The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)

Another explosion blasted through the earth as Alex caught sight of a shadow rushing toward the window. Hands seemed to fumble at the catch, before swinging it open. At that moment, Natalie surged the vortex forward with greater ferocity, catching the figure in the swirling magic. A blood-curdling scream pierced the air as the grasping magic reached for the strong power at the Head’s very core. He pulled away with a furious roar, stepping back from the window, though Alex was convinced he could see the burning glow of red eyes beneath the hood.

Alex looked anxiously at Natalie, his heart thundering. Although the portal resembled an ordinary window to the untrained eye, Natalie’s magic quickly seemed to sense there was something magical about it, and stretched toward it hungrily. Before the Head could come at them again, the pulsing epicenter floated from the middle of the vortex and burned with blinding ferocity against the dim light coming from the office above, sucking a dense stream of a dark gray substance from the center of the window. The vortex pulsated again, ablaze with opalescent fire as it engulfed the very last of the dark mist, pulling the portal forcefully from its stronghold and swallowing it whole, until the window was no more. In its place were dew-soaked fields rolling away into the distance; the manor wall and window were gone from sight, moved away under Natalie’s skillful hands.

Now that the vortex had folded in on itself, disappearing in a silent swell of energy, Alex wondered if the window would still look out on the lake, or if the Head would see something else now.

He was staring up at the sky where the window had been when Natalie crumpled before him. Her legs gave way beneath her, but Alex reached out quickly, catching her just in time.

“Natalie, talk to me. Are you okay?” he asked, shaking her gently as he held her.

Her face was pale and her lips were colorless. She looked dead.

Alex shook her more vigorously. “No…” he begged. “Natalie. Natalie, wake up!”

She whimpered quietly, her eyes blinking open with a painful slowness. Her face and her clothes were drenched in sweat, and her black hair clung to her skin in damp tendrils. Her mouth moved slowly, as if she wanted to say something.

“Are you okay?” asked Alex gently, as the others gathered around Natalie’s slumped form.

She nodded slightly. “It… was very… powerful… magic,” she whispered as a small smile appeared on her cracked, bloodless lips.

“You took the portal away.” Alex was impressed and infuriated with his dear friend, in all her recklessness. She had no doubt saved the day, but Alex wasn’t sure at what cost.

She shook her head slowly. “I… moved it,” she breathed, the smile breaking into a broader grin.

“Promise me you didn’t do something stupid,” Alex said, his voice thick with emotion. He knew he would not be able to forgive himself if she had used a piece of her soul to help them escape.

She laughed quietly. “Not… life magic… just big… magic.”

“Do you promise me?”

She nodded, wincing slightly. “I… promise.”

“I think we should get out of here. Wherever here is,” said Jari, saying exactly what Alex was thinking. Aamir, still unconscious, was slumped against the blond-haired boy.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” said Alex as he looped Natalie’s arm around his neck, pain still surging through his body like an all-over stitch.

Ellabell stepped toward Aamir’s dangling arm and pulled it around her shoulders, propping him up between herself and Jari.

“Let’s go,” said Alex, with hesitant relief, as the five of them took off across the pitch-black field, lit only by the dim glow of distant stars.

It was foolish, Alex knew, to hope they had found a portal leading to the normal world. All around them, the air buzzed with magic. They were no longer at Spellshadow Manor, but they had escaped to somewhere utterly foreign to them.

They looked only toward the glitter of the lake ahead as the grass crunched underfoot. The thin crescent of a selfish moon was out, offering little in the way of visibility, giving no indication of what could be lurking in the dark, waiting for them. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t important that they could see, just as long as their legs could run. That was all Alex was certain of. They had to run—only time would tell how much of a head start they had.

Though what they were running into, Alex wasn’t sure.





Epilogue





Elias slunk furtively from shadow to shadow, battered but undefeated, licking his wounds with the lashing tongue of his shadow-cat form. He pouted with remorse, knowing he could have fought for longer, but the Head had almost clasped his skeletal fingers around the dull red glow of his essence once more, reaching straight into the starry abyss of his chest. And he hadn’t been about to let that happen again, not after he had just gained it back. Running away would seem cowardly to others, but Elias wasn’t bothered by others. He had the glowing particle back, and it burned inside him, though he couldn’t feel its warmth.

He slithered in the darkness, peering down upon the grim aftermath of the uprising, looking over the wreckage, sliding from corridor to corridor to seek out the remaining students, his curiosity piqued. He was amused by the higgledy-piggledy state of the hallways, left in a jumbled mess by one of Gaze’s powerful spells.

Very clever, he thought, though it didn’t much affect him. He could still go where he pleased. It just took a bit longer.

Eventually, he found the rest of the survivors huddled in the mess hall, as safe as they could be beneath the protection of Professor Gaze. He had always liked Gaze. It was sad to see her so old and still here, all that power wasted.

He purred with amusement as a weary Professor Lintz entered the room, his large figure covered in deep lacerations from the magical beating he had taken at the Head’s hands. He was limping slightly, too, but he was, surprisingly, alive. Elias wasn’t sure how happy he was about this turn of events. Though Lintz had never given him reason to dislike him, Elias had found him guilty by association. A sniveling weasel by association. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a touch impressed by the sight of the old codger still standing.

He watched a while longer as Gaze moved from student to student, trying to fix up as many as she could with the limited tools she had. It bored him. He smiled sardonically, stretching his shadowed mouth across starry teeth as he tried to force an insincere pang of sorrow for the students—they had simply jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Stretching languidly, he slipped down the empty, scorched corridors and passed curiously over the library. Unmoving figures lay curled up on the floor and sprawled among the stacks, glassy eyes staring upward into nothingness. Energy tickled at the edges of his shadowy form as his sensitivity felt the low, pulsating thrum of the coiled-up mass of wasted essence, trickling from the dead students, gathering together in one sad pool before it faded into the ground, with nowhere else to go but be reabsorbed by the earth beneath. Unusable. Elias smirked, even amid such vile tragedy.