Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order) by Kristin Bailey

next piece.
    It was a pattern of careful mind traps. Our movements became a dance, holding the shifting panels of the wall as we slid them around, shifting what was before us, turning something solid into something mutable. It was the sort of task that lit a fire in my mind, a challenge of wit. With patience and observation we defeated every trap, and the puzzle unfolded in our hands.
    Dear God, I loved being an Amusementist.
    Finally we slid a flat square of a panel over to reveal a hidden latch.
    Peter opened the latch, and together we pushed the entire wall of panels to the left.
    Will lifted one of the lamps and carried it through the narrow opening.
    I followed him into a third room, expecting a cluttered study with mountains of papers lying around, but the room was stark and nearly empty. A single machine took up the majority of the center of the room. A large cut crystal had been set within a framework of smaller crystals and gears. It reminded me of the center framework of Rathford’s infamous time machine.
    Around the walls, nothing. No bookshelves, no desks with letters, no indication of any correspondence of any kind that would lead us in the right direction. The only furniture at all was a small table in the corner with a rack filled with dozens of crystal tubes.
    “This is useless,” I muttered, prepared to go back to the main room of the workshop. I’d turn everything in it over until I found what I was looking for. “Come on. Let’s search the other room.”
    “Are you daft? Look at this thing!” Peter exclaimed, standing in front of the massive structure. “It’s glorious. I wonder what it does.” He held his arms out, then leaned over, closely scrutinizing the various lenses in the framework.
    “Who cares what it does? It isn’t what we’re looking for, and our time is limited.” I couldn’t hide my exasperation, but Peter ignored it completely. “Will? Are you coming with me?” I asked, but even as I said it, I turned to see him twisting his back and neck for a better view of the innards of the machine.
    “What was that?” he said, but didn’t bother to extract himself from his contorted position. “Fascinating. There’s a very powerful lantern at the heart of this. I wonder how the light from it would project through these lenses.”
    “Let’s light it and find out,” Peter proclaimed, grabbing the candle. “Is there oil?”
    “Will you two stop this at once?” I shouted. “We don’t have time to tinker with this nonsense. We have to find a letter. You can play with this contraption to your heart’s content tomorrow.”
    Will grasped a lever. “This is the winding mechanism here. I don’t see a lock.” He pumped the lever several times.Then Peter reached up and touched a flame to the core of the machine.
    It began to hum and whirr. A large gear at the base spun as a wispy smoke emerged, filling the room with a sweet-smelling white mist.
    “What did you two do?” We were going to burn down the entire carriage house, with us in it.
    The flame at the center of the machine grew hot, then turned to bright white light as it flared through the various lenses in a web of bright beams.
    I gasped in awe and horror as the ghostly image of Rathford appeared fully formed in front of the machine. He looked so young and haunting as he turned directly to me and smiled. He reached out. Then a voice came from the machine, distant and tinny but distinctly his own and matching the movement of his translucent lips.
    “My dear, it’s so wonderful to see you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    A SEARING LIGHT BLINDED ME for a moment. I could feel the heat of it on my face, and I instinctively ducked and turned my back to the machine. Rubbing my eyes, I blinked through the flashes of color floating through my vision. As my sight returned, I nearly screamed in my shock and horror as I watched a very real ghost walk toward me.
    She was the perfect likeness of the portrait that hung in Rathford’s study.