The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)(32)

“I’ll put this somewhere safe,” whispered Alex, checking the surrounding area before shoving the pink book beneath the main cushion of the green armchair. It made the center rise up in a wonky fashion, but Alex pushed the book farther back until it rested in the gap where the back of the chair met the base, covering any remaining strangeness in the fabric with the smaller cushions.

“Shall we try tomorrow?” asked Natalie.

Alex nodded. “Tomorrow at lunchtime. See if Jari wants to come this time,” he said, sighing as they made their way quickly out of the library.

Jari had proven difficult to pin down after Alex’s revelation in the cellar about the havens. Though Alex had tried to speak with him, feeling he ought to attempt to explain himself better on the matter of keeping the note to himself, he was met with short replies and a suspicious look that Alex couldn’t quite work out. In lessons, though Jari hadn’t gone so far as to move away from Alex, the blond-haired boy barely made conversation, though Alex tried relentlessly. It stung Alex to see his friend become so distant over so small a thing as a forgotten scrap of information.

Even Natalie had attempted to get Jari to come to the library, but he had flat out refused, claiming he had other work to do, passing Alex that curious expression as he went in the opposite direction. Returning to the dormitory, Alex guessed Jari would be pretending to sleep, not realizing the lack of snoring betrayed him every time. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve such cold treatment from his friend, but how could he find out if Jari wasn’t willing to talk about it?

“Tomorrow at lunchtime,” agreed Natalie, and they parted ways.



Sitting out on the crisp grass, his crossed legs flattening the dry blades of faded green, Alex looked grimly up at the high wall, which now surrounded every part of the manor gardens. He was still getting used to the absence of the gate, which to him had been the central feature of the manor’s grounds for so long.

He sat in the shade of the wall so as not to be seen, and because it was an unusually balmy day. The sun shone brightly down on the desolate gray of the gardens, warming his face as he closed his eyes against it.

Alex had the pink book open in his lap, a musty scent rising from the pages as the mildew dried out in the sunlight. He had pinched the book from its hiding spot in the library earlier that day. Natalie was setting up nearby, awaiting Alex’s instruction from the manual. He had decided they should try teleporting from one place to another, keeping it small to begin with. The title said “Simple Teleportation,” but Alex wasn’t sure such a thing existed.

“It says to focus on the place you want to teleport to. Using your magic, you need to create a shield both around yourself and within yourself, and compress that magic,” he explained to Natalie. “Once it’s compressed, you should have morphed into a ball of energy. Move that ball of magic from where you are to where you want to be, and then decompress it back to your full form.” It sounded a lot like gibberish as he spoke the words aloud. More than that, it sounded potentially dangerous. “Does that make any sense to you?” he asked.

“Not much,” admitted Natalie. A sheen of golden energy rippled through her body and lay slickly against her as if it were a second skin, her whole self glowing. Alex watched, focusing on Natalie’s steady glow, ready to step in with his anti-magic if something went wrong. She radiated light, the image an ethereal one, but she didn’t seem to be going anywhere or turning into the proposed ball of light.

A few moments passed before Alex realized something was wrong.

“Are you all right?” he asked, kneeling.

“Yes, it’s just not working,” said Natalie, her face scrunched up in concentration.

“In what way?” he pressed.

“I keep trying to draw my magic upward, but I cannot. I keep focusing on the stairs, willing myself to move, but… it is like something is pressing back against me,” she explained, the golden sheen fading from her skin as she ceased her efforts.

“What does it feel like?” asked Alex. He skimmed through the manual to see if it said anything about environmental resistance.

“It burns,” she muttered.

“It burns?”

“Yes, it is hard to explain,” she said quietly.

“How about some flight?” encouraged Alex. He flipped to another section of the book he thought they might try.

Scanning the list, he eliminated the travel techniques that required any equipment they didn’t have, such as a standard-issue cape, a pair of griffon’s wings, the scales of a dragon, or the tail feather of a ‘Thunderbird,’ to name a few. That left only a handful that needed solely magic, but enough for Alex to be hopeful of success. He wondered if that was how the book had slipped past the Head’s notice: the students had no access to any of the things required for most of the travel methods.

“Is it not simply like in the library?” Natalie frowned, reminding Alex of the graceful leaps from the towers that everybody except him seemed able to do.

He shook his head. “No, I think that’s more like jumping and falling. This is a bit more of a long-distance thing,” he explained, reading quickly through the “Introduction to Flying” section. “Okay, so you need to force your magic into your feet, while holding streams of magic in your hands, sort of like a marionette puppet. Turn the streams in your hands with your index and middle finger in opposite circles, until you create a cushion of air beneath your feet. Then raise your thumb with the other fingers and control up and down by pinching your two fingers against your thumb,” he rambled, holding up the diagrams to Natalie so she might see better.