It was a plan, for certain, but strange and complicated. It appeared to depict a three-dimensional building, in great architectural detail, but the building (if that’s what it was) was only shown as an interior and appeared to be floating on the paper. Moving. Changing before Isaac’s eyes.

He blinked. The image did change. He picked up the scroll and held it by one side.

Yes, exactly. A wall—if it was a wall—shifted here. A corridor moved there. Each move, each change was slight and slow but steady. The image was not fixed on the paper. It moved by some strange magic. The low hum whispered in his brain.

And the words were threaded in and around the diagram, strung through the structure like a poem, weaving in and out of the moving parts like seaweed in a shallow ocean or a vine waving in a breeze.

The words made no sense whatsoever. He turned the paper this way and that but couldn’t make it out at all.

He needed help. And he’d come to the right place to find it, hadn’t he? His parents had sent him to Rookskill, where magic wasn’t just present, it was taught and studied by people who knew what they were about. Magic was being used by kids his own age.

Well, he thought, with a wry twist of his lips, don’t tell that to Ralph Baines, who doesn’t believe in magic.

And then Isaac wished, with a sharp pang, that he could thank his parents. Thank you for sending me where I can find answers. Thank you for believing in me.

Plus, he thought, time travel is pretty amazing.

Yes, he’d made the mistake of using the watch once when he didn’t understand it. And he’d made the mistake of interacting with the past. But he had to keep trying. He took a deep breath.

Right.

Isaac tucked everything—scroll and casket with the watch back inside—into his pack, hoisted the pack over his shoulder, and made his way downstairs to the small library.

*   *   *

Amelie was right where he’d left her and it occurred to him that, maybe, for her, he’d only been gone a short time, while for him it had been more than an hour. She’d barely moved, the light in the room was just as when he’d left, and the clock on the mantel confirmed this idea. Even Willow was still hovering up near the ceiling. Interesting, Isaac thought.

“I need your help,” Isaac began.

She looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Of course. What is it?”

He began to tick off his thoughts on his fingers. “My parents sent me here because I have some kind of magical gift but I don’t know what it is, so that makes one. Two, they have given me a time machine—”

“A what?” Ame interrupted, her eyes wide.

“Ooh,” Willow said. “What fun!”