Alex lifted his chin in greeting, gesturing to the rows of medical texts.
“Looking for something that might help Natalie.”
Ellabell smiled faintly. “You too?”
She walked over, pulling a book from the shelf next to him and opening it, adjusting her glasses with a prod as she skimmed the index. Alex watched her with interest.
“You’re here for Natalie?”
Ellabell nodded. “Whatever she has isn’t going away,” she said in a distant voice, her attention clearly on the book in her hands. “But she’s too bullheaded to deal with it on her own, so I figured maybe I could do something to help.”
Alex pulled a book of his own down, feeling reinvigorated. As Ellabell reached for another book, Alex said, “Tried that one already.”
Ellabell paused, glancing over at him, then nodded.
The two of them worked in silence for a time, occasionally comparing notes. Alex found the quiet studiousness of the girl to be soothing. There were no demands, no duels, no undead mice scrabbling at his chest. Just the two of them, and a silence that was not uncomfortable so much as it was natural, focused.
“You know,” Ellabell said as she turned a page, “I’m not convinced she’s sick at all.”
Alex glanced over. “She’s not faking it.”
Ellabell made a face. “I know that much,” she said. “I meant, I don’t know if what she has is natural.”
“How do you mean?”
With delicate ease, Ellabell flipped her book shut and swapped it for another, opening to the introduction and beginning to read. “Let it be understood that this text is meant to help with natural ailments of the flesh,” she read, “and not those magical afflictions that one arcanologist might inflict upon another. Those ailments of magic, or curses as they are colloquially known, do not fall under the purview of magical medicine and will not be addressed herein.” She shut the book again.
Alex considered that for a moment, his brow creasing. “You think someone cursed her? Who would do that?”
Ellabell shrugged. “Lots of people, I guess.”
“But why would they do that?” Alex asked, confused.
“Well, she’s a natural at magic,” Ellabell said. “She’s already surpassed most of the upperclassmen in control, and her projects are ambitious, to say the least. That makes her a natural target, unfortunately. Lots of the girls in the dorms are jealous of her. And she seems friendly enough, but she never really clicked with any of us. She’s always…well, hanging out with you.”
A sinking feeling entered Alex’s gut, and he swallowed. “I’m sure she doesn’t mean anything by it. And I know she likes all of you.”
Ellabell smiled. “Hey, I know she’s a good girl—we’re roommates, remember? She may not open up to me, but I can tell that none of the things she does are out of spite. Still, if you want to help her, I’m starting to think anti-magic would be the way to go.” She sighed. “Which, regrettably, we can’t use.”
Alex tried to contain his rising anticipation, casually composing his face into a series of neutral lines. “Aamir mentioned you researched it for a time.”
Ellabell nodded, sitting down with her back against the thin rail, the dizzying drop down to the library floor at her back.
“I most certainly did,” she said. “It was a bad couple of months when Jari Petra decided he was in love with me.”
Alex laughed. “He can be a bit much.”
“He filled my room with kittens.”
Alex paused. “When you say filled…” he began.
“I mean literally filled,” said Ellabell flatly. “I opened the door and was swamped by a deluge of mewling flesh and panicked claws.”
Alex burst out laughing, and Ellabell reddened, her glasses flashing. “It wasn’t funny!” she said, her hands balling into fists. “It took weeks to get the fur out of everything! I have scars!”
Alex waved a hand, trying to blink the tears of laughter from his eyes. “Sorry, it’s just…anyway. You were talking about anti-magic.”
Ellabell latched onto topic gratefully.
“Yes,” she said. “I was.” She drew herself up with a cocky smile that set her glasses askew on her face. “I might know more about it than anyone else in the school, as a matter of fact.”
Alex grinned at her. “You were that desperate?”
“Full of kittens,” she reminded him with a grimace.
They laughed.
“At any rate,” she went on, “from what I know, someone with Spellbreaker blood and a great deal of experience would be able to undo a curse. It would be difficult even for them, but possible.”
“And, um,” Alex said, “how would one go about something like that?”
Ellabell, engrossed in her topic, hardly seemed to notice the question. Her eyes danced as she began to speak.
“Spellbreakers,” she said, “are a lot like mages.”
Alex paused, abruptly aware of the cold gnawing at his insides as his blood instinctively fought off the manor’s magic.
“They are?”
Ellabell nodded. “They contain a pool of essence. It just isn’t controlled by the same methods that normal magic is—our gathering and controlling exercises wouldn’t work for a Spellbreaker. Apparently, they operate in an opposite fashion, and the essence they produce cannot conjure realities like ours can.” She smiled triumphantly. “What it can do, however, is undo what our magic produces.”
Alex paused, weighing his next question. “Then…how would they use that to undo a curse?”
Ellabell deflated, then spoke wistfully. “No idea. I wish I had a real Spellbreaker to study.”
Alex let out an awkward laugh. “They’re all dead, though, right?”
“That’s what the records say.”
“Hm. Shame.”
Ellabell shot him a strange look. “I have to get going,” she said. “I’m supposed to meet someone. It’s been nice chatting, though, and good luck with Natalie. If she has been cursed, I hope you can figure out some way of getting rid of it.”
Spreading his hands in an innocent gesture, Alex tried to affect a tone of defeat. “Know anywhere I could find a Spellbreaker?”
Ellabell paused as she slung one foot over the rail, her lips pursing pensively.
“No, obviously not,” she replied. “Although, there’s one other way to undo a curse.”
“And that is?”
She moved over, standing on the outside with her hands gripping the metal beam behind her, then looked back over one shoulder as she leaned out over the open air.
“Just kill whoever cursed her,” she whispered.
Then she let go, and dropped out of sight.
Chapter 33
Natalie, though curious, was reluctant to go to Alex’s room, protesting that she really felt fine and he worried too much.
“Honestly, Alex,” she insisted, dragging her feet, “this experiment is not necessary.”
“I think it is,” he said firmly. “Ella said—”
“Oh, Ella!” she exclaimed with a vehement gesture. “Did she talk to you about curses also? That girl is so melodramatic!”
Pausing at his door, Alex turned back to look at Natalie. “She already spoke to you about this?”
“Yes,” she sighed in exasperation, pushing past Alex to flop down on his bed. Rather melodramatically, he thought. “She told me her theory. But who would curse me? I have done nothing!”
“Then what’s your theory? I hate to say it, but Ella’s fits.”
“I’m just sick,” she grumbled.
“For over a month?”
“It lingers, yes,” she said, sounding uncertain despite herself.
With a sigh, Alex stepped over to the bed. “Look, just let me try this. One way or the other, we’ll learn something. You might even be cured.”
“That would be nice,” she admitted, and turned over onto her stomach, propping her head up on his pillow. “Do you really think this will work?”
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“I don’t know what to expect, exactly,” Alex said, moving to sit beside Natalie and examining her back skeptically. If he was being honest, he really didn’t know what to do. He tried to think back to what Ellabell had been saying. Something about Spellbreakers’ magic working almost inversely to normal magic?
“I’m about to begin,” he told her. “You ready?”
She nodded, and, slowly, he analyzed a procedure he had learned several weeks back in class. It was called Erandale’s Needle, and it was a focusing technique meant to gather one’s energy into a long, needle-like point from their fingertips. First, he attempted the process as normal, and as he expected, he received no result. His fingers pressed tight together, his arm extended, his shoulders leveled, but nothing happened.
“Is that the Needle technique?” Natalie asked curiously, looking over one shoulder.
“Yes. Hang on, though, I have to…concentrate.”
He altered the technique, opening his fingers, focusing his energy on his palm. Slowly, he went through the form and corrected it, inverting every aspect. He let his mind unfocus, opening itself to the world around him.
The sudden rush of energy to his fingertips was so abrupt that he almost cried out as he felt a little orb of coldness pulse out of him. He shook his hand, swearing as a disturbance momentarily twirled in the air, then seemed to collapse in upon itself. Natalie lifted her head a little, apparently unable to detect that anything had happened.
“What is it?”
Alex could barely contain his excitement as he spoke. “I just…never mind. I’ll show you later.”
So, Alex thought. I was right. A focusing technique for magic can be inverted to create an opposite style of anti-magic.
Frowning with concentration, he drew his hand into a position for a different technique, one designed to create spheres of magical energy, then corrected it until each element of it was inverted. Then, he let his mind open, becoming expansive and encompassing.
This time, he was expecting the little rush of power, and he could sense the wavering, malformed rod of negative energy that bloomed from his palm. It was gray as smoke, with thin, intricate lines of obsidian lining it like cracks. Looking into the thing, he could almost feel himself falling, drawn in by a sucking, hungry power.
A void, he thought. He wasn’t making something. He was making the absence of something. He tried to control the little blade as it quaked and shook, but it was like trying to hold sand in his cupped palms. No matter what he tried, his little needle of un-power fizzed and distorted.
Hastily, not wanting to lose it, he dipped the tip down to touch Natalie’s back.
She gasped in pain as frost swirled out over her skin, all but leaping away from the touch to sit with her back against the wall, staring at him with wide eyes.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Sorry!” Alex exclaimed, his anti-magic wobbling out of existence in his dismay. “I didn’t mean to—”
“That hurt,” Natalie interrupted, rubbing at her back with a pained expression. “Is that what it feels like whenever someone hits you with a spell?”
“I guess it must be. Are you okay?”
She pursed her lips, then rolled forward, lying on her stomach once more.
“Of course I am okay. Try again,” she said.
Alex hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“If you can endure this for hours on end,” Natalie said, “I can deal with it for a few minutes. Go ahead.”
Alex reluctantly summoned the void again, the effort of it sending an unexpected tremble up his arm, then lowered it against Natalie’s back once more. Cold tendrils snaked from the spot, but this time Natalie just gritted her teeth, twisting his sheets in her fists and cursing fluently under her breath.
Moving quickly, Alex opened his mind and let himself breathe in the sensations of Natalie’s essence moving against his own. It was delicate, passionate, with a restless compulsion toward movement that was unable to stop. He almost smiled in recognition.
And then something else touched him.
A sinister malevolence brushed his essence, and both he and Natalie drew in sharp breaths. He could sense the way it coiled around her, like a snake with its fangs sunk deep into her, squeezing. At his touch, it seized up, tightening its hold, and Natalie groaned.
Alex examined the foreign power. It was strong. Much stronger than either Aamir or Natalie had felt, and…cold. It had a calculating, sinister strength to it. If he could change his essence to a blade, he might be able to cut Natalie free, but…
“Alex,” she said, “whatever you are doing, I think—”
She cut off, gagging and convulsing as a throb of red pierced her magic.
He abruptly withdrew his anti-magic, recalling Ellabell’s words.
It would be difficult, even for them.
Natalie was limp on the bed, panting.
“Are you okay?” he asked, looking at the swaths of ice now covering her back.
“I am fine,” she groaned irritably. “I just want to lie here for a minute, please.”
“Well,” he said with a shaking voice, “I think we can say for sure that you’re cursed.”
She moaned, pushing her face deeper into his pillow and letting her arms hang over the sides of his bed.
“And I’m afraid I can’t remove it,” Alex said ruefully. “Not without a great deal of practice.”
“Wonderful,” Natalie mumbled dismally into the pillow.
She rolled to a sitting position, then rose from the bed, dusting off her clothes and gathering up her book. Alex watched her in disbelief.
“You can’t be getting back to work?”
“Of course I am,” she said indignantly.
Alex smiled. “If you’re sure, I won’t try to stop you. I’ll stay here and practice. Maybe I can fix it.” He sounded uncertain even to himself.
“Yes, practice. I’m sure you will figure it out,” she said, and strode out the door, leaving him sitting alone on his bed.
“That went poorly,” said a voice.
Alex didn’t even need to look to identify the speaker. A coldness ran against his back as a shadow pulled itself up from the ground, congealing into the shape of a young man sitting next to him on the bed.
“Elias,” he said cordially.
“Alex,” replied the shadow, with a hint of amusement. “How have you been?”
“We got the book.”
“So you did. Although you’re making rather slow progress.” He laughed, shaking his head. “To think you don’t even speak Latin. For shame.”
Alex shot a glare over at the young man, only to find himself shuddering as he stared into jet-black orbs where whites and pupils should have been, and an open mouth that held nothing but darkness.
“What can I do for you this time?” he asked.
Elias looked affronted. “When have I ever asked you for anything?” he said. “I’ve always been the one to help you, have I not?”
“Equal parts helping and taunting,” Alex retorted.
It was true that the shadow had only ever acted to Alex’s benefit, but something about it felt wrong. He felt like he was being strung along in the creature’s presence, and he couldn’t help but feel vulnerable. He didn’t know what he was to the creature, but he was relatively certain he would not qualify as a friend, whatever Elias said.
“Well, then, I suppose I should start helping you,” Elias said. He lowered his voice to a mocking whisper. “Seriously, though, did you only just now figure out that she was cursed? I thought you were letting her suffer on purpose for some reason.”
Alex got to his feet, his eyes dangerous. “You knew?”
Elias held up his hands in mock surrender. “Not only do I know, I know who did it,” he said.
Alex’s voice caught in his throat. He let out a soft noise of frustration, trying to keep his demeanor polite.
“Who?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“It doesn??
?t matter,” said Elias. “You can’t do anything about him. He’s well beyond you.”
“The Head?”
“No,” Elias said, “but now we’re deviating from the point. I wanted to give you something.”
Alex felt his mouth collapsing into a thin line, but he nodded curtly. He already knew there was no point in trying to persuade Elias. “What is it?”
“Well, the other day, when you broke into the Head’s study, you left some holes in his defenses in your wake,” the shadow said with glee. “So I took the liberty of acquiring something for you. I thought you’d find it interesting.” Ah—was that why Elias had wanted Alex to break in, maybe? So he could steal things too?
Elias plunged a hand into his own chest, seeming to rummage around in the vicinity of his ribcage, then pulled out a battered book bound in fading green paper.
“Just a little present,” he said too casually.
Alex picked the book up, looking over the cover with interest. It had a title embossed in golden letters.
Historica Magica, it read.
“A history book?” Alex said, turning it over in his hands.
“A rather bland one, I’m afraid,” said Elias. “Although I think you’ll find it interesting regardless.”
Alex opened the book, flipping through it uncertainly. It wasn’t until he neared the end of it that he stopped, his mouth slightly open. There were words on every page. No holes. No missing details. He rifled through the pages, moving quickly in his excitement, looking over at Elias.
“Is this—”
“Yes,” said Elias, with more than a hint of amusement. “Although it doesn’t have all the answers you are looking for, it has some of them.”
Alex was silent for a time, the shadow sitting beside him seeming content to simply relax into the absence of words. Eventually, however, Alex found he couldn’t hold his tongue.
“You have all the answers, though, don’t you?”
Alex wasn’t looking, but he could hear the inky smile in Elias’s tone.
“Of course I do.”