The Breaker

by Bella Forrest

  Alex had a spread of mechanical and clockwork manuals out in front of him and a notebook open on his lap, taking up most of the small circular table that lay between the two of them as he jotted things down he thought might be useful. He liked the intricacies of clockwork and the way its practical application calmed him and made him feel useful. Making the mouse’s leg twitch had given him a taste for more. There were countless uses for clockwork, more than he had ever imagined, and reading over the instructions and possibilities made him feel like a kid in a candy store. He was also curious to know if there was any way of figuring out whose magic was inside a clockwork object, but so far he was having no luck with that avenue of enquiry.

  Natalie, meanwhile, sat curled up against the deep-set, emerald-green cushion of her armchair, her legs dangling casually over the armrest, focusing solely on one leather-bound book entitled Shielding Techniques for Intermediate Learners. Occasionally, she would let out a small sound of understanding and tap the side of her head, as if something had clicked, and Alex would look across, having almost forgotten his friend was there, in his attempt to cram as much information as possible into his fried brain.

  A fire crackled in the grate of the enormous fireplace that ran along most of one side of the library wall. Alex thought it was a strange place to have a fire so big, what with all the paper and potential kindling, but he presumed someone would know a spell to stop a raging blaze if it came to it. Plus, the flames brought him a curious kind of comfort. It reminded him of childhood holidays and summer camps spent around a fire, toasting marshmallows and singing songs, his clothes smelling of it for weeks after, that cinder scent of burning logs and warming smoke. He liked the sound of the fire, too, the erratic crackle and snap of the logs being consumed by the flames, the quiet scuffle as they charred and fell apart, collapsing in on each other, only to be replaced by fresh logs. It made the place feel even grander than it already was, as if they were hidden stowaways in a period drama or tourists in an ancient house, though the latter wasn’t all that far from the truth, Alex supposed.

  The cream pages of his notebook were sprawled with the black ink of reams and reams of information he thought he might be able to use in the mechanics lab. If he could invert the clockwork and the mechanisms in order to feed his anti-magic through the system, he might, hopefully, get something to work. There were crude diagrams, hastily drawn at the tops of the pages, and bullet points, alongside numbered, step-by-step instructions. Next to these instructions, Alex had written the inverse direction, knowing that was what he’d have to do with the clockwork under his construction, if he was to have any chance of creating a fully functioning clockwork creature. He thought of the mouse in his pocket, and reminded himself to keep it in the dormitory from now on, until he was sure he was going to be in the mechanics lab again. The last thing he wanted was to be caught with it, knowing full well he wasn’t supposed to take things out of the lab, or anywhere else, for that matter. No teacher would believe the mouse simply ran to him in the night.

  Alex jumped, startled, as a ball of paper hit him smack in the forehead. His mouth curved into a relieved smile when he saw Natalie grinning from her spot in the armchair opposite. She laughed softly, and he threw the paper ball back toward her. His own chuckle of amusement turned into a loud yawn as he stretched his arms out above his head, feeling his shoulder pop with a satisfying click.

  Natalie looked sleepy too; the warmth of the library had settled like a blanket around them. It was getting late, and they had spent long enough on shields and mechanics. They were just beginning to pack up when Alex became aware of a commotion at the entrance to the library—the sound of feet pounding the floor and the sight of a figure scanning the vast room.

  A flustered Jari came sprinting along the reading desks toward them, wearing a look of sheer panic.

  “Where have you been? I couldn’t find you,” he said, bending slightly to get his breath back.

  “Here. Why? What’s up?” Alex asked, concerned for his friend.

  “It’s Aamir,” Jari panted.

  “What is it? Is he all right?” Natalie cut in, worry passing over her dark eyes.

  “I’m worried—so worried,” he wheezed, patting his chest. He had clearly been running for quite some time, trying to find them.

  “What happened?” Alex pressed. Jari sat down slowly on the floor, holding his head in his hands.

  “I was with Aamir—speaking to him in his classroom, once he was done for the day. It’s the only time I get these days to just talk with him, you know?” Jari began. The other two nodded. It certainly hadn’t been the same without Aamir around all the time; they had all felt it. Jari continued, speaking rapidly. “Anyway, we were just chatting, about nothing much, really, when some kid bursts in, looking all guilty and shaky. The kid didn’t take the slightest bit of notice of me, but went straight up to Aamir and said that the Head wanted to see him immediately—that he was to go straight to the Head’s office, as he was already waiting.”

  “The Head wanted to see him?” Natalie asked, her voice tight with concern.

  Jari nodded. “Yeah, right away, and then the kid left and Aamir got all panicky and scared. You should have seen Aamir… He was a mess. He was shaking, and his face went white as a sheet. His eyes looked like horses’ do when they’re spooked, all wild and weird, and he was babbling. I couldn’t make out any of it, but he just kept muttering things under his breath, and I couldn’t get him to calm down. I tried to, but he was in such a state,” Jari explained miserably. “Then he walked out. He said he was sorry and just left.”

  “I’m sure he will be fine, Jari,” Alex said, trying to reassure both himself and his friend.

  Jari shook his head. “I don’t think so. You didn’t see him. He was a complete mess. Even before the kid came in. He just looks so tired all the time, like that thing on his wrist is sapping the energy from him. He’s in a bad way, Alex. I just know it. He kept trying to tell me things. But then his face would screw up like he’d been stung, and he’d just stop mid-sentence.” Jari’s voice caught in his throat as he spoke.

  “What kind of things?” Natalie asked.

  “Different things. He was telling me about how things were going, and then he just kept stopping, gritting his teeth in pain—then he’d just switch the subject.” Jari shrugged. “We weren’t even talking about anything we weren’t supposed to be. Nothing to do with the Head or the teachers, nothing! That stupid line is sensitive to everything.”

  “Sounds like he was trying to tell you something,” Alex murmured.

  “What do you mean?” Jari asked.

  “Maybe Aamir was trying to tell you something he wasn’t supposed to, but tried to do it secretly and… well, the band on his wrist knew,” Alex replied.

  “You really think so?” he said.

  Alex shrugged.

  “Do you think he is in trouble?” Natalie spoke, her voice hushed to a whisper as she glanced around, conscious of being watched.

  Jari gave a tense nod. “Yes, I do.”

  “Then what should we do?” Natalie said.

  “We need to check that he’s okay,” Jari replied firmly.

  “And how are we supposed to do that?” Alex asked, adopting the same hushed whisper as Natalie.

  “We break into the teachers’ quarters and make sure he is,” Jari explained, matter-of-factly, as if the answer were a simple one.

  “Seriously?” Alex did not like the plan one bit.

  Jari nodded furiously. “Yes, seriously. We break into the teachers’ quarters while everyone else is asleep and make sure he is okay,” he repeated, as if it were obvious. “And, we can ask him what the Head wanted.”

  “Jari, I hate to say it, but that’s insane,” Alex said. “You know Aamir won’t be able to tell us anything, even if he wants to. It’s too risky! What about curfew?”

  “What about it?” Jari replied, shrugging.

  “It’s a huge risk, Jari. I hate to sound like the kil
ljoy here, but being out after curfew is a massive risk to take. What if we get caught?” Alex spoke firmly, a note of authority in his voice.

  There had been much talk circulating about what happened if a student got caught after curfew: magical lashings with a golden cat o’ nine tails, spells of long-lasting silence, powerful curses to sap the strength from a student, and torture spells that left the sufferer walking on pins and needles for weeks, unable to soothe away the continual stabbing sensation beneath their feet. The worst, though, was the threat of an audience with the Head and the tales of his mind control, used to punish and torture those who disobeyed the rules. He would bend the world around them, tormenting them with nightmarish visions of family and friends back home. Alex knew what it was like to have the Head force his way into his mind and didn’t feel much like repeating the traumatic experience.

  “If we get caught, we get caught. That’s it,” Jari replied with growing determination.

  “No, Jari. I don’t think you quite understand how high the risks are. If I get caught and they decide to lash me with some magical whip, don’t you think the blizzard that will undoubtedly spring from my back will be a dead giveaway?” Alex asked, trying to make his friend see the problems in such a dangerous scheme. “And there’s no telling what they’d do to the both of you. It’s too risky, Jari. Surely you see that?”

  “I don’t mind taking the risk,” Jari said desperately. “Our friend needs us. I don’t care what the risk is.”

  Natalie glanced at Alex. “How about we all wait until tomorrow, when it is our first lesson, and we speak with Aamir afterward—we make sure he is all right then, when it is much safer?” she suggested calmly.

  Jari shook his head. “I have to know he is okay tonight,” he snapped, keeping his voice low as he narrowed his eyes at Natalie and Alex. “If you had seen the state he was in, we wouldn’t be having this conversation! We would already be making a plan.”

  “But the risks are—” Alex repeated, but Jari interrupted.

  “Aamir would come for any one of us if we needed him. You know he would.” Tears sprang to Jari’s eyes. He wiped them away furiously, his voice thick with emotion.

  It was hard to acknowledge, but both Alex and Natalie knew Jari was right. Aamir had been one of the first to befriend them and make them feel welcome at the manor, with his easy manner and his quick humor and his endless warmth. He had made them all feel safe. If what Jari said was true, then their friend was in real trouble. They owed it to Aamir to at least try to check on him, though none of them knew what state they might find him in.

  “Then I suppose we are going to help.” Natalie smiled tightly, the dread evident on her face.

  Alex nodded, his throat going dry. “I suppose we are.”

  Chapter 9

  The clock in the hall was sounding midnight when Alex and Jari stole out of their dorm room, slipping from shadow to shadow as they made their way through the familiar corridors of the boys’ section, pausing at each corner to listen for the sound of footsteps on the flagstones. In the silence, all they could hear was the distant rumble of other boys snoring, safe inside their rooms, and the steady tick of the clocks.

  They moved quickly in socked feet, having left their shoes behind in favor of quieter fabric soles. Around the bottom half of their faces, they had wrapped black scarves, hoping it might make them less conspicuous, though they realized that, if they were caught, they’d have the scarves ripped from them regardless. Still, it made them feel more comfortable—stealthier somehow—as they tiptoed through the sleeping manor, toward the intersection where the two dormitories met. Natalie was supposed to be waiting for them on the corner, but neither of them could see her as they approached. Camouflaged in the darkness, Natalie startled the two boys slightly as she emerged, soundlessly, from the shadows. She, too, had socked feet, but no scarf around her face. She frowned at their rudimentary balaclavas.

  “What are those?” she asked.

  “Scarves,” Alex whispered.

  “To hide our faces,” Jari added, muffled behind the fabric.

  “You must take them off—they look ridiculous!” Natalie said. The two boys shuffled the scarves down, exposing their faces. They couldn’t deny it felt nicer to breathe properly than to have their faces covered.

  Faces fully visible, they began the stealthy journey toward the blue line of the teachers’ quarters. They moved slowly through the dark hallways, the dimming torches barely shedding any light on the path ahead of them. They could have done with some moonlight, but the worlds and lands beyond the shifting hallway windows were having none of it; they refused to offer up any glimmer of light, giving only dark storms and savage tempests, clouds thick and furious, smothering any sunlight or moonlight that might have helped the trio find their way. It was as if the manor itself were angry at their disobedience.

  Suddenly, Natalie’s voice whispered back to the other two as a dim blue light appeared in the distance.

  “There it is,” she breathed, pressing herself flat against the wall. “We should check for any teachers.”

  They crept closer to the glow of the blue line and stopped beside it. Natalie peered around the wall and looked up through the darkened corridor beyond, squinting to try to make out any shapes lurking in the shadows. It was empty—as silent as the rest of the manor.

  “It is all clear,” she said. Alex shuffled past her to get to the blue line. He knelt on the ground, the stone cold beneath his knee, even through the fabric of his trousers.

  Taking a deep breath, he found the energy coiled within him and felt it course through his veins as he willed it into his hands, the familiar sensation of it twirling around his fingers as he conjured a mass of anti-magic between his palms. Seeing the raw ball of anti-magic, rippling black and silver, he focused his thoughts upon it, manifesting it into something more useful. With a slight turn of his wrist, the anti-magic stretched out into a blade, the edge thinning to a point, as it pulsed and sparked with icy energy.

  He lowered the blade toward the blue line, surprised to see the weapon holding its shape more easily as he focused his mind more intensely on what he wanted to see, using the turn of his wrist to build the definition of the long knife. As he touched the edge to the blue line, it cut through the stream of sapphire light as if it were butter, severing the connection as the two ends broke apart. Alex felt the push of the magic against his hands as he held the blade of anti-magic against the ground, but it did not creep through him or try to attack him. In fact, the blue line seemed to have very little effect at all on Alex, barely bothering him as he deflected it elsewhere. He moved the severed ends away, leaving a safe gap for the others to pass through.

  “Nice job,” Jari whispered. They walked tentatively through, into the unfamiliar territory of the teachers’ quarters.

  “Thanks.” Alex grinned as he drew his anti-magic back into himself. It looked as though the self-teaching might be finally paying off.

  The teachers’ quarters were hopelessly steeped in pitch black as the three of them shuffled up into the first corridor. They could see nothing ahead of them, no light of any kind. Their only guide was the towering walls beside them.

  “Wait one moment,” Natalie whispered as Jari bumped into her.

  “Sorry,” he said softly.

  A small golden glow trickled down toward the floor, meandering delicately from Natalie’s fingers. Suddenly, a thin stream of light shone beneath them, a snake of bright yellow, glowing in the center of the masonry below their feet. As they took a step forward, the snake of light moved ahead, showing them the direction they needed to go in.

  “Nice trick,” Alex commended.

  “It is a new one,” Natalie said.

  They followed the ribbon of glowing energy, keeping an eye on it as it slithered along the floor, casting a dim glow on the walls on either side. It was not as bright as they might have liked, their eyes still squinting into the darkness ahead, but it was enough to see by, and the dim gl
ow would provide some camouflage if they needed to cut and run. It was not bright enough for them to clearly see each other’s faces.

  Alex paused when the snaking torch lit up a series of frames on either side of the corridor. In them were pictures of people he had never seen—stern portraits, all painted in the same pose, wearing the same black robes that marked them as teachers. At the bottom of each portrait, set into the varnished wood of the frame, was a small bronze plaque, bearing the name of whomever the image resembled. Alex didn’t recognize any of the names as his eyes glanced across the engraved letters. Some of the dates beneath went back decades. Picture upon picture of stuffy, stony-faced teachers lined the wall in a grim gallery. It wasn’t until they moved into a different network of corridors that Alex saw a name he recognized.

  The picture was in the same sort of frame as the previous one, the canvas gathering a sheen of dust. But the plaque at the bottom was shinier, as if it had only recently been placed there. The face was unmistakable, though younger and fresher. Barely any lines marred the smooth features around the figure’s bright eyes, which jumped from the canvas in a deep, captivating blue. The hair was dark, untouched by the gray Alex had been used to seeing, and there was a half-smile of victory on the lips, though the pose was supposed to be a stern, serious one. He had been young and hopeful once—a force to be reckoned with. The proof was there, hanging from the wall, with his name carved beneath: Professor R. Derhin. Alex ran his thumb along the lettering, the engraving rough beneath his fingertip, and he felt a twinge of remorse for the young man in the portrait.

  I bet he never thought he’d end his days still trapped here, Alex thought sadly.

  Beside it hung a similar image, though the plaque at the bottom was missing. Still, it wasn’t hard to see who the image was supposed to be. Lintz sat a little taller in the picture, with a shock of ginger hair and the beginnings of a reddish-toned moustache, nowhere near the monstrosity he had grown over the years. His hazel eyes were lighter, almost honey-colored, and there was a smile upon his lips too—a mischievous glimmer, twinned with that of Derhin. His face was slimmer and almost chiseled in the rise of good cheekbones, the apples of them rosy and his jawline firm, no hint of a jowl, just the upward curve of a thick neck and a strong chin. He had been far better-looking than his older self suggested.