Suddenly the music of the festival screeched to a raucous halt. Many of those around them gasped. Mrs. Kraus even screamed, her hands flying up to cover her mouth.

“Did you see that?” someone whispered in the crowds.

“He didn’t touch them,” Mrs. Kraus moaned, now fanning herself.

“It looked like magic,” a person behind her called.

Soon every pair of eyes in Dullshire turned to Barclay in a communal, suspicious glare.

Barclay’s face flushed as he desperately tried to come up with a lie. But he couldn’t. His throat seized up, and he backed away, scared of his secret, scared worse of these powers he couldn’t control.

“I didn’t…,” he managed hoarsely. “I didn’t mean…”

The winds from earlier picked up again, gusting alongside the fearful swooping of his stomach, making the fallen streamers and stalks of hay swirl around Barclay’s feet.

“No,” Barclay whispered, trying to make it stop. But the magic was wild, and it didn’t listen to him.

The baker, a burly man with dark brown skin and a flour-coated apron, stepped forward and tightly grasped Barclay’s shoulder. Barclay sprung backward from the pain of his wound—and the fear of revealing his Mark.

The winds reacted, growing stronger until they formed a vortex, and Barclay stood scarecrow-still at the center. Many around him screamed. Some even raced away. The banners with the flags of Humdrum and Diddlystadt were torn down. Loose potatoes and fallen apple chips soared in the air. Mr. Jager shrieked as his impressive, curly wig was ripped from his head and launched into the sky like a tawny owl.

If that had not all been terrible enough, there was a loud, mechanical groan. Barclay whipped around, squinting through the dusty, high-speed winds, and watched in horror as the already crooked face of Dullshire’s clock toppled off the tower and fell to the ground with a sickening crack! The wooden disk splintered in two.

Only then did the winds die down, exposing the ruins of the town’s festival square and Barclay at its center. He crouched, his arms braced over his head, and he trembled all over.

Marco was the first to move. He launched himself forward, grabbed a fistful of Barclay’s coat, and yanked the smaller boy to his feet. “I caught him!” Marco announced proudly.

“Don’t touch him!” Falk called, appearing behind them. He looked a mess—blood smeared all over his nose and chin. “He’s dangerous!”

Falk and his cronies had barely regarded Barclay as more than an ant before, but now Marco let go of Barclay as though he’d been burned.

“Boys, what is going on?” Mr. Jager asked, aghast, his bald head gleaming in the afternoon sun. His gaze roamed over Falk’s broken nose, over the baker’s now tattered apron, then to Barclay, whose hair was tangled, his skin smattered with dirt, his clothes covered in hay. Lastly, he looked to the clocktower, even more broken than when Gravaldor had attacked.

“Barclay is a Lore Keeper, sir!” Falk announced.

“What do you have to say for yourself, Barclay?” Mr. Jager asked him.