The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)

“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.