The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)(33)

This one seemed a little easier, Alex thought, as he watched her begin to move her fingers in the correct motions, her feet glowing amber as rippling streams of golden energy lifted from her toes to her hands. Slowly, she lifted from the ground, floating a short distance above it. Alex flashed her a thumbs-up as she glanced over to him, an anxious smile playing on her face. As she moved her three fingers into the right position, she pinched them together slowly.

Nothing happened, the cushion of air holding her just above the singed grass of the lawn. Alex pointed upward with his fingers, gesturing what she should do. Natalie nodded, swiftly moving her fingers apart, breaking the circle of the pinch. The effect was immediate as she soared into the air at hurtling speed. Alex’s heart was in his mouth as he watched her shoot upward, almost as high as the roof of the manor. She was doing well, moving smoothly, seemingly in control.

Then, in a split second, everything went wrong. Natalie smacked hard into a barrier, invisible to the eye, running parallel from the tallest spire of the manor house across the grounds. Her body crumpled against it, frozen for a moment, before she began to tumble from the sky, the golden aura around her feet falling away like glittering dust.

Alex jumped to his feet, focusing on the falling figure as he sent a stream of black and silver toward her, trying to snatch her out of the sky. But he knew his anti-magic wasn’t strong enough to catch and hold her, and he was unable to latch on to anything. Thinking quickly, he raced toward the point of her imminent impact, placing his palm down against the ground, squeezing his eyes closed as he formed a cushion beneath his hand. The familiar cold smothered his fingers, and he pushed the anti-magic higher and higher, inflating it.

Plummeting fast, Natalie collapsed into the deep drift of snow created by Alex’s hands, the soft substance breaking her fall. Rushing to her aid, Alex couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder to make sure nobody had seen the act. The grounds were empty, save for a few spiny bundles of tumbleweed that bounced lightly along the barren earth.

“Natalie! Natalie, are you okay?” He dug through the snow to get to her, though it was melting quickly in the sunlight.

“Ow.” She winced, sitting up, showing surprise at the sight of the snow around her. She looked to Alex. “This was you?”

He nodded. “I had to improvise.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, holding a hand to the back of her neck.

“Are you okay?” asked Alex, watching his friend as she checked her limbs for broken bones.

“I think so. A few bruises.” She smiled feebly, though her sudden, sharp intake of breath when Alex reached out to help her up told him that she was putting on a brave face.

Indeed, a purple welt was coming up beneath the apple of her cheek, and her upper lip was cut, fresh blood welling to the surface as Alex got her to her feet, the snow now a pool of water soaking into the thirsty dirt.

“Anything broken?” he asked.

Natalie brushed off the damp seat of her pants. “I do not think so.”

“That was lucky,” said Alex, a worried look in his eyes.

Natalie nodded. “A close call, no?”

“Very close.” Alex sighed. “I don’t think we should try this anymore.” He helped Natalie across the derelict gardens, back toward the manor. She was limping slightly and leaned heavily against Alex as he walked with her.

“Neither do I,” Natalie admitted, wincing as she lifted a hand to her cheek. “The manor’s magic is far stronger than I thought,” she added, looking up at the sky, squinting to try to see the invisible barrier she had smacked against. It explained why he’d never seen any birds within the manor walls.



After dropping Natalie safely outside Professor Lintz’s classroom for their next lesson, Alex ran back to the library with his contraband book in tow, feeling responsible for the way things had gone outside. He had been so intent on finding a way to travel from the manor that he had pushed away all acknowledgement of the risks, putting Natalie’s life in danger.

Alex raced up the ladders to the farthest tower and pounded across the levels, pausing at a gap in a shelf. He shoved the pink leather book into the empty slot. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the right place; it would eventually find its way back where it belonged.

As he made the slow climb back down, his gaze wandered to the sunlight beaming down on the lawn outside, glinting from the wall and glittering against the horizon where the real world lay. He wondered curiously if the travel techniques might be inverted with his anti-magical abilities so that he could twist the methods for his purposes. The gray ivy could prevent him from leaving, but he wasn’t convinced the invisible barrier could. He didn’t think anybody had thought in that much detail when designing the manor, of forging a barrier to keep Spellbreakers in. Then again, maybe they had. His people were the enemy after all.

The outside called to him, tempting him to try.

But what good would it do? Alex thought.

It would mean abandoning his friends and every student within these walls to save himself. The selfish notion left a bitter taste in Alex’s mouth, and yet it was undeniably enticing. It wasn’t as though he could fetch help, Alex realized; the manor was no place for non-magical people, and they wouldn’t even be able to get close to the school, should they plan to launch any sort of rescue mission. People might even lock him up if he started babbling about magical manors and wizards, thinking he’d lost his mind, wherever he’d been the past year.