Still, guilt bristled in the pit of Alex’s stomach, and he resented the feeling of being called out. He hadn’t meant to keep the information from them, not really. Had he? The paper had been in his pocket for weeks, and Elias’s name still wouldn’t spring willingly from his tongue. They had no clue the mysterious shadow-man even existed, because Alex had kept him secret. From day one, Alex had kept Elias to himself. However, it didn’t seem fair to Alex that he was the only one being dissected because of a single secret, not when Alex knew there were other secrets being kept by the two friends beside him. There was the matter of Natalie’s shiftiness every time dark magic or Renmark’s private tutoring was brought up, as well as Jari’s solo visits to Aamir after lessons, before their failed rescue attempt.
“You could have found time,” Jari said, raising an eyebrow. Alex grappled with the growing twist of guilt in his gut.
“When?” Alex could feel the flare of his temper. “Look, I found the piece of paper and I meant to tell you, but things kept getting in the way and I forgot. I’m only human,” he explained wearily.
Natalie smiled. “It’s okay. Sometimes it is not so easy to tell things,” she said. “To find the time, I mean,” she added quickly, though the peculiarity in her previous words made Alex curious, and there was an unmistakable conspiratorial note in her voice. She turned away before he could question it. Alex frowned, feeling tension building in the air around him. Natalie wouldn’t look at him, and Jari looked too intently at him.
“Well, I think it’s a waste of time,” Jari stated. “Even if these ‘havens’ are out there, they aren’t going to lift a finger to help us.”
Though Alex hated to admit it, Jari probably had a point. Those books were missing for a reason, and Blaine had never come back from Stillwater House—assuming he really had been sent there. It seemed like either a one-way ticket to another school with another wall and another Head, or a one-way ticket to something far worse.
Whichever outcome contained the truth, Alex knew he had opened a can of worms he could never get closed again.
Chapter 12
The next evening, Alex found himself hauled to the library after the last lesson of the day, pulled along by Natalie’s eager hand. The sun was setting through the far window as they entered. He was tired and groggy, dreaming of the soft pillow on his bed, but she had been insistent that he come with her, not taking no for an answer as she dragged him through the hallways.
“I have had a breakthrough,” she explained, ushering Alex over to their usual spot in the corner. Stacked high on the table were columns of leather books, in various colors with brightly embossed lettering, teetering crookedly to one side. They reminded Alex of a game of Jenga, and he smirked as he sat down, wondering if he dared pull one from the tower.
“With what?” asked Alex, his brow furrowed in confusion as he sat back in the armchair, trying to resist the comforting pull of the soft cushions and the fire crackling in the grate.
“What you told us yesterday,” she began excitedly. “It made me think about the possibilities of magical travel.”
“Mmhm.” Alex’s eyes drooped shut as he sank deeper into the chair. Natalie smacked him lightly on the arm. “Magical travel, I was listening!” he yelped, rubbing his bicep.
“Well, I found out some things. I have been reading much on travel and transportation,” said Natalie gleefully, sitting down in the chair opposite.
“I can see that.” Alex grinned, still tempted to pull one of the books from the middle of the stack.
“Here.”
Alex couldn’t see Natalie over the vast array of literature as she spoke, but he saw the book coming as it flew through the air toward him, landing with a smack against his hands as he reached up and caught it, just in time.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Just read it, see if it has anything about travel in it,” she demanded, peering around the stack to shoot Alex a look.
“Sorry,” he muttered. He opened the book to the first page: The Limitations of Clockwork Machinery and Other Uses by R.B. Moxam. Before he even read a word, Alex knew the book was going to be dull. He wondered if Natalie would notice if he took a little nap. A second book flying through the air toward him gave him the answer to that question; even if she couldn’t see him to tell him off, the thrown artillery of books would certainly keep him awake.
“Ah, here it is!” he heard Natalie proclaim breathlessly as she rushed over to him. Perched on the armrest of his chair, she shoved a book under his nose, her finger pointing to one of the lines. Alex read it, but couldn’t quite make sense of it. As far as he could tell, it was simply a brief explanation of a group of spells that required a huge consumption of energy, and how they might be achieved.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“Spells which require a huge amount of energy,” repeated Natalie, her gaze expectant, as if waiting for the cogs to click into place inside Alex’s head.
He smiled apologetically. “I have nothing.”
“Alex, the magic of the manor!” she squealed, rolling her eyes at his slowness. “The manor requires a huge amount of energy to function, no? It is always shifting places, from one land to another to another. Do you not think that must use up a lot of magic?”
“I suppose so…”
“Of course it does! A huge amount, Alex. One of the other books explains that to move a big object, such as an elephant or a truck or a building, you need a vast magic source. It is not easy and uses much magic. So imagine the magic needed to move this place,” she whispered, gesturing around the library. “It must take an exorbitant amount, even to just do it once! And this place moves every day. Can you imagine?”
“I have no idea,” he said, trying to take in the enormity of what she was saying.
“It takes a lot of magic just to move a pebble or a beetle or something small. Imagine how much magical energy is needed to move the manor, the grounds and every person within it, every single day!” Natalie explained, her voice quietening to a hushed whisper. “That would require a whole other level of magic, Alex. One which I am not certain any one wizard can possess.”
Natalie’s words began to make some sense to him. The shifting inner hallways of the building, with their windows showing foreign skies and wild landscapes, one moment in Southeast Asia, the next, who knew where. The changing view beyond the manor’s boundaries that he often looked out on from the library window, the building and its compound uprooted from one place to another, never settling. Alex didn’t understand how it all worked, and hadn’t thought about the energy needed to accomplish such a feat. Since he hadn’t even known magic existed until about a year ago, he supposed he had thought it par for the course—that all magical buildings and magical people could be moved and replaced at will. If any wizard was capable of such a feat, the Head was surely a contender; he had already shown Alex what appeared to be the whole world within his palms.
“So not even the Head can move the manor? Really?” he asked Natalie.
“Not even the Head, I do not think. Not without a lot of other wizards to help or extra magic to boost his strength,” she replied, shaking her head.
Alex frowned. “Then how is it possible?”
“There is no mention of any magic so large as this,” explained Natalie. “I have my thoughts on how it can be done, but I think I need more time to study it. When I have more to tell, you will be the first to know, but I have a feeling it is to do with the other side of the magical spectrum,” she whispered, her eyes gleaming as they leveled with Alex’s, her excitement rippling from her like static electricity. Alex could feel it.
“Life magic?” he asked, his voice growing stern.
“Perhaps,” was all she would say, much to Alex’s chagrin. He watched her wander back to her seat.
So much of what he had learned disturbed him. Natalie’s apparent fixation with spells requiring life magic and the thought that the manor moving might have something to do with that
kind of magic—it chilled him to the core.
Reading the passage beneath Natalie’s finger more closely, it did indeed seem physically bizarre that the manor should be able to move at all, and yet it did; there was no denying that it did. Windows looking out on Australia and Europe and deep South American jungle were a dead giveaway. Somehow, it was managing to do the impossible.
“What’s this?” he murmured to himself, picking up a large, intriguing-looking tome from the pile. The dyed pink leather caught his eye, the cover vivid against the plain wood of the table and the dull-toned books beneath. On the front, in purple lettering, was the title The Trouble with Travel, by Benjamin Cornwell.
He opened the book on his lap, the ancient cover creaking at the spine. A few pages in, Alex came to the contents page, not expecting the pleasant surprise that awaited him there. Laid out neatly, in uniform print, were names and descriptions of magical travel techniques and how to use them. Alex was stunned, wondering how on earth this one had slipped through the Head’s net of library censorship.
“Look at this,” he whispered excitedly to Natalie, beckoning her back over.
“What is it?” she asked, peering down.
“A how-to guide to magical travel.” He almost laughed. The book was so perfect, each mode of travel resting neatly on the yellowing paper beside a helpful page number, begging to be read.
“Can this be?” She grinned, and Alex nodded as he flipped to the first of the numbered sections.
It was entitled “Simple Teleportation for Beginners.” A sense of triumph ran through Alex’s veins, a smile spreading across his face as he read the brief introduction. The magic seemed easy enough; what he was reading certainly wasn’t beyond Natalie’s powerful skillset.
“What do you think?” he asked her, lifting the book so she could get a better look.
“It doesn’t look too complex, I don’t think,” she agreed, confirming Alex’s suspicions. “I can certainly give it a go.” Her face broke into a childish grin of excitement.
The clock on the wall of the library chimed a quarter to nine, distracting Alex; curfew was almost upon them. Alex felt a flicker of annoyance. He still wasn’t used to the new restrictions, and each reminder of them grated on his nerves.
“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.
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 stre
ams 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.