“Then why?” he asked.
“Why haven’t we asked you to join us? Or why have we not been around so much?” she replied, fidgeting anxiously.
Alex shrugged. “Both.”
“The first is more simple, though I see now that, perhaps, it was not the best plan. We did not invite you along for your own benefit—to keep your powers a secret, I suppose. It did not seem wise to let everyone know what you are, because you cannot be sure who you can trust in this place,” she began, her words a touch mysterious as she gazed off into the middle distance.
“You could have told me, though,” said Alex steadily.
“I see that now. We were silly not to have told you,” she agreed, flashing Alex an apologetic smile.
“How long has it been going on?” he asked, out of curiosity, trying to smother any residual hurt. A note of deception still lingered in the air between them, and he could not brush it off. Given the chance again, he sensed they still would’ve lied to him. He wondered silently if an invitation would be extended once they left the garden—he wasn’t convinced it would be.
“We have not been doing this for as long as you might suspect. A few lunchtimes while the rules were in place, and more often now that many have been lifted,” she said.
“And the new spells?”
“Well, actually, that is part of the second question, in a way. Some of the spells Professor Renmark has been teaching me, I have taught to the other students. We must get them prepared for what may come, and the magic I have learned is very powerful and will be very useful if we must fight,” she explained grimly.
“A fight?” murmured Alex.
She nodded. “If the time comes when we must rise up against the Head, everyone must be prepared. If we all fight, we may have a chance to win. If it is only a few, we will surely lose,” she said firmly.
“What has he been teaching you?” asked Alex.
“Professor Renmark?”
Alex nodded.
“Many things, from many books that other students do not see. He has promised to teach me from a book of dark arts, but we have not yet begun,” she whispered, her eyes glittering with excitement.
“You promised me you wouldn’t delve into the darker arts, Natalie. You said you’d never be so stupid as to take those risks,” said Alex with alarm, trying to keep the chastisement from his voice.
“You should not worry so much, Alex. I am getting stronger every single day.” She smiled reassuringly, but Alex wasn’t convinced; he had read of life magic and death magic, and neither ended well. The price of a piece of the soul could never be worth the prize. “How are your skills coming along, by the way? Jari tells me you are improving,” she said, her voice bright with genuine enthusiasm.
Alex frowned, wondering how Jari knew his skills were improving. Perhaps his blond-haired friend had been paying more attention than Alex thought.
“I’m getting much better,” admitted Alex. He wondered whether to tell Natalie about the notebook, but a warning shiver prickled up the back of his neck, keeping the words from slipping out of his mouth. “I’m teaching myself a lot,” he half lied.
“That is wonderful to hear!” She gave him a cheerful grin. “I knew you would figure your powers out eventually.”
“Yeah, I’m getting there,” he replied dryly.
“Well, I must be getting back,” said Natalie.
“Yeah, me too,” said Alex.
They set off up the steps and slipped out of the walled garden. As they parted ways, Alex couldn’t help but watch as Natalie walked in the direction of the cellar, his invitation still nonexistent. They neither wanted him nor needed him, despite what he could do.
As he wandered back toward the manor, he pondered why he hadn’t told Natalie about the notebook. He knew it wasn’t just the invisible gag of Elias’s stern retribution; there was something else, running alongside it. An uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It seemed everyone really did have their secrets.
Chapter 25
The following day, for the first time in a long while, Alex was surprised to see Jari and Natalie waiting for him in the mess hall at dinner. In their usual spot by the window, they sat down to eat together, though the tension from the previous lunchtime’s discovery still lingered in the air between them.
Alex didn’t bring it up again, but as they ate, Jari seemed to have an air of passive-aggression about him, skewering a buttered potato on the end of his fork and biting savagely into it as Alex asked how they were both doing. Alex was frustrated by Jari, but refused to let his friend see. At least Natalie had tried to explain why they had kept the cellar training from him, but Jari seemed set on brushing off any guilt he might have felt, not caring about Alex’s feelings. Alex tried to talk to Natalie instead, but Natalie was too tired to really speak. He knew she had been in another of her brutal lessons with Renmark, and it had clearly left her on the brink of exhaustion. Even lifting a forkful of mashed potato to her mouth left her hands shaking.
So, they ate in almost complete silence, peppered by snippets of small talk and the clink and scrape of cutlery on ceramic.
“Alex Webber?” a voice asked. Alex turned to see a boy beside him, small in stature, with reddish-brown hair. It was the new boy, Felipe Cortez.
“Yes?” said Alex, frowning.
“Please come with me. Professor Escher would like to see you right away,” he explained nervously, brushing an anxious hand through his hair.
“Me?” asked Alex, his heart in his throat.
The boy nodded. “Yes, right away. Follow me.”
A wave of dread crashed over Alex as he stood to follow the boy. Casting a worried glance back at his two friends did nothing to still his nerves: their faces were as pale and horrified as he imagined his to be. Paranoia piggybacked on the rush of dread. Alex wondered if it had come—if this was the moment he had been fearing.
Had he finally been found out? He had been cocky, allowing himself to be reassured that he had gotten away with breaking into the Head’s quarters and firing a blockade of dense ice at Professor Escher. He had been arrogant, thinking he could keep his secret forever, within the walls of the manor. He had allowed himself to be fooled, when there was, in truth, no place to hide in the manor.
He followed the messenger through a labyrinth of hallways, heading toward a part of the manor Alex wasn’t familiar with. Gray ivy hung in clumps from the stone walls, snaking down and creeping out across the floor, where it reached up to brush against Alex’s leg as he walked through the corridors. It prickled him like a nettle, a cold sting against his anti-magic. He didn’t recognize any of the doorways or portraits that hung in this section of the building, but Felipe seemed sure of his route as he scurried on ahead.
Eventually, they reached a broad set of double doors that stood ominously at the very end of a long, wide corridor. They were made of thick, varnished oak with two black iron knockers roaring out from the center of each, sculpted into the shape of a lion and a unicorn, though the unicorn was not the type seen in fairytales. Its mouth was open wide in a scream as it bared its teeth, the eyes narrowed and savage beneath a brutal spike that served as its horn. Alex felt as if the lion might snap his hand off if he lifted the great circular weight that dangled from its fanged jaws.
“I’ll leave you here,” insisted the boy as he tore off in the direction he had just come.
Breathing deeply, Alex steadied his nerves, picked up the bottom curve of the iron rung, and knocked it hard against the dense oak. The impact thundered around Alex, echoing up the hallway behind him. The lion glowered down at him with burning black eyes.
“Enter,” called a voice from within.
Heaving against the hefty door, Alex pushed the unicorn side open and stepped into a large, empty room with a single table and two chairs in the center. Above the room hung a beautiful chandelier, half-covered with a dustsheet, the crystals glinting in the torchlight and casting shattered silver petals of rad
iance onto the black marble floor. It was polished to a high shine, reflecting the artwork of the ceiling. Alex’s breath was taken away by the beauty of it; whoever had painted it had been a virtuoso. Scenes of battle lay splayed out in minute detail across the whole length and breadth of the ceiling—armor-clad warriors on the backs of savage unicorn warhorses hurling golden spears and wielding sharp-edged blades of pure magic at crooked figures dressed in flowing gowns of crimson and white. Dragons and Thunderbirds soared in a technicolor of scales and feathers, breathing bursts of fire and rippling bolts of jagged lightning down upon the armored knights.
Alex wondered if the room had once been a ballroom or a great dining hall of some kind. It certainly looked grand enough, with suits of ancient armor rusting on the walls and twisted marble statues, god-like in their poses, flanking the room.
Two huge portraits hung on each of the four walls. On two sides, Alex felt watched by the eyes of stony-faced old men with white hair, staring out over the top of golden pince-nez, their expressions haughty and proud. On the third wall, two ancient crones peered out from glassy blue eyes, wearing golden bands across their foreheads, their gray hair twisted up into an elaborate style above it. On the fourth, two much younger individuals watched Alex. A man of around thirty with autumnal hair and golden eyes looked out upon the black marble and glittering chandeliers, a small smile upon his lips. In the painted waves of his hair, a silver band was just visible, intertwined with his lustrous locks. Beside him on the wall, in the next portrait along, a young woman watched Alex with sparkling gray eyes, her flaxen hair so long that it disappeared into the frame of the image. A silvery twist of a tiara wove in and out of her flowing hair, glinting with the delicate touch of jewels.
Alex wondered who they were, these special figures.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” asked the cloaked man in the middle of the room, standing with his back to Alex.
“What is this place?” Alex said nervously.
“It used to be the grand ballroom,” explained Professor Escher, whose voice oozed across the room like molasses, making Alex’s skin crawl. “Come, sit,” he instructed with an elegant flourish of his arm.
Alex paused, a million hurried thoughts racing through his mind as the distance between himself and Professor Escher seemed to stretch impossibly ahead of him. Foolishly, he wondered if he had time to run for it—if there was time for him to get out onto the front lawn and have a crack at anti-magical travel or to push all of his anti-magic into the gate and hope for the best. He knew it was ridiculous, but he was beginning to feel desperate.
“I wouldn’t try running if I were you,” purred Escher in a soft, amused tone that seemed vaguely threatening despite its quietness.
“I wasn’t going to,” lied Alex.
“Good. Now come and sit.”
Alex walked toward the table and chairs and sat down in the one closest. Professor Escher still had not turned, and the sight of the still, black shape was an unnerving one. Carefully, Alex placed his hands beneath the table and began to conjure the familiar prickles of ice against the skin of his fingers, forming the beginnings of some anti-magic, just in case.
“I know what you are, Alex Webber,” whispered Escher suddenly, his back still to Alex.
Alex could barely move as fear held him to the chair. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
Escher chuckled coldly. “Oh, I think you do. You are a Spellbreaker, Alex Webber. One of a kind, these days,” he said slowly, a hint of amusement in his silky voice.
Alex was speechless, stunned into silence. His heart hammered in his chest as he let the words wash over him in uneasy understanding of what had just been said. The Deputy Head knew his secret. He was doomed; he was certain of it. It was a Mage’s destiny to dispose of Spellbreakers—Malachi Grey had said as much. How would they dispose of him? Alex wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“How—” he began, but Escher cut him off swiftly.
“How do I know? That is not important. What is important is what happens next,” he said, turning to face Alex for the first time. Glittering eyes moved menacingly beneath the eyeholes of his mask, and Alex could hear the faint hint of a grin as he spoke. “I must assure you, Alex, that I do not intend to harm you,” he added with a twist of his wrist.
“What?” whispered Alex, dumbfounded by what was happening.
“I do not intend to harm you, nor do I intend to tell anyone what you are. Your secret, I suppose, is safe with me. I do not wish to get you into any more trouble than you are already in,” hissed Escher, his voice momentarily menacing.
“What kind of trouble am I in?” asked Alex, flinching as the glittering eyes bore down on him through the white porcelain of the mask.
“A great deal of trouble… perhaps,” he said, lighting a flicker of hope within Alex. “It all depends on you, really. You are the master of your own destiny. Here’s the deal: I will not say anything or harm you in any way, under one proviso,” he added casually, extending his gloved index finger to illuminate his point.
Alex waited for the fine print.
“You are a disruption, Alex. It is my duty to remove disruptive students, but my plans for you are somewhat different. I have an offer for you. In exchange for keeping your secret, you must leave the manor.” The words sat heavily in the air between teacher and student as Alex let them sink in.
“Leave?” asked Alex, confused.
“Yes, leave. This is my offer. I will take you back into the real world—only you—and restore you to your mother and your old life,” proposed Escher quietly, a note of surprising gentleness in his voice. It was unnerving to Alex, how Escher could shift between emotions so swiftly, surprising him at every turn, but hearing Escher mention his mother with such softness was almost more than he could bear.
Memories and feelings rushed vividly into Alex’s mind as he thought of his ailing mother, out there beyond the twinkling spires of the horizon, waiting for him. He pictured her at breakfast, the morning Natalie had arrived at their house, beaming over freshly made pancakes and ripe red strawberries. She had been so pleased to see him socializing with someone his own age, even if she had had to drag them across an ocean. It broke his heart to think of her in that moment, so happy and brimming with life. He knew he would give anything to see her again, but that same guilt toward leaving everyone behind twisted at his insides—the conscience that had kept him within the manor walls thus far. It was an unfair balance that tipped one way and then the other with each passing moment.
His feelings toward the other students were marred a little by the furtive behavior of his so-called friends, but still he knew in his heart that their secret-keeping was not enough reason for him to leave everyone else to their fates. He had kept his own secrets from them, hadn’t he?
“That’s all I have to do?” asked Alex quietly.
“That is all, Alex. You must leave, this moment, alone,” Escher repeated, but with no hint of haste in his words.
Closing his eyes, Alex thought about his options. He tried to picture his mother, but the image of her remained blurry in his head, the edges undefined and grainy. Part of him wondered if he might just slip out for a moment, just to leave a note for her, to let her know that he was okay and that he hadn’t abandoned her. Even if it was just to see her for a while, to make sure the grief hadn’t made her worse. Just to make sure she was alive; that was all he wanted. Plans and schemes raced through his mind as he felt his time slipping away like sand through his fingers. Ideas of how he might deliver his message and return to Spellshadow Manor flitted half-formed through his mind, and yet Escher’s offer was clear—this trip was a one-way ticket. A tempting one.
Miserably, Alex shook his head. “I can’t accept,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I beg you to reconsider. Think of your mother,” Escher said, almost tauntingly, picking up the painful threads of Alex’s heartstrings and yanking hard on them. “She is all alone out there, Alex. With your
father gone and now you, she has nobody. She is sick, and losing you has only made her worse. I have seen her for myself, Alex—”
“Liar!” snapped Alex savagely.
Escher shook his head. “I have nothing to gain by lying to you, Alex. I am telling you the truth when I say I have seen your mother. She is not doing well without you. Each day, she grows weaker, her eyes forever on the door, awaiting your return. Each day that you don’t come home, her spirit is sapped just a little, and her strength wanes,” he said softly. “She needs you, Alex. She needs you far more than anyone in here does.”
Alex wasn’t sure if Escher was telling the truth, but the professor had certainly played on just the right insecurities. Alex’s heart ached at the continued thought of her out there, sick and alone and missing him. In his head, he knew he couldn’t leave. It was his sacrifice to stay and help in any way he could, but the sentence was a long one. He thought of the dream image of Lintz and Derhin as much younger men. They had spent nearly their entire lives within the manor’s walls. Was that his fate if he didn’t take Escher up on his offer? To see his mother again was a sacrifice of another sort. And yet, either way, somebody was going to lose. Alex wasn’t sure if he was ready to let that person be his mother.
He knew what he had to do.
“I have my answer,” said Alex softly.
“And what is your answer?” asked Escher, taking a seat in the chair opposite. He leaned closer to Alex, waiting patiently.
Alex looked up at Escher, his gaze fierce.
But when he opened his mouth to speak, the roar of an explosion crashed through the air as the ballroom’s heavy doors split open with a sudden rush and splinter of wood. Natalie and Jari burst in through the falling debris and sprinted across the polished black marble, sending shards of magic hurtling toward Escher.
Escher had little time to think as Natalie charged him, conjuring intricate webs of magic with her hands, her fingers moving rapidly as she sent glowing tendrils of her own golden magic up beneath Escher’s sleeves and down into his skin. He froze, juddering as Natalie’s magic took over his body, controlling him. His hands tried to move, to fight back, and it looked as if he might break free.