Lost Kingdom Read online

  On the way over, Joey thought he saw Scarlett trailing him. It wasn’t the first time he’d had that feeling, either. There were multiple occasions over the course of the last month when Joey had thought he spotted her in a crowd, spying on him. On the subway. At the movies. Outside his apartment building. He was never sure if she was really there or if she was just in his head. She was like a phantom haunting him. He couldn’t escape her. Every now and then Joey even thought he was still covered with the paint she had hit him with during their fight. He would be getting dressed in the morning and catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror with a mixture of paint splattered on his shoulder. He’d blink and look again, but it would be gone. The same thing happened whenever he saw Scarlett out in the world. He never knew if it was really happening or not, but the Invisible Hand was constantly on his mind. He saw danger around every corner and worried they might come after him or his family. Joey had told Janelle a side effect of magic was that it sometimes made you question your sanity. He could have said it made you paranoid, too, but it’s not paranoia if there really are powerful forces conspiring against you.

  Joey didn’t feel safe until he was inside the theater. He shut the door behind him and checked to make sure it was locked. After that, he breathed a little easier. The opulent lobby was bathed in a warm, comforting light. It was a far cry from the dark, run-down and ruined space Joey had been introduced to the first time he’d visited the Majestic. Redondo’s final act had been to restore the theater to its former glory. It was once again brimming with magical possibility, not to mention an abundance of magical objects. The question was, what to do with them? Despite countless debates, Joey and his friends had yet to come to an agreement.

  Joey found the others in Redondo’s old office. Shazad was seated at the desk. He was going through Redondo’s big leather-bound book of magical items and checking the entries against an inventory he had made in a pocket-size notebook. Leanora was practicing fight moves with the Staff of Sorcero in the middle of the room. “What’s up, guys?” Joey said on his way in. Leanora lifted her chin, wordlessly greeting Joey as she worked her way through a routine that resembled a martial arts kata. Her form was smooth and graceful.

  “Did you bring the mask back?” Shazad asked, briefly looking up from his work. Joey held up his backpack in reply. Shazad gave a nod and returned to his books. Joey plopped himself down on the office couch, setting the bag on his lap.

  Leanora finished her training exercises and spun the staff around, hand over hand, returning it to a more compact size. “You see the mark on the door outside?”

  Joey nodded. “It was pretty hard to miss.”

  “Even harder to ignore, I hope,” Shazad said, closing up the ledger and putting away his notebook.

  “Anyone see Scarlett painting it?” Joey asked.

  “No, but we have to assume it was her,” Shazad said. “It’s only prudent. I know you two like to joke about me being overly cautious, but I have to put my foot down here. We’ve got to do something before the Invisible Hand finds a way to break in and clean us out.”

  “I hear you,” Joey said.

  “We’ve been lucky so far, but we can’t count on that. Hoping for the best isn’t a strategy,” Shazad stressed. “We can’t put this off any longer,” he added, getting a little worked up.

  “Shazad,” Leanora said. “No one’s arguing with you.”

  Shazad’s expression softened. He smiled playfully. “I wish. If that were true, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Again.”

  “Fair enough,” Leanora replied, returning the smile. “Where should we start this time?”

  Everyone agreed the magical items in the theater were at risk of being stolen by the Invisible Hand. Unfortunately, the agreements ended there, as Joey, Shazad, and Leanora each had their own ideas about the best way to deal with the problem. Shazad wanted to take the magical artifacts back to his home in Jorako for safekeeping, and Leanora wanted to put the artifacts under her family’s protection. She wanted Joey and Shazad to take their show on the road, performing with her and the other Nomadiks. Together, they could tour the world, inspiring audiences to believe in magic, helping people in need, and fighting back against the Invisible Hand. Shazad thought that sounded like a good way to lose everything, and Joey wasn’t ready to drop out of school to become a full-time magician just yet. Not when he and Janelle were so close to solving the world’s energy crisis. In the past, Shazad and Leanora had made their cases to Joey, asking him to be the swing vote and help convince the other person their plan was the right way to go. No doubt they assumed he was finally ready to abandon his own ambitions after the poor showing in the lab that morning. They were going to be disappointed there. Joey thought Leanora’s and Shazad’s ideas had their merits, but he also thought they gave up too much control. He hoped they could meet somewhere in the middle.

  Had it been possible for anyone’s parents to get into the theater, the matter would have been decided a month ago. The grown-ups would have taken control of the situation and settled it themselves, but there were no grown-ups in the room. For better or for worse, Joey, Shazad, and Leanora had exclusive access to the Majestic Theatre. They had promised each other that no one would take any magical artifacts out of the theater unless all three of them agreed to it, and so far everyone had stuck to that deal.

  “Let’s start with the fact that we’ve narrowed our choices down to two options instead of three,” Shazad announced, confirming Joey’s expectations. “That’s some progress at least,” Shazad added hopefully.

  Joey kept his head down, still mixing his cards. He didn’t say anything.

  “We gave your way a chance, Joey. We kept an open mind, Leanora and I. You can’t say we didn’t. You and Janelle had weeks to get your experiment sorted out, but we tried it in the lab this morning, and it didn’t work. I’m sorry, but it’s time to move on.”

  “It’s time,” Leanora agreed. “Joey?” she asked, prodding him to go along.

  Joey scratched at his neck uncomfortably. “Yeah, about that…” He winced, preparing to say something no one in the room wanted to hear. “I’m not ready to give up just yet.”

  Shazad sat up straight and looked at Joey like someone who had just reneged on a bet. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Technically, our experiment worked,” Joey argued, putting his hands up in defense. “You saw the data. 1.21 gigawatts. That’s nothing to sneeze at.”

  Shazad let out a mighty “AH-CHOO!”

  “You were saying?” Leanora asked.

  “Come on,” Joey said. “That was a fake sneeze.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Shazad admitted. “But I won’t say your experiment worked. It only worked for you.”

  “How many gigawatts did you generate when Janelle tried to use the mask?” Leanora asked, piling on. “I’m pretty sure it was zero.”

  “She’s close,” Joey said. “I can feel it. And if she can do it, other people can too.”

  “But she couldn’t do it,” Shazad said.

  “She would have done it today if she’d had more time with the mask.”

  “You had a month,” Leanora said.

  “Did we really?” Joey asked. “Janelle never saw the Finale Mask before today. She couldn’t come here to practice with it because she can’t get into the theater. And you guys wouldn’t let me bring any artifacts to her for more than a couple hours at a time. She’s used to pulling all-nighters when she works on a project. She couldn’t do that with this. It’s no wonder she hit a wall.”

  “So you don’t just want more time. You want to keep the mask at your school,” Shazad said.

  “That’s only part of the plan,” Joey said.

  “There’s more?” Shazad scoffed at the notion. “Forget it. If the Invisible Hand finds out the mask is there, it’s as good as gone. Exemplar Academy doesn’t have any kind of protection over it.”

  “We’ll keep it quiet. We’re good at secrets, aren’t we?
”

  “No way.” Shazad wasn’t having it. “There are only two places we know the Invisible Hand can’t get into. One of them is this theater and the other is Jorako. This place has been safe for a month. Jorako has been safe for generations. That’s where these things belong,” he said, patting Redondo’s big book of magical artifacts. “All of them.”

  “My family’s traveling showcase is safe too,” Leanora said, unwilling to concede Shazad’s point about Jorako being the only sensible option. “We have strength in numbers, something the three of us lack here. We go all around the world putting on magic shows with real magic, and it’s always been fine because we keep moving. The Invisible Hand has yet to take anything away from us.”

  “The operative word being yet,” Shazad said.

  “You can say that about anything,” Joey cut in. “Even Jorako.”

  “We don’t take unnecessary risks in Jorako,” Shazad countered.

  “Some things are worth the risk,” Leanora replied. “We’re supposed to be the Order of the Majestic. We should be out there like Houdini and Redondo used to be, inspiring people to believe. We should follow in their footsteps.”

  “More like we’ll follow them into an early grave,” Shazad groused.

  “That’s your parents talking,” Leanora said.

  “It sure is. There are bad people out there, Leanora. Way worse than Grayson Manchester. My parents—my whole family—have kept more dangerous magical items out of their hands than you can imagine. I’m just being responsible. Sometimes it feels like I’m the only one.”

  “I thought you were willing to stand up to the Invisible Hand now,” Joey said. “You fought Manchester and you fought to protect this theater. What changed?”

  “Nothing changed. I fought because we had no other choice,” Shazad said. “Personally, I’d rather we avoid confrontations like that. I don’t like having my back up against the wall.”

  “Neither do I, but we can’t just sit on this stuff. What good does that do anybody?” Joey asked. “Here’s my idea—we split the difference. Shazad, you take the big-ticket items back with you to Jorako. The large magical artifacts. Things that are difficult to transport. You want to keep them safe? Do it. I’m worried about the long-term security of this place too. Don’t think I’m not. I’m all about getting help from the people in your family—yours too,” he added, turning to Leanora. “You take the smaller items.”

  “Why the smaller items?” she asked, frowning.

  “Not the less-powerful items. Just the things that are easier to travel with. Easier to conceal. Your family can use them in their act and whatever else they do, but here’s the thing—we don’t surrender rights to any of it.”

  Leanora squinted at Joey. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I want to keep experimenting with the magical artifacts Redondo left us. We’ve had them for a month. That’s hardly any time at all. I’m still learning about most of them. I want to use them. I want to master them. And I’m happy to share them with your families as long as everybody understands that’s what we’re doing. Sharing. We should be able to get any one of those magical artifacts back here just by asking, easy as borrowing a library book. What do you say? Think your parents would agree to that?”

  Shazad looked like he had a stomachache. “You’re not being reasonable.”

  “I think I’m being very reasonable considering I’ve never been invited to Jorako or seen the Nomadiks perform.”

  Shazad and Leanora grew quiet. Their families were both irked about being denied entrance to the Majestic, and they had responded by making their own guest lists equally exclusive. Joey and Leanora weren’t allowed to travel with Shazad to Jorako. Likewise, Shazad and Joey couldn’t visit Leanora and watch the Nomadiks’ show. Joey thought the adults on both sides were behaving like children. He could have taken their actions as an insult, and he would have been justified in his feelings, but he knew that wasn’t helpful. Joey could only imagine the pressure Shazad and Leanora were getting at home. He didn’t want to add to that. At the same time, he couldn’t just roll over and go along with their parents’ demands. He wanted to have a say in what happened to the magical items inside the theater too. He’d earned that.

  “Do you really need to keep going with your project?” Leanora asked Joey. “It didn’t work for Janelle and she’s seen magic.”

  “That doesn’t mean it can’t work,” Joey said. “Ledger DeMayne told me there’s no room left for magic in the world. He said people don’t believe like they used to because they can’t believe anymore. I don’t buy that. I believed. Redondo left us this place and everything in it for a reason. He brought us together for a reason. It wasn’t just so we could give it all away to other people.”

  “Other people?” Leanora repeated. “These aren’t strangers. You’re talking about our families.”

  “They’re strangers to me,” Joey said. “What about us? What are we going to do? I may not know how to use magic to change the world, but I have a good idea. That’s a start.”

  “Ideas are easy,” Leanora said. “It’s the execution that makes them matter. Redondo told us that.”

  “He also told us there’s magic to be found in figuring things out,” Joey countered. “The magic gets mixed in during the process. Why don’t you guys help me and Janelle? If we all worked together, we could do this.”

  “We’re not the problem,” Shazad said. “The problem is, like it or not, DeMayne’s right. There isn’t enough magic left in the world to get those machines of yours working for everybody. Enchanted items like the mask… they don’t hold their power indefinitely. They were infused with magic long ago, but it’s not an infinite supply. That mask in your bag is going to run out of energy one day. What do you do then? It’s not like you can swap in a replacement like a new set of batteries. You’d just be trading one energy crisis for another.”

  Joey said nothing. He had no answer for that.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Shazad continued. “People don’t believe in magic anymore. Modern life is too scientific, too data-heavy and analytical for that.”

  “But we can change that,” Leanora said. “We can change people’s minds, one audience at a time.”

  “That would take forever,” Shazad complained. “And better magicians than us—Redondo and Houdini—have tried that already. They got taken out by the Invisible Hand before they could make any difference in the world. How are we supposed to protect ourselves from the same fate?”

  “Together,” Leanora said. “What’s the alternative? If we went with your plan and shipped everything off to Jorako, what’s left for us? What would we do with ourselves?”

  “We could go looking for the wand,” Shazad suggested. Shazad leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Maybe I’d feel different about all this if we still had it, but we don’t. You’re forgetting that.”

  Joey felt himself shrink an inch. It always came back to this. Sacrificing Houdini’s wand had been his rash decision and he still regretted it. He wished he had been able to think of some other way to get rid of Grayson Manchester.

  “I’m not trying to make you feel bad, Joey,” Shazad said. “The Invisible Hand doesn’t have the wand either. That’s a good thing. But if what DeMayne told you is true, it’s still out there somewhere. We should focus our efforts on finding it before they do.”

  Joey had a hard time arguing with that. He didn’t trust Ledger DeMayne to tell him the correct time of day, but he had believed him when he’d said Houdini’s wand was still up for grabs. What he didn’t know was where to start looking for it. “Find it how?” Joey asked. “What are we supposed to do? Ask Janelle to make us another black hole and dive in after it?”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Shazad said. “There’s magic to be found in figuring things out,” he added, reviving Redondo’s words in service of his own argument.

  Joey let out a sigh. He went back to shuffling his cards, feeling thwarted. A quest to
recover Houdini’s missing wand was not the cause he had hoped to rally his friends around. As much as he knew the wand was important and regretted its loss, he was also relieved to be absolved of the responsibility that had come with it. Torn by complex and contradictory emotions, Joey didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling any more than he knew how to help his friends find common ground. He thought his compromise solution would satisfy everybody, but they were still at an impasse, and they were drifting farther apart.

  “Let’s set the wand aside for now,” Shazad said. “Before we even think about going after it, we need to defend what we have here. We have to protect this house and the magic items we were entrusted with. That’s paramount. I’ve been through everything Redondo left us. The thought of losing even one of these items is unacceptable. I vote we take everything to Jorako. No strings attached.”

  “You want to vote now?” Leanora asked. “We haven’t made any progress. It’s just going to be another stalemate.”

  “How else are we supposed to settle this?” Shazad asked.

  Joey grimaced, mixing up his cards. That was the million-dollar question. He wished Redondo were there to tell them what to do, but he was gone. It was just the three of them in the theater… or was it?