Highwind’s Unseen Gears

The story

About Highwind’s Unseen Gears

For Hadwick of Oakhaven, a clumsy new blacksmith’s apprentice, the castle is a bewildering storm of impossible tasks, stern masters, and constant chaos. He’s just trying to survive his first week without causing a major incident. But amidst the clamor, he starts to notice the impossible: a jammed gate opens as if by magic, a missing tool appears just in time, and strange chalk marks materialize on stone walls, only to vanish moments later.

He soon discovers the truth: the real magic that holds Highwind together isn’t wielded by knights or nobles. It’s in the hands of the Apprentice Network, a clandestine society of young operatives who use a web of secret passages, coded signals, and carefully orchestrated “accidents” to keep the castle from collapsing under its own weight.

But the Network has a problem. A series of malicious disruptions threatens to sabotage a royal banquet and expose their secrets. As Hadwick is drawn into this shadow war, he realizes the greatest threat may not be a new enemy, but a traitor hiding in plain sight—a fellow apprentice using the Network’s own methods against it.

The boy who’s only ever caused accidents must now learn to create them on purpose.