The Magician's Tower

by Shawn Thomas Odyssey

  EGMONT

  We bring stories to life

  First published by Egmont USA, 2013

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © Shawn Thomas Odyssey, 2013

  All rights reserved

  www.egmontusa.com

  www.thewizardofdarkstreet.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Odyssey, Shawn Thomas.

  The magician’s tower : a sequel to The Wizard of Dark Street /

  by Shawn Thomas Odyssey.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Detective Oona Crate enters the Magician’s Tower Contest, a competition of dangerous tasks and obstacles that has never been won. ISBN 978-1-60684-425-0 (hardback) — eISBN: 978-1-60684-426-7 [1. Contests—Fiction. 2. Wizards—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction. 4. Apprentices—

  Fiction. 5. Orphans—Fiction. 6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.O258Mag 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012025081

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  v3.1

  For Claire, Audrey, and Jacob.

  And Moonbucket …

  who transported me into the stories.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  CHAPTER ONE: The Party

  CHAPTER TWO: Breakfast at Pendulum House

  CHAPTER THREE: The First Clue

  CHAPTER FOUR: The Tour

  CHAPTER FIVE: Up Through the Ape House

  CHAPTER SIX: The Academy of Fine Young Ladies

  CHAPTER SEVEN: The Silk

  CHAPTER EIGHT: The Ribbon Clue

  CHAPTER NINE: The Master of Ten Thousand Faces

  CHAPTER TEN: Going Up

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Oona and Adler

  CHAPTER TWELVE: The Tick-Tock Society

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Cryptogram

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Tale of the Punchbowl Oracle

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Theater

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: To the Top

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Final Challenge

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Scoundrel’s Plan

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Kiss

  On the sixth of March, 1852, historian Arthur Blackstone gave the following speech to the Historical Society in New York City.

  “Like the hour hand on a clock, Dark Street spins through the Drift. It spirals endlessly within the space between two worlds. At the north end of the street stands an enormous gateway, the famed Iron Gates, which open for precisely one minute every night, upon the stroke of midnight, exposing the street to New York City. At the opposite end of the street stand the equally massive Glass Gates, the gateway to the Land of Faerie, which have remained locked for hundreds of human years, and are the only things keeping the Queen of the Fay and her unspeakable army of faerie warriors from murdering us all; the gates … and the Wizard.”

  In June of 1853, Blackstone released his book The Last Faerie Road: An Incomplete History of Dark Street. It sold fewer than one hundred copies, and, unfortunately for Mr. Blackstone’s New York publishers, no one took the book very seriously.

  Fellow historians mocked the idea that such a fantastical place as Dark Street might exist at all: a place with candlestick trees and joke-telling clocks, not to mention a Museum of Magical History and a graveyard where spirits come awake in the night. The notion of a magical world so close to New York—one with a Wizard living in an enchanted manor house in the middle of the street—seemed nothing short of ridiculous to the serious scholars and scientific minds of the mid-1800s. And though Blackstone claimed that the street was filled primarily with ordinary people of no magical abilities at all, the premise was too far-fetched to be believed. The book was quickly forgotten by the academics, and would be remembered only by a handful of poets and artists, who themselves viewed the book, for the most part, as the ramblings of an overactive imagination.

  On Dark Street, however, the book remained an acclaimed best seller for years to come.

  (Sunday, August 19, 1877)

  The contest is about to begin,” said the Wizard. He pointed a wrinkled finger toward the far end of the outdoor party.

  A short man in a top hat slowly ascended the steps to a makeshift stage, at the rear of which stood an oddly shaped tower. Round in some sections and square in others, the tower rose like a misshapen shadow from the center of Oswald Park. The pointy pyramid at the top of the tower was scarcely visible through the misty clouds several hundred feet above. At the edge of the stage, dozens of evenly spaced tables flickered in the evening lamplight, each surrounded by flawlessly dressed partygoers.

  Murmurs of polite conversation filled the night air, and thirteen-year-old Oona Crate leaned back in her seat, arms folded, lost in thought. She hardly heard her uncle’s words, nor did she pay much attention to the man ascending the steps.

  Of all the attendees at the party, Oona was certain that it was she alone who felt uncomfortable with the evening’s festivities being located in Oswald Park. Named after Oswald the Great—the most powerful of the long-dead Magicians of Old—the enormous park was where the tragedy had happened over three years ago: the accident that had taken the lives of both Oona’s mother and baby sister, leaving Oona with the grievous knowledge that it was her own misguided spell that had killed them. Ever since, the park had been a dreaded place for her. A place to avoid at all costs.

  But three months ago something extraordinary had happened …

  Fresh from the excitement of solving the most difficult case of her life—a baffling mystery involving the disappearance of her uncle, the Wizard—Oona had decided to face her fear and attend the Dark Street Annual Midnight Masquerade. It had been the first time she’d set foot on the park’s grassy grounds since the day the magic had flown out of her control. It had also been the first time Oona had danced with a boy.

  The night of the dance had been magical, the boy gentlemanly and handsome, and afterward, as they took their leave, she had thought that she was finally finished with her guilt over her mother’s and sister’s deaths once and for all. Three months later, however, she realized that she had been dreadfully wrong.

  Tonight was Oona’s second visit to the park since the accident, and unfortunately for her, she had no dance and no boy to distract her from her thoughts.

  Images of the tragedy buzzed in and out of her mind like pestering flies: the sparks shooting from her improvised magic wand, the Lights of Wonder upending the tree and slamming it to the ground, her own panicked cry as the impact hurtled her through the air while Mother and Flora were crushed beneath the tree’s massive trunk.

  She did her best to shoo the thoughts away, concentrating instead on the contest that was about to begin—the famous Magician’s Tower Contest that took place once every five years—but even Oona’s excitement about the upcoming competition failed to ease her heart completely. She shook her head, casting around for something solid to hold her attention.

  Give me facts! she thought, and pulled her focus to her surroundings.

  The tables were set with the finest of crystal and china, the food and drink of the highest caliber. Oona had been to high-society gatherings before—her uncle was extremely fond of parties—but she had not seen so many of the street’s wealthy residents in one place since the night of the masquerade three months ago.

  She fidgeted with the sleeve of her dress, a high-collared gray-and-wh
ite gown, more formal than she was used to wearing. The dress was by no means as extravagant as the dresses worn by the girls from the Academy of Fine Young Ladies, nor was her jewelry as stylish or shiny, but Oona had an idea that it was more than her attire that caused the party guests to glance discreetly in her direction. Oona was something of a celebrity on the street, after all: the youngest Wizard’s apprentice in over a hundred years, and it was no secret that she was a Natural Magician: the rarest and most powerful form of magician there was.

  As Oona had discovered for herself, it was because of the ancient faerie blood that ran through her veins that her own magic was so incredibly powerful. The deaths of her mother and sister were common knowledge, and rumors of her ability to perform extraordinary magical tasks—most of which were simply untrue—traveled up and down the street like leaves blown from doorstep to doorstep.

  The latest rumor Oona had heard was that she had turned her uncle into a toad when he had told her to brush her teeth. Simply absurd.

  First of all, she thought, Uncle Alexander has never needed to remind me to brush my teeth, because brushing one’s teeth is simply the logical way of keeping them from rotting out of one’s head. Thus, it followed that Oona needed no reminders. And secondly, she thought, Uncle Alexander may have indeed been turned into a toad, but that was nearly three months ago, and it was not my doing!

  This was also true. It had been her uncle’s lawyer, Mr. Ravensmith—in cahoots with Dark Street’s most notorious criminal mastermind, Red Martin—who had done the abhorrent deed.

  And thirdly, she thought, I never use magic if I can help it. Despite her recent return to the position of Wizard’s apprentice, the truth was that, in Oona’s opinion, magic remained highly unpredictable.

  And if all of this wasn’t enough to justify the uncomfortable stares, then there was the fact that Oona was the only person with a raven on her shoulder—and a talking raven at that. But of this, Oona did not care what people thought. Deacon was not only Oona’s closest companion, but also a wealth of facts and highly useful information.

  “Welcome, welcome, welcome!” cried the man on the stage. The chatter of the party guests tapered off, and all eyes turned to observe the squat man at the front of the stage. He wore a tight fitting suit and a top hat nearly as tall as he was. His small eyes took in the well-to-do onlookers. “Welcome to the Magician’s Tower. I am Nathaniel Tempest, the tower architect.”

  A round of applause began. Oona did not join in.

  “I don’t know if I’d be so proud of that,” she whispered to Deacon.

  The tower swayed precariously in the breeze, giving the impression it might topple at any moment. The middle portion leaned south, rising slantwise for nearly thirty feet before overcorrecting and tilting north. A set of rickety steps corkscrewed around the outside, and near the seventh floor the entire structure bulged out like a great serpent swallowing an egg. The sound of creaking wood could be heard from as far away as the Iron Gates.

  “Look at that monstrosity of a building,” Oona half whispered.

  Deacon stifled a laugh as the Wizard gave her a disapproving glance from his seat beside her. Dressed in his traditional hood and robe, the Wizard made an imposing figure, as was befitting the head of all magical activity on Dark Street. Oona considered him for a moment. Despite the fact that the only living magicians on the street were the Wizard himself and Oona, the position was still highly respected in the community, and one day, Oona knew, it would belong to her.

  “Once every five years,” the man in the top hat continued, “a new tower is constructed, and a new contest begun. It is a contest that stretches back hundreds of years. Anyone brave enough to enter”—the man paused to gesture toward a slanted door at the base of the tower—“will have a chance at solving the first day’s challenges … but only the first four contestants to make it through the trials will move on to the second day’s challenge. After that, two more challenges a day will be offered: a test of the mind and a test of the physical kind. Each day the last contestant to finish will be eliminated, until there are only two left. On the fourth and last day of the contest, both finalists will have an opportunity to solve the final challenge, at the tower’s pinnacle; a task so difficult that, in its entire history, it has never been accomplished.”

  The crowd was silent. Heads tilted back, and all eyes stared up at the pyramid at the very top of the tower. It swayed dauntingly in the night air, barely visible against the night sky. It reminded Oona of the Goblin Tower in the Dark Street Cemetery, at the top of which she had rescued her uncle from imprisonment, except that the Magician’s Tower in front of her appeared as if it might crumble at any moment, and the Goblin Tower had stood for nearly five hundred years.

  “The contest begins tomorrow at noon!” the man cried. “I am the only one who knows its secrets, and the challenges that lay inside.” He held up a leather satchel. “Only I hold the plans and the answers to the puzzles that await those brave few.”

  Again a round of applause filled the park, and this time Oona clapped along. Indeed, of everyone at the gathering, it was Oona who clapped the most enthusiastically. Here at last was a challenge she could embrace. As much as she disliked admitting it, her new detective business had been rather slow to catch on. She’d had only two cases in the last three months, one of them involving a missing nail file, and the other, a six-year-old girl who had hired Oona to discover the truth surrounding the existence of something called the Easter Bunny. It was most embarrassing.

  But now, finally, here was a worthy challenge. The famous Magician’s Tower Contest.

  “Please enjoy the rest of the party,” the architect said over the applause before descending the stage steps and mingling with the partygoers.

  The Wizard turned to Oona. “I take it that you plan to participate in this fiasco.”

  “I do indeed, Uncle,” Oona said. “Not only participate, but win.”

  “And what is the point?” Deacon asked from her shoulder.

  Oona shook her head. “The point, my dearest Deacon, is to be the first. To solve the game. To overcome the mystery. What further point is needed?”

  “Well, I suppose I can relieve you of your apprentice duties for the four days of the contest,” the Wizard said. “I can get Samuligan to cover for you.”

  Oona grinned appreciatively. Samuligan, the Pendulum House faerie servant, would be more than equal to the task.

  The Wizard glanced in the direction of the table closest to their own, his face sticking out of his hood and exposing a bumpy nose and long gray beard. Oona turned as well, drawn in by a loud voice at the neighboring table. The voice was that of Sir Baltimore Rutherford, one of the most well-known men of Dark Street high society. A handsome man in his mid-fifties, with thick sideburns and a prominent brow, Sir Baltimore waved a pungent cigar in the air, and was laughing heartily at his own joke. The occupants at his table were riveted.

  “As I was saying,” Sir Baltimore boomed, “when I was a boy, a few years older than my son Roderick is—where is Roderick, anyway? Probably off with that new girlfriend of his. That boy’s got more girls pining for him than I’d care to count. But when I was about his age, I, too, participated in the tower contest, and I made it to the top. There were just two of us left: myself and Bradford Crate.”

  Oona’s heart lurched at the mention of her father. She of course knew that her father—the former head inspector of the Dark Street Police Department—had participated in the tower contest, but she had not learned this fact from the man himself. Or if she had, then she had been too young to remember. The fact remained that her full knowledge of her father’s youthful adventures in the contest had come from research in books. The thought saddened her. Indeed, there was so much about her father that she did not know, and would most likely never know; the bullet fired from the barrel of a thief’s gun had made sure of that nearly three years ago. The loss of her father, only months before losing her mother and sister, had been like a terr
ible earthquake, shaking Oona’s world down to its foundations. “Bradford was the more clever of the two of us,” Sir Baltimore continued, “but I had the advantage of my fantastic memory. Runs in the family, you know. I can remember every joke anyone has ever told me.”

  “Oh, that is wonderful. I wish I could remember jokes,” said a sulky-looking woman at Sir Baltimore’s table. “But, alas, the moment I hear one, it’s in one ear and out the other.”

  “Well, as I said, it’s a family trait,” Sir Baltimore said, and then turned abruptly in his seat. “Speaking of inheriting family traits, if it isn’t young Miss Crate herself.” His smile was a pleasant one. “I was just recalling the time when your father and I went head to head in the tower contest. I was fifteen, and he, I believe, was a few years older. The challenge on the third day was a kind of maze where—”

  “Daddy!” cried a voice, cutting Sir Baltimore short. The voice was high and shrill.

  “Yes, dear?” Sir Baltimore said, turning to the young girl seated beside him. She looked to be no more than seven years old, and Oona knew her name was Penelope Rutherford.

  “Daddy, read me my story now!” Penelope demanded, and thrust a book out toward her father.

  “I’m telling my own story, Penny,” Sir Baltimore replied.

  “No!” the girl shouted. “I want you to read one from my book. My favorite book.”

  Sir Baltimore sighed. “But don’t you want to hear how Daddy used his extraordinary powers of memory to find his way out of the tower maze?”

  “No!” Penelope exclaimed. “I want to hear about Boon Boon, the man-eating parakeet!”

  Sir Baltimore rolled his eyes before turning back to Oona. “Well, it’s no matter. In the end, your father beat me out of the maze. I’ll never know how he did it.”

  “Because my younger brother was as clever as they get,” said the Wizard.

  Sir Baltimore’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes, Alexander, Bradford was clever.”

  “You are not still jealous, are you, Baltimore?” asked the Wizard.