As the week drew on, she began to relax ever so slightly in his company during Gaze’s lessons. Not by much, but Alex could sense a subtle shift in her comfort around him. She was still twitchy and jumped at the smallest sound, but was more forthcoming with her words as they worked on their project.
Natalie and Jari had been paired together, much to Alex’s relief, meaning one of them could help Alex out when it was his turn to throw magic or defend himself against Ellabell, since he couldn’t put up his real defenses.
The first time the golden streams of light had poured from his palms and snaked through the air toward Ellabell, she had looked at him through her glistening amber shield with suspicion. When he had put up a latticed defense, much like the one Ellabell had used the night of their adventure in the Head’s quarters, she had paused for a moment, forgetting to send out any magic at all. Seeing him using the golden flow of magic seemed to confuse her somehow, and Alex could feel a spike of concern. It was as if an unspoken question lay on the tip of Ellabell’s tongue too, but she dared not say it out loud. Each session, Alex thought she was about to ask that question as she turned to him with her brow furrowed, but she never did, leaving Alex to worry that she had seen more than he thought she had, that night in front of the golden line.
“How are you feeling?” asked Alex one day, watching Ellabell sip from a fresh mug of tea that smelled faintly of lavender.
She turned to him, looking directly in his eyes. “I’m getting there.”
“I promised myself I wouldn’t ask you anything until you were ready, but I can’t help worrying,” he admitted, feeling a twinge of anxiety as he finally spoke the words aloud. He gestured toward the side of her head, and she quickly raised her hand to the bruise, moving her hair to cover it.
“I’ll speak with you if you’ll promise me one thing,” she whispered, her hand still pressed against the side of her head.
“Anything,” answered Alex, grateful for the opportunity.
She sighed heavily, the sound rattling in the back of her throat. “If I agree to talk, you have to promise you’ll leave me alone once I have,” she stated, coughing a little into a fresh white handkerchief pulled swiftly from her pocket.
Alex was taken aback by the request, but her eyes were staring at him earnestly, awaiting his response. He supposed it was the least he could do.
“I’ll leave you alone, if you’ll tell me about what happened,” he agreed reluctantly.
“Not here,” she whispered. “Meet me in the library, on the middle row of the second column, after the lesson, and I’ll speak with you then.” She stepped back, putting up a glittering shield around her body, and gestured for Alex to send magic toward her.
She ran away as soon as the lesson was finished, and Alex followed, heading toward the library as he had been instructed. He climbed the ladder up to the middle section of the second tower and walked along to the very end, until he found her sitting up against the stacks in her favorite place. He sat down beside her, keeping a comfortable distance between them. She seemed calmer than the last time Alex had found her up in the stacks, but knew she could still be a flight risk.
“Are you okay?” he asked, glancing at her.
“I’m much better,” she replied, but her voice faltered slightly. It still had that thick, distorted quality that seemed to cause her pain.
“That’s good to hear,” he said softly, though he had a sneaking suspicion she was lying to him. “So, what happened back there?” he ventured, wondering if he’d get a straight answer.
“At the Head’s library?” she asked.
Alex nodded. “What made you scream like that? And who did that to you?” he pressed, gesturing toward the side of her head that hid the vivid purple bruise.
“It’s silly,” she whispered.
“I won’t think it is, I promise,” he said reassuringly.
Ellabell’s gaze rested on the two points of her raised knees. “It was dark in there, and I stumbled into a bookshelf when I was reaching for something. There was a mirror hanging on the wall, and I caught sight of myself in it and thought—” She chewed her lip. “Well, I thought it was a ghost or a teacher, and I just spooked myself and ended up smacking my head against one of the shelves. That’s why I screamed—I thought I’d seen a ghost. At least, I think that’s what happened.”
Alex listened intently, but the story didn’t add up. Nobody was that afraid of their own shadow that they would spend days in a twitchy, agitated shock. He had seen the panic in her eyes. It was not because of some self-inflicted accident. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. And yet, as he watched the worried expression on her face deepen, he sensed it would be difficult to get another story out of her. It was the truth she had chosen to go with, and Alex had to try to respect that, though curiosity and guilt still raced through his mind. He knew somebody had hurt Ellabell, and though he had his suspicions of figures who kept to the shadows, he couldn’t be certain who it had been.
“Did somebody attack you, Ellabell?” he asked softly, trying again.
Her eyes went wide in panic.
“Is that what really happened?” he pressed. He didn’t want to scare her away, but he wanted to know who or what had done this to her.
“I don’t know… I didn’t see,” she murmured, her gaze darting around anxiously.
“I’ll find whoever did this to you and make them—”
She shook her head rapidly, her face etched with terror as she grabbed Alex’s hand. “No, you can’t… Anyway, it was an accident, like I said—just an accident. I need you to forget about it.”
“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” he asked suddenly.
She turned her face away, hiding her expression. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”
“In the corridors, in lessons, you seem to want to do anything to get away from me,” he said, hoping she couldn’t hear the wounded tone in his voice. “Did I do something to offend you?”
“I guess it’s because of what I saw and the things I know,” she whispered, turning back to him with a stern expression in her bright blue eyes. All traces of fear had gone, as if she had placed a mask over her face.
“What?” Alex drew back from her, alarmed by the sudden shift in mood.
“I know what you are, Alex,” she announced, her voice hushed. “I saw what you did. I know you’re one of them,” she added, a note of something close to displeasure in her voice.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, playing the nonchalance card.
“You’re a Spellbreaker, Alex. I saw you,” she hissed.
Alex laughed. “That’s ridiculous. You said so yourself, there aren’t any of them left… You must have hit your head harder than you thought.” He felt his throat tighten up as he lied through his teeth, hating himself for using her bruise against her. It felt strange to hear himself called out for what he was, and he wasn’t sure he liked the sensation of hearing his secret out in the open.
Ellabell sighed, her disappointment evident. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret, and maybe even help you out if I can. But I meant what I said. I want you to leave me alone from now on. I don’t want you near me unless we absolutely have to be in each other’s company, do you understand?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Alex knew he had been caught in a lie, and no amount of subterfuge would convince her otherwise. She knew the truth; he could see it in her eyes that she knew. It was out there, and Alex hoped fervently that Ellabell could be trusted with the secret. She seemed keen enough to keep her own, so perhaps it would be safe with her.
“Do you understand?” she repeated gently, her face oddly sorrowful.
Alex nodded. “I understand.”
“It’s for the best,” she whispered as she leaned in toward him and kissed him softly on the cheek.
As she stood up to go, Alex reached out to grasp her hand and squeezed it lightly. Squeezing it back, she flashed him a sad smile, then turned and wa
lked toward the barrier of the walkway, leaping over it in one easy movement.
For once, Alex didn’t follow her to watch her leave.
In the pitch black of the dormitory, something awoke Alex with a start. He rubbed his eyes, checking the clock on his bedside table; it read two in the morning. Wondering what on earth had awoken him, his eyes fixed on a flash of gold and silver darting across the end of the bed, weaving and ducking behind the folds of the sheets as the creature made its way up and over the bent limb of Alex’s leg.
Curiously, he checked the top drawer of his bedside table to find it already open, the motionless mouse inside missing. A shiver shot up Alex’s spine. He turned back toward the scuttling clockwork creature. His heart pounded loudly in his chest as he waited for it to make its way up the rest of his body, once it recognized the familiar shape of him with its glittering black eyes. It was the same mouse that had been tucked away inside his drawer.
On the golden hind leg, Alex saw the small shape of a curled note, attached with a thin piece of twine. He gulped, holding out his palm for the mouse to run onto. Its feet were light on his skin. He lifted the creature up and carefully untied the miniature scroll from the back of its leg. Settling the mouse down on the mattress beside him, Alex lifted up the scroll and unrolled it slowly, squinting to see the words in the moonlight that glanced in through the curtains above his head.
Fear prickled at the back of his neck. His blood ran cold.
I warned you, was all it said.
Turning swiftly back to the mechanical creature on the mattress, he saw that the eyes had already gone dead.
Chapter 24
Alex sat alone at one of the tables in the mess hall, trying his hardest to eat a bowl of gristly, bland stew that left a greasy residue on his lips with each forced mouthful. Natalie and Jari had been up to their old tricks again, still off doing their own things without him. He tried hard not to feel annoyed by their disappearing acts, but it was starting to wear thin on him. He missed the old days, when they would all gather for lessons and lunches and dinners and in any spare moment they had, to laugh and joke and chat together, as friends should.
Since the night in the Head’s quarters, Jari seemed to have redoubled his work, whatever it was, even though his reasoning for visiting the Head’s abode had been resolved. They knew the Head had gone. In fact, if they had simply waited a day longer, Alex thought bitterly, they’d have found that out without any harm or risk to anyone. He was still paranoid that the new Deputy would call him up at any moment and make an example of him, but so far, the new professor had been quiet. The masked man had yet to take up his teaching duties, leaving the extra sessions still in Renmark and Gaze’s hands, but he had begun to make some changes within the manor. Good ones, as far as Alex was concerned.
The morning after his dramatic arrival, a new noticeboard had appeared announcing that the extra evening lesson would be removed in favor of independent study. Alongside it, to encourage exercise, the golden line would be lifted from the manor’s entrance between the hours of six and seven in the morning and six and seven in the evening, for the students to have access to the gardens. However, the curfew of nine p.m. would remain, as would the golden line at all other times. Tardiness and the skipping of lessons, and any bending of the rules, would remain a punishable offense.
Despite the slight relaxation of the restrictions, Alex still couldn’t help fearing the dark-clad figure, with his eerie mask and commanding voice. There was something deeply disturbing about Professor Escher, as if there was something not quite human lurking below the surface, shrouded from view by cloaks and hoods and masks. Alex wasn’t sure he could trust a man who hid himself.
Natalie had been absent, too, much to Alex’s disappointment. His worry for her increased daily, as she was showing no signs of slowing down in her studies. Rather than use the extra free time to relax, Natalie had thrown herself into more sessions with Renmark, emerging at dinnertime with sweat beading on her forehead, her clothes soaked through, and her hands trembling from sheer exertion. Alex tried to encourage her to take it easy, but she would simply wolf down as much as food as she could and then disappear again, chattering from time to time about something exciting Renmark was going to teach her from a book students were rarely allowed to see. Each time Alex mentioned life magic, she shrugged it off with the same practiced lines that she wasn’t stupid enough to dabble in such things. It grew less and less easy to believe.
Giving up on his stew, Alex got up and left the mess hall, heading through the echoing hallways toward the front of the manor. He needed a break from the stifling indoors, and the cellar was calling. Perhaps he’d shatter another bottle of Fields of Sorrow, he thought grimly as he stepped out into the crisp sunshine. He’d had enough of the library, searching endlessly through the stacks for censored books that had been taken from their rightful places. Recently, he had even moved on to fiction books, in the hope that they might shed some light on havens and ‘great evils’ and voids, but they proved as fruitless as the gaps in the shelves.
It was a warm day, the sun bright on his face as it sat hazily in the middle of an azure sky. A few pale clouds moved slowly across the steady blue, wispy and almost translucent. Alex smiled, noting that even the gardens looked more beautiful beneath the sunshine’s golden glow. Though they were crooked and warped, the rich light lent the skeletal trees and raggedy bushes a bright sheen, and danced across the waxy gray leaves of the ivy that clung to the walls and crumbling ruins.
Pulling up the cellar’s trapdoor , Alex was met by a gust of roasting hot air. Worrying that he had left the torches lit the last time he was there, he jumped down into the vault beneath and stood with surprise as he saw that the room below was already occupied. There were five pairs of students in the middle of a duel, with Jari standing at the far end of the cellar barking out orders. Natalie stood beside one set of duelers with her arms behind her back, watching them perform an intricate spell Alex had never seen before, involving a mist that seemed to cling to the eyes of the opponent, making it hard for them to see. The pair beside them were practicing a spell that seemed to take control of the opponent, using their magic against them with varying degrees of success.
They all stopped and turned as Alex brushed the dirt from his clothes, narrowing his eyes at the scene before him.
A thought rushed coldly into Alex’s mind. He wondered if this was what they had been doing all along, on those days when the two of them had been impossible to find. He felt as if the air had been knocked out of him as he leveled his gaze toward his friends, waiting for an explanation that didn’t come.
Natalie’s mouth went wide in shock at the sight of him standing there, her expression molding into one of guilt. Jari, meanwhile, seemed to shrug off Alex’s sudden presence, ignoring him with a determined expression as he barked further orders, trying to regain the duelers’ attention.
Alex couldn’t help the hurt and confusion that rose up through his veins. They had kept this from him, and he didn’t know why. He almost climbed straight back up the ladder and out into the gardens, but Natalie moved toward him.
“Alex, please wait,” she insisted.
The other students glanced at each other awkwardly, as if they could feel the tension in the room. One of them turned to Jari, asking if they should go, but Jari shook his head.
“No, you have to stay. You have to prepare to fight,” he explained tersely.
Alex felt frustration pulse through him, wondering again why his friends had kept this secret from him and why Jari did not seem to care. He wondered desolately if it was because they thought he was useless. After all, Jari hadn’t seen him use the blockade or the fog the other night, what with being too busy dragging Ellabell to safety and running on ahead. Then there was Natalie, who was so busy with her own extracurricular sessions that Alex hadn’t had the chance to talk to her about the notebook and his vastly improving skills as a Spellbreaker. They hadn’t given him the opportunity to pr
ove what he was now capable of, because they simply hadn’t been around. There had been so many occasions lately when he had needed them and wanted their advice, and they just hadn’t been there. But then, when Jari had come begging for his help, Alex had stepped up to the plate, despite the dangers. There was an imbalance, and Alex was becoming painfully aware of it, feeling the fracture of their group in the tense atmosphere, making him bitter and bewildered.
“I should go,” whispered Alex. He turned to climb back up the ladder and out into the sunshine. The hazy glow had lost its joy, the twisted trees and wretched shrubs no longer taking any beauty from the sun’s rays.
Natalie came up behind him, grasping him by the arm. “Alex, you must wait. Let me explain,” she pleaded, her voice earnest.
“Fine,” muttered Alex as he wandered toward one of the crumbling gray walls of the garden and slipped through a passageway he had never seen before. It led out into what must once have been a walled garden, with plateaued steps of fringed cobbles leading down to a water feature, long dried up. Bleak-faced cherubs stared out at the grim garden in various states of decay, some missing their pudgy stone faces or a few chubby limbs, while most of their bows had been smashed away. A thick layer of spongy white lichen and dark brown mulch carpeted the bottom of the water feature’s bowl, which might have been made from fine marble. It was barely recognizable now. Alex walked toward it, leaning up against the crimped lip of the basin, curved to look like an oyster shell.
“Alex, you mustn’t be upset,” said Natalie as she leaned beside him on the oyster basin.
“Who said I was upset?” he muttered, kicking a pebble away with the toe of his shoe.
“I understand how it must have looked,” she explained. “I know we have not been around so much, and I know what you must think, but we are doing it for the good of the others.” She let out a low, regretful sigh.