“Soften,” she commanded the plastic. It softened in her hand, and she flattened the lens before saying, “Harden.” She stuck the plastic into the crevice between the door and the doorjamb, but the bolt was true and couldn’t be pushed away. Alvie’s pulse quickened. Fear pricked the back of her neck. She had to do this. She had to succeed. There was no food or water in this room. If Mg. Ezzell took his time returning, she might be dead before he figured out what to “do” with her. Maybe that’s exactly what he intended . . . though murder would certainly be a poor thing to add to theft and abduction.
She knelt, turning the ruined lens over in her hands. Think. Maybe she could break the glass in the window. It would make her cries for help louder, but it didn’t solve the problem of the house’s seclusion. Someone still had to be nearby for that to do her any good.
She stared at the lock. The difference in her eyes made her forehead throb.
“Soften,” she said, and she pulled the lens in half, hardening one half and setting it aside. The remaining portion she lengthened and narrowed, working it like clay. “Harden,” she said, and shoved the plastic into the lock.
A key. She needed a key.
She snatched a pamphlet off the bookshelf and held up the end of the plastic stick with it. If it didn’t touch her hands, it might ignore her next command, but she didn’t want to risk losing even a particle of her material. Touching her finger to the plastic at the lock, she said, “Melt.” She only wanted to shape the edge of the plastic, where the key’s teeth would be.
The tip of the stick melted, filling in the lock, and the other bit more or less kept its shape, thanks to the pamphlet. After a couple of seconds, Alvie said, “Harden,” and turned the stick.
It didn’t budge. Of course it didn’t. It had just filled the entire contraption. What was she thinking?
She let go of the plastic and paper and rubbed her head. She wasn’t thinking. She was panicking. A quiet, dignified panic, so she thought, but panic all the same. Perhaps she should try breaking the window after all. She had evidence of being a very good screamer.
So Alvie took the other half of the lens in hand, ordered it to harden until it couldn’t harden any more, wrapped it in her fist, and banged it against the window until the glass cracked and broke. She beat away the remaining fragments, earning a few nicks in the process, and screamed until her throat threatened to bleed.
No one answered her. She heard no vehicles or horses coming up the unseen road.
She collapsed atop the desk, catching her breath. Returned to the door and reached her fingers under it, hoping to find something, anything, within reach. She touched only more matted carpet. So she reeled back and slammed her heels into the door, hoping she could break the lock, or maybe break through the wood itself. It didn’t even dent. And her efforts bruised her bare feet.
The sound of a motor wafted down to her. Alvie jumped to her feet and ran to the window, climbing atop the desk one more time. She strained to listen over her heavy breaths. “Hello?” she called, but no one answered. She gritted her teeth, listening for the sound of human life, but all was quiet. Her imagination was as desperate as she was.
Sighing, Alvie hopped off the desk and sat again by the door, staring at that plastic-stuffed lock. Mg. Praff would have returned to the road only to discover the automobile and trailer gone. Had he come with help? Had he reached Fred in time? He would report the theft to the police.
She couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take Mg. Ezzell to arrive at the convention with his ill-gotten goods.
Even if Mg. Praff hadn’t seen Mg. Ezzell steal his inventions, Mg. Ezzell had them. The man could lie and fib all he wanted, but even if he’d figured out the spell that powered the prosthetic hand, he’d made a crucial mistake. He’d hired someone to steal the prototype from the polymery. The London police had seen the prostheses in Mg. Praff’s possession first. Had the man been driven so mad by competition that he’d failed to piece that together? Or did he have another plan? Something to do with the feigned break-in at his own polymery?
Could he accuse Praff of stealing his prostheses?
She chewed on her lip. The police had seen the prostheses in the Praff polymery, hadn’t they? What if they had been stowed away and, for the sake of surprise, Mg. Praff hadn’t told the police just what the burglar had been after?
A breath whooshed out of her. The mugging at the hospital. The crooks had been more interested in the boxes of supplies than money. “Worthless,” the man had said. Had he been looking for the prostheses? Was he one of Ezzell’s lackeys? “Please. I seldom do dirty work.”
Alvie gritted her teeth and pushed herself onto her knees. She grabbed the plastic and twisted it until the handle broke off. With a couple of spells, she melted it back into place. Ethel and Bennet were witnesses, of course. But perhaps Mg. Ezzell had “witnesses” of his own. Fortunately, Alvie had kept all her notes and diagrams of the arm as well, though proving the date of their creation might be tricky. Perhaps Bennet would know a spell to reveal the age of writing on paper. She could only hope.
“Retract,” she said, hoping to pull the plastic back. It stayed nestled in the lock. “Soften. Retract.” It didn’t heed her. She hardened it again and pressed her lips together. Polymaking had all sorts of undiscovered spells. Could she find one to help her?
“Soften. Compress.” The plastic shot forward and bounced back, seeping out of the lock on her end. She stopped it with a Harden command.
The house creaked. She stiffened, holding her breath. Listened. Just the house settling, but it brought a new possibility to mind.
What if Mg. Ezzell wasn’t the only person with access to this place? What if one of his . . . dirty workers . . . did, too?
And what if this “worker” showed up while Alvie was still trapped in the basement? She thought of Mg. Ezzell’s hand running up her leg. What if . . . ?
When she grasped the plastic stick this time, it was with trembling fingers.
She had to get out. She had to get out now.
“Break. Open. Unlock. Twist. Soften. Break. Open. Unlock. Twist. Harden. Melt. Break? Open. Pull. Please!”
She wiggled the stick forward and backward, side to side. Broke it again, fixed it. Her fingers grew slick on the plastic. She pressed her bruised forehead against the door.
“Soften. Pick. Open. Release. Un . . . bolt. Unlock. Undo. Unlatch.”
The bolt was sucked into the plastic-filled chamber with a muffled click.
Alvie released the stick. Stared.
She touched the doorknob. Gripped it, pulled.
The door opened.
She jumped to her feet, breathing quickly. But . . . Unlatch was a Smelting command, wasn’t it? She distinctly recalled Mg. Praff saying it wasn’t in the Polymaking repertoire. Had he been wrong?
Did it matter?
Well, yes, it did. But not right at that moment.
Grabbing her skirt in one hand, Alvie launched up the stairs. She’d get to the door, find the road Mg. Ezzell had taken to get here, and—
A meaty hand clamped around her arm.
“Oh no, you don’t,” said a short but wide man, his fingers squeezing until Alvie’s skin bruised beneath them. Her throat constricted too tightly to let the scream in her belly pass through. He was huge everywhere but his legs—large head, wide chin, arms the width of barrels and a chest like two Benz tires pressed together. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and stubble speckled his cheeks.
She had heard an engine turning off on the other side of the house. This man, this lackey, arriving.
The one who does dirty work. Alvie’s body lost its strength at the thought. Her knees buckled, and her arms went slack.
The lackey had not been expecting to hold up all 130 pounds of her with a single hand, and he jerked forward, nearly tumbling down the stairwell. He grabbed the rail to catch himself. His moment of weakness revitalized Alvie, and she found the energy to jerk her arm from his grip.
; But she couldn’t go back downstairs. The only way out of the house was up the stairs.
So she darted past her large assailant, sprinting up those last steps. If she could just make it to the door—
He grabbed her calf. Alvie fell forward and hit her chin on the floor. Her jaw snapped shut on the impact, sending teeth into her tongue. The iron taste of blood filled her mouth, and she gagged, spitting it out.
The lackey grabbed her leg with his other hand, reeling her in like she was a fish on the line. Alvie dug her nails into the crevices between floorboards, snapping one off in the process. Away. She had to get away. Before . . . before he . . .
She kicked at him with her free foot, a blow that might have affected him had her foot been shod. Instead, the man simply grabbed her ankle and hauled her back. Each of his fingers left a bruise.
“Help!” Alvie screamed, searching for anything within reach—a heavy object, something to hold on to, even a dust bunny would do! There was nothing save the other lens of her glasses. Being blind was better than whatever alternative this man had in store for her, surely . . . but if she failed, she’d never make it out of these hills. She’d be lost in their murky blur for the rest of her life.
Suddenly Alvie was weightless as the lackey threw her up into the air. She landed on one of his wide shoulders. Air rushed out of her like a crushed bagpipe.
The lackey muttered something foul and trudged down the steps. Alvie clawed at his back, strained for the rail—
Saw her quick cuffs lying on the edge of a stair.
The prototype might have been a failure, but it was still plastic.
She scrambled, her toe finding the lackey’s belt buckle. She pushed off it as hard as she could, propelling herself forward just enough to upset the man’s balance. They both tumbled down a few steps, he on his back, she on her belly. Lunging with her right hand outstretched, she snatched the edge of the curled cuffs.
The lackey spat a foul name and spun around, grasping her by her waist. “I’m going to make you regret that!”
He hauled her up, and when he did so, Alvie kicked off the stairs. He pulled back too hard and crashed into the doorjamb at the base of the stairs. His grip went slack for only a second, but a second was all Alvie needed. She jumped from his grip, freeing herself. He pushed to his feet and reached for her. When he did, Alvie grabbed his wrist and slammed it against the rail. With the quick cuffs in hand, she shouted, “Melt!” and the cuffs melted into a blob of plastic, which Alvie slathered across the lackey’s wrist and around the rail. “Harden!” she said. “Harden, Harden!”
The plastic obeyed, solidifying as hard as it would go.
The lackey growled and pulled back, but the plastic held firm. He swiped at her with his muscled paw, but she danced back up the stairs, out of his reach.
She didn’t know how long the plastic would hold, and she was hardly going to experiment with it. The urge to run propelled her forward. She leapt up the stairs, bolted around the corner, twisted the lock on the front door, and threw it open, all while the lackey yelled and cursed after her. Ignoring a sudden stitch in her side, she sprinted down the road, away from the hills, toward what she could only hope would be civilization.
CHAPTER 18
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE MG. Ezzell had made was leaving Alvie with her glasses.
The smartest thing he’d done was taking her shoes.
Alvie ran down the middle of the road, where there was more grass and softer earth to cushion her feet, but her bruised soles still felt every rock, grain of dirt, thorn, and barb. She stopped once to try to rip bandages for her feet from her skirt, but she couldn’t tear the well-executed hem, and then decided the venture was taking too much precious time. So she moved on, stumbling frequently—in part because of the uneven ground and in part because her depth perception was hindered by the absence of her right lens.
But she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t risk being somewhere indefensible when Mg. Ezzell or any of his lackeys returned. She couldn’t let the Discovery Convention celebrate the wrong man for Mg. Praff’s work. She couldn’t wait around for a rescue.
Alvie was no athlete; it didn’t take long for her lungs to start burning, even if the road was mostly downhill. She pushed herself forward, jogging when she couldn’t sprint, moving up grassy hills when she came to some, in the hopes of orienting herself at their crests. She’d felt several turns from inside that trailer after Mg. Ezzell unknowingly abducted her, but not at the beginning. He’d driven the automobile straight for some time, which meant he’d gone farther west than Maidenhead. That didn’t tell her a lot, but it was something.
Alvie kept going, tearing up the soles of her feet, until she was a sweaty mess and the stubborn edge of her skirt was ruined with dust and mud. But as the sun neared the western horizon, she saw another road. A paved road.
She thanked God and ran toward it with renewed energy. Saw a sign pointing toward Reading. And then, most blissful of all, she heard the familiar rumble of an automobile engine.
A Ford had never looked more beautiful to her in all her life.
It was an open cab, without a roof or windows. A lone man drove it, dressed in finery, the wind blowing through his gray hair. He certainly didn’t look like an accomplice, so Alvie hedged her bets.
She ran out into the middle of the road and waved her hands. Jumped, though it sent pangs through her feet and ankles. “Stop! Please stop!”
The vehicle’s brakes squealed, and the driver pulled off the side of the road to avoid hitting her. Once the automobile came to a stop, the man looked at her and angrily sputtered, “What are you doing?”
He spoke in a heavy German accent.
Her heart filled her entire chest. Surely angels were looking out for her. “Please!” she replied in German, earning a shocked look from the driver. “Ich brauche Hilfe! Sie müssen mir helfen!” I need help! You have to help me! She ran to him and gripped the driver’s-side door. Still speaking German, she rushed, “My name is Alvie Brechenmacher. I’ve been abducted.”
The man’s eyes widened even further. He looked her up and down, taking in her unshod and bloody feet, her disheveled hair and clothes, her lopsided glasses. The astonished look on his face told her that he believed her.
“I’m the apprentice of Magician Marion Praff. We were on our way to the Discovery Convention in Oxford when our vehicle was sabotaged. My driver was injured. I don’t know where I am. Please. Where am I?”
He cleared his throat and spoke in soft German. “My dear girl, I’m so sorry. We’re near New Hinksey. Get in. I’ll take you to the nearest police station.”
“No, I need to go to Oxford!”
He leaned back from the force of her plea.
“There are police in Oxford. I must get to the convention, good sir. I must stop Magician Ezzell.”
“Magician Ezzell?”
“He’s the one who abducted me.”
The man’s expression slackened. “I certainly didn’t expect this on my evening ride.”
“I’m terribly sorry. I know it’s far—”
“Not too far, my dear. Not too far. I’ll take you. Get in.”
Tears stung her eyes. “Thank you, thank you.” She winced as she climbed over the rough pavement to the other side of the vehicle. The dratted skirt got caught in the door, but she didn’t much care.
The man put the Ford in gear and pulled out onto the road, changing directions several times to turn the automobile around. Once it was going the correct direction, he asked, “Are you sure? There’s a station in New Hinksey. Some food there, too.”
“You’re too kind. But I must get to Oxford. I must find Magician Praff.”
He nodded. “Very well.” A pause. “That isn’t the one who founded the school, is it?”
It wasn’t hard to find a police officer once Alvie reached the Bodleian Library, where the Discovery Convention was to be held. Two of them were guarding the front entrance.
The lovely man who’d driven
her clear to the University of Oxford helped her toward the door. The sight of a distraught woman leaning heavily on a well-kempt man’s shoulder alerted the officers at once, and the words “I’ve been abducted” had them moving quickly—opening enchanted compact mirrors to alert fellow officers. They ushered her inside. She did not see where her chauffeur savior went, much to her dismay.
The officers took her to a small room in the library, a study room of sorts, with barely any books or furniture, and sat her in a chair. She propped her throbbing feet on another chair and pushed her uneven glasses up on her nose.
She related the story in as much detail as she could remember, from leaving Briar Hall to her tussle with the lackey to finding the German Ford driver on the road—a man whose name she’d forgotten to ask, but whom the police were also questioning. The young officer she talked to wrote down her words with an incredulous expression, then stepped out into the hall to converse with others. She saw two more men in uniform outside. She had caused a stir. Good.
Alvie was examining her aching feet, carefully picking tiny pebbles and thorns from them, when the officer returned.
“We’ve got Magician Ezzell in for questioning, Miss Brechenmacher, but Magician Praff isn’t here. He’s not on the roster for the convention.”
“Because Magician Ezzell intercepted our abstract. We have a telegram stating our acceptance . . . but it’s in London.” She sighed. Her body was giving out on her, sore and weary and aching for rest, but her mind buzzed with desperation. “You have to find him. And our driver. He . . . he must have been left on the side of the road near Maidenhead. Oh, Fred . . .”
She wrung her hands together. Mg. Ezzell had implied he hadn’t killed Fred, but she didn’t trust him at his word. Who knew how many hired men he had? Perhaps the one whom Alvie had left chained up in the stairwell had done the deed. What if Fred was dead and lying in a ditch, or almost dead and lying in a ditch? Her stomach tightened and pulsed at the thought. Weariness pulled at her limbs, as if great, hulking chains were dragging her down.
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