The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)(37)

Desperately, he flicked through to the next page, only to find the same smattering of jumbled symbols, too small to be diagrams but not neatly placed enough to be sentences. He didn’t recognize the symbols as any language he knew, and, as he flipped through the rest of the notebook, he realized the whole thing was made up of these doodles; there was no other complete word within the book that he recognized, save for that first page with that infuriating name on it.

Alex knew Elias had given it to him for a reason. There was a purpose to everything Elias did, even if it took a while for that purpose to become clear. A chill shivered through Alex as he thought of the shadow-creature. He knew how Elias worked. These weren’t gifts with no strings attached. There was a price for every prize.





Chapter 14





With the new restrictions keeping a tight leash on the students, there was little sanctuary to be found within the walls of the manor. One of those fleeting moments of refuge was in the lessons of Professor Gaze, a curious woman of undetermined age, who moved swiftly despite her bony limbs and hunched back. Her slim, craggy face was framed by tendrils of curling silver locks that shot out wildly in places from beneath a moth-eaten beret of black wool.

Alex had not had Professor Gaze as a teacher for very long, but had taken an instant liking to the crooked old woman and her mischievous grin. She was an affable sort, with a cheerful laugh and a natural way with the students that bordered on the maternal. There was an undeniable, deep wisdom about her that drew people in—something in the strange quality of her eyes and her voice that commanded attention. During class, she would zip between the desks, robe swishing, and rush to the aid of whoever was struggling with a spell, crying out good-naturedly at the royal mess they had made of it.

Gaze’s classes and manner were unlike any of the other professors’, in that they lacked the undercurrent of anxiety. Alex never felt as if there were eyes on him, sizing him up for an imagined duel in the near future, nor did he feel pressure to achieve, which took the strain off Natalie somewhat. They could all relax a bit in her lessons. It was easy to warm to the old woman; her lessons were useful and to the point, never trying to trip anybody up, but they were also filled with laughter and jokes and stories of her youth.

Everyone, Alex included, would listen, enthralled, as she spoke of herself as a young wizard, struggling with spells and the nonsense she and her friends would get up to inside the manor walls. Once, she even spoke of a roasting summer day spent on a riverbank, splashing and swimming in the deepest parts until a current snatched at the legs of a friend, forcing Gaze to perform a daring rescue mission. After Gaze had hauled her friend safely onto the bank, they shared a bottle of cold ginger beer and ate cupcakes from a wicker picnic basket she had been given as a present, with red-spotted napkins and real silverware to eat with. It dawned on Alex that this particular story was from before; before Malachi Grey had come for her and torn her away from her childhood days spent on riverbanks with friends and bottles of ginger beer and red-spotted handkerchiefs. A sad expression had flashed across her wrinkled face as she recounted the tale, but she had shaken it off with a whispered, “Anyway, that was a lifetime ago.”

Alex wondered where her wizard friends were now. Gaze was far older than Esmerelda or Lintz or Renmark or Derhin, so it seemed unlikely any of those spoken-about pals from her manor stories were among the faculty. She must have lost them a long time ago, Alex realized with a pang of pity. Alex couldn’t understand how she remained so cheerful. Yet, other than those brief moments of wistful sadness, she was a bundle of humorous energy, always ready to tell them a new tale. In her classes, Alex found an escapism unlike any other to be found within the manor.

Professor Gaze had an innate sensitivity to the world around her, seemingly able to pick up on small undercurrents in the atmosphere. Whenever she was near, Alex could sense her observing him—not in an aggressive or intrusive way, but simply as if she could sense something was amiss in him and was trying to pinpoint it, like a puzzle in need of solving.

“How peculiar,” she muttered to herself one day as she passed so close to him her wrist almost brushed his shoulder.

“What is?” asked Alex.

“Are you quite well, child?” she asked.

He frowned. “I think so.”

“Are you cold? You seem cold,” she said. “I must offer you a hot beverage. Can I fetch you a hot beverage? I have a variety of exotic and flavorsome teas.” That puzzled expression played upon her lined features as she waited for him to accept.

“Oh, I’m honestly fine, Professor,” insisted Alex, recalling the chill in his bones. He’d endured it for so long now that his Spellbreaker body had somehow adapted to it, and he barely noticed it anymore.

“But you are cold. You seem cold,” repeated Gaze. “Please allow me to fetch you a tea. Something simple, perhaps. Peppermint?”

“Uh, okay,” he conceded, watching her as she rushed off to fix him a mug of peppermint tea. She knew he was cold. He couldn’t help but find that curious. He didn’t shiver anymore; it was more of a dull numbness in the pit of his stomach, never really coming up to the surface of his skin like it used to. But Gaze had sensed it in him.

He drank the peppermint tea, mulling over the thought, as Gaze rushed around, helping students with their magical tasks. The hot liquid heated him from the inside out, and he was glad of it as he drained the mug. He guessed he must have been colder than he’d realized, though the tea only gave him a momentary respite from the insistent chill.