“I wish I could say the same, Natalie.”
“Oh,” Natalie said, her voice quavering. “You worry too much.”
And with a click of the latch, she was gone.
Chapter 28
Natalie quickly became absorbed in Nobilitum Mortem, working relentlessly, though not tirelessly. She and Alex moved from their customary table at the library to one that was more private, located in a small reading nook in the darkest corner they could find, where the only illumination came from flickering candles. By their light, Natalie looked half dead, her skin shimmering with sweat, her paling hands flipping page after page, occasionally cross-checking a word against a Latin dictionary she had managed to dig up from somewhere.
Her illness, to Alex’s consternation, had not gotten better. While Natalie had begun to act more or less like herself again, it was clear that she was pushing her health in order to do so. She went to bed earlier, and lasted for less and less time during their study sessions before being too exhausted to work. When Alex pressed her on how she was feeling, she insisted she was fine and wanted to keep working. He knew she was as motivated to figure out the school’s secrets as he was, but he also knew she was pushing herself too hard.
Bent over the book, Natalie frowned, looking between it and her dictionary.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.
“This must be a magical word,” she muttered. “It isn’t in the dictionary, and I do not know it.”
“What’s the context?”
Natalie read the sentence in Latin, which was gibberish to Alex, then read it in English. “The ‘inmagus’ are immune to the gaze of specters, and the magic of the dead cannot touch them.” She let out a frustrated breath, brushing a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “Sounds useful, if we knew what it was.”
Alex paused.
“I think I know the word you’re looking for,” he said.
Natalie looked up, her eyes reflecting the candlelight. “What is it?”
Spellbreaker, Alex thought with a thrill of excitement, but didn’t say anything. He wanted to confirm his suspicions and find evidence to support them before making an announcement. But this could be huge.
Alex rose to his feet, and Natalie let out a quizzical murmur as he began to walk away.
“I just need to check something,” he said, turning to her and walking backwards a couple paces. “Why don’t you take a break? I’ll be back in a moment.”
His feet clattered against the metal grate of the steps as he ascended one of the library’s three towers, row after row of books passing him on one side. Looking down through the holes in the steps, he could see the dizzying drop of at least a hundred feet down to the library floor. He watched a student vault the waist-high handrail and sail gracefully through the air, landing lightly with a puff of golden magic. Alex swallowed and gripped the railing more tightly, imagining himself falling heavily through the air and landing with a hideous thud. He did not have the option the magical students did. One misstep could send him to an unfortunate fate up here. He moved on, his steps careful.
The paper lanterns hanging from the web of threads linking the three towers cast a cozy multicolored glow over the spines of the books as Alex perused them. He was in a section of the tower dedicated to the histories of old bloodlines, but he wasn’t sure he would find what he was looking for. He stared at the adjacent tower, wondering if perhaps that would have been the right place to begin. He had seen students jump from one to the other on magically enhanced legs, but for him to get there, it would require going all the way down, then all the way back up. That would be both tiring and time-consuming, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to check that second tower.
Returning to his search, Alex ran a finger over book after book detailing the lives of ancient magical families. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, as the Spellbreakers did not merit their own category, and the book he remembered had mentioned them only in passing. Did he expect to find “Spellbreakers” just written on the side, plain as day? They weren’t exactly well-known, or even well-regarded.
He thought of the bodies of the people Finder had mentioned, their bones probably still lying there under the ice out in the lake, and swallowed.
On a whim, he changed tact. While he didn’t know the family names required to find a Spellbreaker history directly, he could at least look up the history of those who had slaughtered them. Finder’s true name was Malachi Grey; that was a sensible starting place. He began to hunt, and within a few minutes had victoriously located a series of books, each labeled “Grey”.
It took a few more minutes of searching to find the correct book, and even then he found only a reference. Alex sat on the walkway, ignoring the looks he got from other students who had to turn sideways to edge past him, and read the passage.
Lord Evan Grey was the fifth of his line, and continued his predecessors’ hunt with zeal. He gained recognition and infamy for his enthusiastic continuation of tradition of slaying those with anti-magical blood and disposing of their bodies in his lake. While many viewed the tradition as barbaric, he claimed it to be the only way to protect his people from their natural enemies.
He became increasingly reclusive throughout his rule, and few details remain concerning the events at Spellshadow Manor during his residence there. It is certain, however, that he killed several known Spellbreakers, including Loran Steele and Ellen Forte. He married Loraine Brune of Stillwater House, and she bore him a single son, Malachi.
Alex flipped through the pages, hungry for more, but that was it. There was nothing else on the family; it was like they had simply stopped existing after that. However, he’d learned from Finder that sometime later, young Malachi had taken up his father’s mantle. Later still, the Head had come to Spellshadow, and its lord had apparently offered his body and soul, his eternal servitude, to the man’s twisted designs.
“Why?” Alex muttered to himself, frowning. What could have motivated Malachi to sacrifice himself like that? He was missing something. Something big.
All the same, he had found what he was searching for. Another quick search yielded a tidy stack of books, and he tromped back down the stairs to where Natalie was studying away in her corner. She looked up as he dropped his literary heap on the table, her face breaking into a weary smile.
“You have found many books, I see,” she all but whispered, her voice cracking.
“Yep,” Alex declared with satisfaction. “But hang on, there’s still some reading I have to do.”
He opened the first book. It contained details of the life of Ellen Forte, a woman described as having a wicked demeanor and a savage temper, who had been involved in “anti-magical resistance”. It only took a few pages before he found the word he was looking for.
Spellbreaker.
After that, it was easy to find more. Spellbreaker blood, he learned, was a rare genetic strand that gave a person the inherent ability to resist the negative effects of magic. The body, he learned, somehow transmuted the magic into cold, leaving the user frigid under prolonged exposure.
I bet you’ve been so cold, Finder had said.
He continued to read, his eyes growing wider, his hands toying with the tips of the pages in his haste to dig through what was in front of him. An answer. A real, complete answer.
“Natalie,” Alex said, his voice fairly quivering.
She looked up, her movement slow. “Yes?”
Alex reached out, putting his hand palm up on the table.
“Burn me,” he said.
Natalie gave him a worried, uncertain look. “Alex?”
“Just try it, please? If I’m right, it won’t hurt me. Go on.”
Natalie appeared too tired to argue, though she looked extremely disconcerted. She flexed her power, managing to form a ball of flame. Alex frowned at the deep red veins that lined it—and the way her hand shook at the effort.
He put his worries aside the instant she bounced the little ball down into his hand. Col
d burst from the spot it had hit, a sharp, numbing pop that made him wince and grit his teeth. But the pain was worth it. He watched triumphantly as little whirls of frost rose around the spot, feeling the fire pushing against him, hot and cruel, before melting away.
Natalie stared at where a little piece of ice lay in the center of Alex’s palm. She looked between him and it, then back to him, her face dumbfounded.
“Um,” she said eventually. “I know I’m sick, but that is weird, yes?”
Alex grinned, tipping his hand and letting the little piece of glassy ice shatter against the table.
It was more than weird.
It was the best kind of weird possible.
For that afternoon, Natalie gave up on necromancy. After Alex explained his Spellbreaker theory, the two of them set about testing his powers. In her weakened state, Natalie wasn’t able to push Alex’s limits very far. She did, however, almost give him a case of frostbite from all the ice that was coating his arm by the time they took a break—it seemed that being able to resist magic and being able to resist cold were two very separate things.
By the evening, however, they had fallen back into their usual pattern. Natalie was curled up with her book propped against her knees, and Alex was reading an anthology of Spellbreaker histories while growing increasingly worried. It seemed that if there was one thing the Head would be less happy to find in his school than a non-magical person, it was a Spellbreaker. Their supposed extinction had been no accident: they had been hunted until none remained.
Or at least, that was how it seemed. That was the strange thing about every book that Alex read: past a certain point, they all cut off. Huge sections of books were filled with empty pages, as unmarked as though all the words had been sucked straight off of them.
“History? That’s what you do with your spare time?”
Alex nearly toppled out of his chair as Jari appeared at his shoulder. Natalie had slammed the cover of her book shut with wide eyes, staring at where their friend seemed to have appeared out of thin air.
“At least you have the good sense to look guilty about it,” Jari continued.
“What do you want?” Alex asked, annoyed at the rude interruption.
“You.”
“Do you need me to leave?” Natalie asked feebly from her corner.
Jari laughed, but his heart wasn’t in it. “I was just hoping…you know.”
Alex had some idea, and closed his book immediately.
“Aamir?”
Jari nodded.
Aamir had been growing even bolder in his disregard for their lessons of late, going as far as to stop showing up to class. Their professors had begun to shoot dark looks toward his empty chair, and there was something in their eyes that went well beyond the disappointment of a disrespected teacher.
“I know he thinks class is pointless,” Jari said, “but he’s standing out. Can you come talk to him with me?”
Alex looked over at Natalie, who waved a hand.
“Go,” she said with a cough.
Alex gathered his books, depositing them into his shoulder bag before leaving the library with Jari.
Life at Spellshadow had changed, Alex realized as they walked. Jari no longer continued his odd quirk of leading him by the hand, but walked alongside him. It was strange, in a way. He felt settled in Spellshadow in ways that he never had before. It was easy to fall into the patterns of this place, the consistent classes and the easygoing teachers, and forget the dangers. Perhaps that was the point.
Jari led Alex out of the door into the gardens and along the scattered remains of a path, snow and gravel crunching under their feet. Before long, they came to a little bench by the great ivy-shrouded wall.
Aamir was sitting there, staring down into a steaming mug in his hands. He was wearing navy blue gloves and a puffy coat that for all its bulk somehow made him look smaller. His cheeks were gaunt, his eyes shadowed from lack of sleep. He hadn’t even bothered to sweep the snow away from where he sat.
He looked up as Alex and Jari drew closer, and nodded in his solemn way.
“Hello,” he said. “I suppose you are here to berate me again?”
“No,” Alex began, shaking his head.
But Jari, who did seem to want to berate Aamir, launched ahead.
“You have to start coming to class again,” he said.
“Why?”
“For appearances.”
Anger flashed in Aamir’s eyes, and he rose swiftly to his feet.
“I’m sick of appearances,” he said, and his normal calm melted along with the snow around his feet as a ripple of heat swirled off him. Alex took a step away from the raw fury in the boy’s eyes. “I’m sick of smiling and playing along. We can’t all just go willingly to our graves, you know.”
“There’s a difference between preparing for the worst and actively calling it down on yourself,” Jari retorted, and now there was heat in his voice as well. Crackles of angry electricity danced over his hands, his hair lighting up with sparks.
“Oh, is there?” said Aamir. “Because it seems like I can’t do anything that’s mellow enough for you. You want me to go to class, do my projects, and graduate like a good boy, isn’t that right?”
“You know I—”
“You just want me to ride this out and hope for the best!” Aamir yelled, taking a step forward. “You don’t care about what happens to us! You don’t care about me! All you care about is that everybody is fine and happy and fits into your tiny vision of ‘okay’!”
Jari stood very still, but the magical electricity that surrounded him seemed to glow with rage. It flickered, but he said nothing at all.
Aamir, emboldened by Jari’s lack of response, continued.
“Have you ever stopped to wonder how it feels for someone like me? Someone looking at that date coming closer and closer?” he cried. “It’s January. I’m set to graduate in May.”
And then Alex saw it. That little date next to so, so many names.
May 7th.
He stood stunned as he realized the implications. Aamir was right—the students who had graduated were not likely off making their way in the world. And what had been written next to Blaine’s name? Not matured enough. A chill unrelated to the snow ran through him.
Not matured enough for what?
Alex snapped out of his reverie as Jari let out a roar of fury and punched his hand forward, toward Aamir, whose mouth was opening to continue his tirade. While the physical blow fell short of the mark, a bolt of electricity shot from his knuckles and caught Aamir’s cheek, sending the boy spinning to the ground. Aamir had barely hit the snow before he was up again, his own hand out, sending a wave of fire tearing through the air toward Jari. The smaller boy ripped it in half with fingers alight with energy.
“Stop it!” shouted Alex, alarmed, but his roommates ignored him.
“You dare tell me who I care about?” Jari said, his voice a frozen ruin of its usual cheer. “You dare tell me what I worry about?”
Jari batted aside another flame, then lashed out with a foot, sending a ripple of burning light through the air. Aamir stumbled back, but seemed to repel the blow, this time with sheer magical force. He snarled, stepping toward Jari, then heaving his fist upward. Mirroring the motion, the earth under Jari’s feet snapped upward, smashing into the boy’s jaw. Jari was pitched into the air and landed heavily in the snow with a cry of pain.
“Jari! Aamir, stop!” Alex tried again, now stepping toward Jari. “You hurt him!”
“Then show me!” Aamir bellowed, as though Alex had not spoken. “Show me you care! Because honestly, I cannot see it. You don’t try to support me. You merely hold me back.”
Jari rose shakily to his feet, wiping a line of blood from his mouth, and Alex froze before he reached him, apprehensive, looking up as the air shifted. The sky overhead darkened to an angry gray, and the wind grew sharp and fierce all around them, heavy with the metallic scent of a storm. In response, flames burst int
o life around Aamir’s arms and legs, sending a spiraling column of orange tapers skywards, the heat blistering even at a distance. Alex watched the two glaring at one another.
“Oh no,” he whispered.
They lunged at one another, and Alex moved without thinking.
Hurling himself between them, he spread his arms, one toward each of his oncoming friends, putting one hand into the storm, the other into the flames.
The cold took him at once, freezing the spit in his mouth, sending him toppling with a gasp into the snow, which felt warm by comparison. Everything grew violently frigid, and he spasmed, crying out, coughing up ice and snow and rolling uncontrollably back and forth.
If he’d been able to, Alex almost might have laughed. He could wield an incredible force to combat these magical energies, yet it led to him lying helpless in the snow, weakened and frozen half to death by his own legendary power.
His vision blurry with pain, he heard frantic cries above him. Jari and Aamir had extinguished their magic in an instant, and both boys were crouching down over him.
“Damn it,” Jari was saying. “He’s so cold. Why is he so cold?”
“Move over,” said Aamir. “I can warm him up.”
“The hell you can. You did this.”
“We did this.”
A silence. Alex felt warmth spreading over him as someone blessedly conjured up a heat source and began to draw it over his skin. His friends’ murmuring voices continued to sound out above him as he shivered.
“Why is he so cold?” Aamir muttered.
“I was just saying that.”
“It’s just…he wasn’t struck with ice. The only thing that would cause this is…”
More silence. Alex managed to open his frost-covered eye-lids. Aamir was staring at him, his hand emitting a warm light, Jari looking between the two of them.
“What?” Jari said.
Alex looked imploringly at Aamir, and flinched inwardly when he saw the understanding in the other boy’s eyes. While Aamir didn’t stop warming the ice away from Alex’s skin, Alex recognized that the look in his eyes might be fear.