Magickeepers: The Eternal Hourglass by Erica Kirov Read Free Book Online Page B

wood floors, muscles rippling.
    Nick faced Theo. “Can I get a tiger?”
    Theo shook his head. “Only the women in the lineage have power over animals.”
    Nick bit his lip. “What about a lion?”
    Theo shook his head again. “Only Isabella can have a cat.”
    “Sascha is a lot bigger than a cat!”
    “Still, only the women. Irina is in charge of the animals.”
    “But you just said I have to learn to ride a horse. That's an animal.”
    “You have to learn to ride your horse—just like an ordinary human.”
    “I was afraid of that.”
    “But no horse today. No, instead today, you and I must attend to your first magic lesson. Today, you are going to move this.” From beneath his desk, he pulled out a small gilded cage. Inside, a hedgehog nestled on a soft nest of grass. Next, Theo pulled out a second cage. An empty cage.
    “Move it? What do you mean move it?”
    “You are going to move the hedgehog from this cage to this one.” Theo pointed. “Using magic.”
    “You have got to be kidding me. What? Do I say a few magic words?”
    “Each magician must use his own magic words.”
    “Okay. So what are mine?”
    “I can’t tell you what yours are.”
    “Why not?”
    “Each magician must find his words on his own. Must give his own voice to the magic within.”
    “Well, do I get a magic wand?”
    “No wand. We don’t need one. Not that they work anyway. Occasionally, but they are unreliable. Please? You think we are like…a sideshow? We are real magicians. Wands are for amateurs.”
    “All right, then.” Nick looked at the hedgehog. It made a sniffling noise and stared up at him with beady little black eyes. “Abracadabra!”
    Nothing happened. Except Theo laughed. Loudly. He laughed so hard, his eyes were wet with tears.
    “It's the only magic word I know!”
    “Come on. How about hocus pocus?” Theo said, then slapped his hand on the table and howled with laughter all over again.
    “I’ve never done this before!”
    “First of all, cousin, you might try krax pex phax.”
    “What kind of magic word is that?”
    “It's from our family. Our spell. It means, I create as I speak. It has some power.”
    “Fine. Krax pex phax,” Nick said, repeating the words exactly as Theo said them, which sounded like kreks peks feks.
    Still nothing.
    “This isn’t working.”
    “No kidding,” Theo said.
    Nick glared at Theo. “I don’t know how to move your stupid hedgehog! This is the dumbest thing ever! This is magic?” He leaned down close to the hedgehog and said, “Just move! Disappear!”
    And then it did.
    Nick jumped backward, knocking over a chair and nearly falling on the ground, his heart pounding. He had blinked, and it was gone. He looked all around. He even looked under the desk, but he didn’t see the hedgehog anywhere. It was no longer in its cage.
    “Where’d it go?”
    “Someplace.” Theo smiled. “Now you just need to bring it back and put it in this cage over here.”
    “Bring it back? I don’t even know how I got it to move in the first place.”
    “Yes, you do. Think, Kolya.”
    Nick shook his head. “Honestly. I don’t know how I did it. Did you do it?” Maybe it was all a trick to make him thinkhe had magical powers—the crystal ball at Madame B.'s, the hedgehog; maybe all of it was fake.
    “Of course I didn’t do it.” Theo stared meaningfully at him. “It starts here.” Theo pointed at his stomach. “When you laugh, you feel this joy inside. Right there. You feel it bubble up inside. Think of something happy. It starts there. When you are nervous, you get butterflies. You feel it flutter inside. If you are very nervous, it's more like bat wings beating against your rib cage. When you are angry, it starts there, too. Like a ball of heat and fire. With magicians, our power starts in the same place.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “You will. You’ll learn to train that feeling, to use it, to direct it. And then, you will arrive at your greatness.”
    “I