Free The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2) by Ben Rovik

my hunch is that the squawk box will hit its limits on speed long before the Invocation ceases to be, you know, magical.”
    “That’s what you started over here,” Dame Miri said, walking back towards Lundin’s worktable.  The boxy shell of a second melodimax was swung open like a carcass, with its clockwork guts arrayed on squares of cloth on the floor and table.  The inner working of the wooden mouthpiece, with its sculpted horse-sized teeth and leather tongue, were especially disturbing to see spread out in the cheery sunlight.  She ran her fingertips along the edge of the fluted trumpet bell Lundin had been inspecting before.  “You’re building a stronger model.”
    He nodded.  “We’re calling it the ‘spell box.’  Squawk box didn’t sound majestic enough anymore.”
    Dame Miri’s eyes flicked purposefully from part to part on the worktable.  She frowned at the sight of a conical hat, in dark blue fabric emblazoned with silver stars and moons, lying among the other pieces.  She touched it with her bandaged fingertips, and looked up at Lundin.  “What’s this for?  Insulation?”
    “Actually,” Martext said quietly, “it’s for style.”
    “…Style.”
    Lundin grinned.  “Mister Goolsby saw a woodblock print of a wizard in the Old Harutian workbook.  Great big beard, knotted wooden quarterstaff, cone-shaped hat; this fantastic archaic costume.  So, he decided our new spell box needed a hat to, sort of, complete the wizardly look.”
    “I’m detail-oriented,” Martext said, his face expressionless.
    “How wonderful, Mister Goolsby,” she said, her face glowing with good humor.  “I can see the hat fitting right here, next to the trumpet.  Where are you going to put the beard, though?”
    “We’re still sketching that out.”
    “Well, I can tell this spell box is going to be a triumph, inside and out.  When we’re done, people will be casting spells quick as you can snap your fingers,” she said.
    “Lots of work to do before that,” Lundin said, sighing.  “Take it, Martext.”
    Martext took off his glasses, polishing them with a shiny silver cloth as he spoke.  “Our methods may cast spells ten times faster than conventional wizardry, but preparation is still a stumbling block.  The spell box only speaks what’s on the disks we feed it, while your average wizard has the books and the know-how to cast a spell on demand, on any subject, for any purpose.  We can’t even attempt a new spell until we deduce the proper phrases from our very limited Mabinanto library, translate it from Mabinanto to Old Harutian, and punch, clean, and troubleshoot eighteen-plus pairs of disks.”
    “Really?” asked Willl with three L’s, crestfallen.
    “Really, Willl,” Lundin confirmed.  “I don’t want to tell you how many work-hours Samanthi and I put into punching the disks for the friendship spell over here; the only one in our repertory.”  Lundin tapped on a padded cylinder on the work table, more than a quarter-meter wide and nearly one high.  A muffled clang rang out as the magical disks inside bumped against each other.  “At our current level of expertise, if Lucy Q. Delian came to us asking for a blessing for her farm work, it’d take us an entire sleepless day to make the disks we’d need.”
    “But at least once you have the disks, you can use them again,” Dame Miri countered.  “The next farmer who asks for a blessing just has to wait an hour for the spell to cast.”
    “That’s the theory,” Lundin said, rapping his knuckle on the work table.
    “Is there a drop-off in quality if you use a spell written for one occasion and try to apply it to another?”  Martext asked in his low, calm voice.
    Well, the same spell that worked on Sir Kelley worked on Ouste , was Lundin’s first response.  But he swallowed that thought and shrugged instead.  “We just need more data, which means casting more spells and taking good notes.  As for the same spell