The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)

“No, Aamir,” said Alex, shaking his head.

It was hard to look at Aamir and not think of their old friend, buried deep beneath the savage exterior of the man who sat before them. He was the Deputy Head, and the only person who stood between them and the opportunity they had been waiting for. It would be foolish to remove his restraints, and Alex knew that Aamir was no longer to be trusted. There were going to be some tough choices ahead, and it would be easier to pretend Aamir wasn’t the boy they had known. Even watching him strain and pull and growl against the ropes that held him was hard enough.

He was working for the Head now. He was no longer on their side.

Suddenly, Aamir broke free of the bonds holding his hands. Golden shards shot from the coiling strands that wove about his fingertips as he lashed out against his former friends, narrowly missing Jari’s heart with a sharp blade of glinting gold. Jari cried out, his face crumpling in a wince of pain as the bolt hit him just below his shoulder blade.

Alex ducked a spear intended for his head as he rallied on Aamir. The brown eyes of his old friend were narrowed and alien, his face twisted viciously into a changeling version of Aamir as he released wave after wave of destructive magic. He was as far from the Aamir they knew and loved as it was possible to be, a throaty growl emitting from the depths of his lungs as he shouted his defiance.

“You will not get away with this! There is no escape from the manor, and there is no escape from the Head! He will discover your treachery, and he will punish you brutally for it. There will be nowhere you can hide from his vengeance! The Head will crash down on you all, and you will rue the day you thought you could defeat him!” roared Aamir, his brown eyes shot through with threads of red. His face was contorted by a terrifying rage as he let out an inhuman howl. “LET ME GO!” he screamed, pulling against his leg restraints.

Alex watched Natalie as she struggled to regain control of Aamir. Sweat ran down the side of her face, the strain seemingly taking its toll. Aamir was stronger than he had been, and Natalie was struggling against his defenses as he fired golden artillery in her direction. As she turned quickly, avoiding a nasty dart of energy, Aamir seized the opportunity and snapped the ropes keeping his legs bound.

Stepping in, Alex conjured tendrils of black and silver beneath his palms, focusing hard on Aamir as he let his power slither undetected across the floor and up over the towering figure. As he had done with the wine bottle in the cellar, Alex forged a dense shield of pulsing silver light, shot through with swirls of a deep bluish black. The shield swooped across Aamir, who thrashed against it, unable to fire any magic from within his glittering prison. Sparks rippled from the points of impact where Aamir was trying to conjure magic, but the shield held. It seemed to work both ways, protecting the person inside from any outside harm and protecting those outside from the person within.

Alex gripped his hands tightly, holding the shield in place, feeling confident that it would stay standing as long as his focus remained. It took a vast amount of energy, but he could feel the flow of it holding more easily than he had expected.

He caught sight of Natalie and Jari staring at him in quiet awe. They had not had a chance to see his newly learned skills.

Jari gave a low whistle. “Nice trick,” he muttered, a strange look on his face.

“Thank you,” replied Alex, his mouth set in a grim line.

“Where did you learn this control?” asked Natalie, her voice oddly envious.

Alex smiled. “I’ve had a little help.”

It was clear to Alex that they had all been acting badly toward one another, keeping secrets and telling half-truths, but he felt as if this sudden union—this need to work together—was a small step in repairing the fractures in their friendships. He made a note to come clean with everything, once they had a moment to themselves.

“From whom?” asked Natalie, wiping away a sheen of perspiration with the back of her hand.

“I’ll tell you another time,” promised Alex. “Now, what are we going to do with him? I can’t hold him forever.”

Furiously, Aamir hammered against the ripple of the dark shield. Alex knew his powers still weren’t as strong as they could be, but the barrier seemed to be keeping Aamir at bay. Curious, Alex knelt down onto the floor and pressed his hands down into the polished, cold surface of the black marble. Gathering his energies, he sent a pulse of anti-magic through the floor and up through the smooth, fluid fabric of the shield, anchoring it to the ground. As he removed his hands, the shield held.

“Natalie, you and Jari should go and see if you can prepare the cellar and use it to keep Aamir locked up, until we can come up with a better way of keeping him restrained,” said Alex firmly as he glanced anxiously toward the rooted shield. “I’ll stay and watch over Aamir. I don’t know how long the shield will hold, but hopefully it’ll stay until you get back. If it doesn’t, I’ll think of something,” he added with a dour smile.

“Good plan,” Jari said as he cast a miserable glance at his beloved friend. It was uncomfortable for anyone to see Aamir like that, but Alex knew it must have been hitting Jari the hardest.

“Work as fast as you can!” Alex said. Natalie and Jari nodded and jogged to the two vast doors. Pulling the hinges open, they staggered backward as a swarm of students flooded into the room. Alex stared in surprise, recognizing a few from Jari’s lunchtime training sessions.

“What are you doing here?” yelled Alex.

“We are here for the Uprising!” shouted a tall, slim figure at the very front of the group. His name was Jun Asano, and he stood a good head taller than most of the other students. Alex knew him to be a final year, one of the students who was on his way to graduation.

Jari turned toward Alex, looking sheepish. It seemed there were even more secrets that had been kept from Alex, just when he had thought they were all out in the open. He had never heard the word ‘Uprising’ mentioned, but the group seemed riled and ready for action, their collective glare directed at the shrouded figure of Aamir.

“We want retribution! Kill Escher!” cried a blond-haired girl beside Jun. The group bellowed behind her. Alex could see they were already in the throes of full-blown mob mentality, waving their fists and yelling at the top of their lungs, baying for the blood of whoever was closest to the Head—whoever could offer them the revenge they thirsted for. At that moment in time, that title fell upon Aamir.

They could not see that the man behind the shield was their one-time classmate and friend. They saw only Escher, the Deputy Head, and he was close enough to the real thing to slake their thirst for blood.