“No, Papa said to let him sleep.”
Jake spied below and spotted Marika sitting at the table with an open book in front of her. One finger rested on a page. A boy in a Roman toga and sandals stalked around the table. It was Pindor. Jake remembered that the boy had been assigned by Elder Tiberius to act as his guard. Apparently Pindor had already reported for duty.
Marika must have sensed Jake’s presence. She glanced up at him. Jake straightened, blushing a bit, embarrassed to be caught eavesdropping. He lifted a hand, acknowledging her, and headed down the stairs.
Marika stood. “There’s some porridge,” she said, and pointed to a covered bowl. “It’s still warm.”
Pindor rolled his eyes. “We don’t have time—”
Marika silenced him with a glare. “Just because you ate three bowls already.”
“I was hungry!” He rubbed his stomach. “I got sent to bed without any dinner last night.” This last earned another frown at Jake, as if it were his fault.
Marika sighed and faced Jake. Her eyes were shadowed and tired. It looked like she’d gotten little sleep. “Papa asked that we speak with him before we leave.”
Jake glanced at the closed study door.
“No,” Marika said. “He’s up in the Astromicon. With Magister Oswin. The two have been up there all night.”
“Studying that arrowhead?” Jake asked.
“I think so.”
Pindor drew closer. “Did you actually see the bloodstone?”
Jake crinkled his brow. “The what?”
“The arrowhead that struck down Huntress Livia and poisoned her.”
Jake remembered the deadly shard of crystal, how its blackness looked like a solid splinter of shadow. Coldness crept over him at the memory of it.
“We both saw the arrowhead,” Marika said. She caught Jake’s eye. “Father doused it quickly, quenching its power.”
“I wish I could have seen it,” Pindor said.
“No,” Marika and Jake both said at the same time, causing Pindor to step back.
“Don’t ever wish that,” Marika finished. She waved again to the table, changing the subject. “Jacob, would you like something to eat? The porridge has twistberries this morning. It’s very good.”
He shook his head. Remembering last night’s bloodshed killed his appetite. “No, thanks…and you can just call me Jake,” he added.
This concession drew a small smile from her before she turned and headed toward the stairs. “Then we’ll say good-bye to my father and be on our way.”
“To where?” Jake asked.
“Papa thought you’d like to visit your sister. To know she is safe and settled. Like you.”
Jake slowly nodded. Though he was far from settled, he didn’t say anything. He also felt a twinge of guilt. He’d barely considered how Kady might be faring. She was probably hiding under her bed.
Back up on the tower rooftop, the sunlight blazed off the bronze dome of the Astromicon. Jake squinted against the glare and hurried after Marika as she headed to the hatch.
She knocked, and after a moment, the door cracked open with an oily creak of its hinges. Magister Balam popped his head out. His gray hair was in even more disarray than last night, and his eyes looked haunted. But he worked up a grin when he saw who was at his door.
“Ah, good. I wanted a word with young Jacob before he departed.” He backed to the side and waved Jake through the door. “Come inside. Magister Oswin has left to find his bed…and a bit of porridge, I suspect. And a good thing or there’d be hardly enough room in here.”
Jake climbed through the low door. Marika and Pindor attempted to follow, but Jake had frozen in midstep, looking up at the curved dome.
The entire space overhead was filled with a maze of copper tubes and spiraling curls of amber-hued glass. Fluids bubbled through the pipes, and occasional tiny spats of steam hissed out of copper valves. Even more disconcerting, the entire contrivance slowly turned around a central axis. Tinier sections whirled faster. It was like staring up into the open heart of a giant clock. Only this mechanism continued to gently hiss and sigh, burble and creak, like something alive.
Adding to the marvel, the entire contraption was decorated with chunks of crystals, every hue of the rainbow. They hung like Christmas ornaments on a metal tree. Were the crystals some sort of balance for the device or were they actually powering it?
Probably both, Jake decided.
Whatever their purpose, this was far more than a crude observatory.
Marika’s father urged Jake to come farther inside. Jake’s gaze dropped to the lower section of the dome. It was empty save for a bronze workbench that circled the entire wall. The curved table was crowded with all manner of bizarre tools and devices: tangles of tubing, pails of scrap metal, wooden racks holding shards of crystals. Scattered everywhere were leather-bound books, fragile-looking scrolls, and loose-leaf stacks of parchments. One section of the workbench propped up a stone tablet as tall as Jake. Every inch of its surface was etched with tiny lines of writing. It looked like the same odd script he’d seen carved on the Broken Gate.
Magister Balam directed Jake over to something he recognized. Kady’s iPod had been taken meticulously apart. Kady would pull her hair out if she saw this.
“We Magisters talked yesterday,” Balam said, and waved an arm over the gutted electronics. “We find this sy-enz of yours most intriguing. We could find no crystals inside your box, no explanation for this farspeaking alchemy of yours. It seems you have much to teach us, to share…as we will do the same for you.”
Balam turned with his arms folded. “So it has been decided that I will take you under my tutelage. As my apprentice. Alongside my daughter.”
Marika squeaked behind Jake, sounding both excited and happy.
“Apprentice?” Jake asked.
“To begin your own training in alchemy.”
Jake didn’t know what to say, but he remembered Marika’s warning about the dragon pyramid, how it was forbidden to trespass there unless you were a Magister, a true master of alchemy. Perhaps here was a way of achieving that! His hope was quickly dashed.
“If we start with you now, who knows?” Balam continued. “You may be a Magister when you’re as young as thirty years.”
Thirty years?
“Would that not be wonderful? You’d be the youngest Magister in the history of Calypsos.” Balam grinned broadly.
Jake swallowed back a groan. But he could not refuse. “How…where do we start?”