians arrived with their own band playing folk music and dancing. Apparently, the Greek Magickeepers liked to break plates—all of them—for fun, so Damian had switched the Winter Palace plates with more casual plates in the dining room.
The Australians had kangaroos. The British contingency was very loud and dressed as a soccer team on holiday for a disguise. They even kicked a soccer ball around—albeit a magical soccer ball that floated up forty feet to the ceiling in the lobby before bouncing back down again and ricocheting across every wall.
"I want to play with
them
," Nick said, laughing.
Commotion and noise filled the air, but even though people spoke their native tongues, Damian's spell allowed them all to communicate.
As the Magickeepers continued to arrive, filling the lobby with bands, animals, people, and large and odd-shaped boxes and suitcases, Nick scanned the crowds for anyone suspicious—anyone who looked like Maria, or like Rasputin.
"Isabella…" He grabbed his cousin's hand. "There!"
A woman stood at the back of a line waiting to check in. Tall and thin, her face was turned the other way. She was dressed in a long black dress that swept the floor—but her immense headdress was what caught Nick's eye. Her broadbrimmed black hat looked three feet wide and was covered in shining black feathers. At the crown of the hat was a stuffed bird.
"She's wearing a raven." Nick elbowed Isabella. "Look at her."
As if she'd heard them from across the lobby, the woman whirled around, fixing her black-eyed stare on Nick. Her face was young—beautiful even, with high cheekbones, a regal nose, and porcelain skin—but her eyes looked ancient. And, Nick decided, evil.
"Who is she?" he whispered.
Isabella shrugged. "I don't know, but I don't trust her."
"Maybe she was the one who brought all those ravens into the sky."
Nick and Isabella watched, scarcely breathing. As the woman turned to walk to the elevators, a huge raven flew across the lobby and landed on her shoulder. Amidst all the other guests, with their alligators and kangaroos, and even a camel and a Komodo dragon, the raven didn't attract much attention. But Nick saw it.
More than that, he felt almost a pinch near his heart, and then that invisible black thread drawing him toward the huge black bird. The room spun slightly, and he held on to the banister. He was certain it was the same raven that had been spying on him.
CHAPTER
8
A DANGEROUS THEFT
Nick stood in front of the mirror in his room, getting dressed for dinner. He sighed and stared at his reflection. A tuxedo! The bow tie was choking him. The old joke (which his father never tired of telling) was right: a tuxedo made a guy look like a penguin. Well, it was just for one night. He turned from the mirror as his crystal ball—perched on its gold pedestal, seeming to sulk for the past few days—suddenly filled with inky smoke, and for a minute, Nick was light-headed.
"You're back," he whispered.
He knew it was strange to talk to a crystal ball, but as Theo had taught, the ball was alive to him in many ways—almost a kindred spirit. Nick ran over and pressed his palms flat against its smooth, round surface. The ball warmed beneath his touch.
"Yes!" His Gazing was back. Nick breathed slowly and
opened his…well,
soul—he didn't know how else to describ
e it. When he Gazed, he felt as if a
whoosh of air shot up fro
m his stomach and into his thumping heart before leaving him.
In his mind, he flashed on ravens. Hundreds of them. Blackness all around. The birds were flying over him, near him, beating against him with their wings. He felt their feathers brushing his cheeks, their beaks pulling on his clothing. And he heard a deafening roar. It was so loud that he fell to his knees, took his hands from the ball, and covered his ears. But then he realized that the roar was only in his mind.
He didn't even hear Isabella and Sascha come in.
"Nick, what's wrong?" His cousin ran to his side and knelt next to him.
"They're here. I know they are." His breath came in shallow gasps, and he swatted at the empty air, as if beating the ravens away. "Back! Get back!" he yelled at the unseen birds. The roar continued in his mind, driving him crazy. "Can't you hear them? Can't you? Back!"
"Nick! Nick! Snap out of it!" Isabella pinched his arm really hard in the soft place near his armpit.
"
Ow!
" he screamed—but it jolted him out of his vision.
"Look at me."
He looked at his cousin. There she was, kneeling next to her tiger. No ravens. No blackness. No danger. Just Isabella. Same dark brown hair, same skinny arms, same slightly turned-up nose. Same lopsided smile—only now her mouth was bent into a crooked frown of concern.
"Sorry," he said softly. "It was a vision. I saw…ravens. Like at the stalls. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Attacking me. Their caws were in my ears. Their sharp beaks were pecking at me."
Sascha nudged him with her slightly damp coal-colored nose, her fur thick as a carpet. The tiger licked his face, her tongue as wide as his forehead, purring loudly. Nick wiped the tiger slobber away. "Stop it, Sascha. I'm fine now."
"We'll just have to keep a very close eye on the woman with the raven," stated Isabella.
"
Spy on her is more like it." Nick struggled to his feet. "W
e better go to dinner."
"A tuxedo?" Isabella raised one eyebrow, suppressing a smile.
"Damian insisted." Nick looked his cousin up and down. She was dressed in an eighteenth-century Russian dress the color of emeralds, with lace and finery and intricate embroidery. Jewels were sewn into the high lace collar. Isabella's hair was held up with pins, and two emerald combs were tucked into her chignon. "You look very nice, too, Isabella," he said dryly.
"Irina insisted." She sighed. "Many of the families will be in costumes from their home countries. But I hate the lace. It itches!"
The two of them—and Sascha—rode down in the elevator. Nick tried to put the ravens from his mind and concentrate instead on the fact that they were actually getting to eat in the hotel ballroom instead of on the top floor with the family.
"Do you think we'll be able to have real food?" he asked. "Not borscht? Or fish-egg crepes?" He was envisioning a real, all-you-can-eat Las Vegas buffet like the ones he used to go to with Grandpa. Cheeseburgers. Chicken fingers in little animal shapes—he didn't care if they were dinosaurshaped or had elephant ears, as long as he could drown them in honey mustard. He pictured French fries, and maybe pizza bagels, and sliced prime rib. And dessert! Pies, cakes, ice cream sundaes, mousse—he wanted chocolate mousse covered with whipped cream. And fizzy orange soda, not bitter Russian tea.
When they arrived in the downstairs ballroom, it was decorated all in white, like a snow-covered Russian castle. White muslin hung from the ceilings, and swirling, delicate snowflakes fell in small flurries here and there. Trees had sprouted from the floor, their roots penetrating the parquet, their branches bare of leaves. The whole place was a vision from a Siberian winter.
"It's beautiful," Isabelle sighed.
They walked to their table, which had an enormous snow globe with a white Siberian tiger inside it as a centerpiece.
"Look!" Isabella grinned. "It looks just like Sascha."
The tiger inside moved and blinked its eyes.
"It is magnificent," said a young boy with bright white teeth, black eyes, and smooth, coffee-colored skin. "So lifelike."
Isabella nodded.
"You must be Nicholai and Isabella," the visitor said.
Now Nick nodded. "Yeah. But you can call me Nick."
"I am Atsu, and this is my twin sister, Siti." He gestured toward a girl with long black hair that fell to her waist. She was fidgeting in a crisp white dress, clearly as uncomfortable as Nick and Isabella were in their formal wear. Both of the twins had green eyes. "We are from Egypt."
Nick and Isabella sat down. Sascha flopped on the shiny wooden floor in back of Isabella's chair.
"I hear you are a Gazer," Atsu said. "My gift is Divination. I can read the stars and tell the future. My sister can touch an object and see its past."
Isabella gestured at Sascha. "Animal arts."
"Oooh," Siti cooed. "I would
so love to have that gift. I'v
e been begging my papa for a cat—a simple house cat—but he says he is allergic. I would give anything to have a cat like yours. But it is not my destiny."
"You can pet Sascha. She's very sweet." Isabella bent to Sascha and instructed her to go to Siti's chair. Their new friend ran her fingers through Sascha's fur.
"She's magnificent," Siti said. "Her coat…it's so beau tiful. I don't think I've ever touched anything so soft in all my life."
Nick nodded. "Sascha is very cool. I wasn't sure we were going to be friends when we first met."
"I had heard you were raised with the outsiders," Siti remarked softly, her eyes still on Sascha. "That you just joined your family this year. What is it like? The outside?"
"I never knew anything different until I came here. I skateboarded. Played video games."
"What are video games?" Atsu asked.
"Well, it's like playing with magic, in a way. You have this controller, and you go through worlds, and…" Nick furrowed his brow. "It's hard to explain. Besides, real magic is a lot cooler. Though outsider food is better." He grinned. "At least American food. Las Vegas-style."
"Maybe someday I will try it!" Atsu exclaimed.
"So what's Egypt like? I've always wanted to go there. Have you seen the pyramids?"
"I have. Siti has, too, but she doesn't ever go there anymore. My sister—it's too painful for her."
"When I touch the walls of the pyramids," Siti said, "I can feel the horrific lives of the slaves that built them. Their sacrifices remain in the energy of the stone. So many people lost in death through suffering. So I no longer visit."
Before Nick could reply, there was a
tink-tink-tink
tink
sound.
Damian stood at the head banquet table and tapped an ornate, sterling silver spoon against his crystal water glass. Soon, others picked up their glasses.
Tink-tink-tink-tink. Tink-tink-tink-tink.
The chatter in the ballroom ceased, and everyone gazed expectantly at Nick's older cousin. Nick, as always, marveled at the way he stood: confident and completely in control. Damian never felt a bit nervous performing in front of thousands of people—or standing in front of all these magicians. Even Nick had to admit it: Damian was a leader.
"Welcome, Magickeepers from around the world. Welcome! It is a joy and an honor to have you all gathered in our humble little hotel for our convention."
At the word
humble
, people in the crowd chuckled.
Damian surveyed the room. "We are an example for all of humankind, gathered peacefully to learn from each other, honor each other, and share in our united history tracing back to ancient Egypt. These are dangerous times," he continued, his face darkening. "Shadowkeepers would gladly disrupt us, steal our artifacts, and try to bring harm to us. But are we afraid?"
The crowd murmured, "No," in unison.