The Secret of Spellshadow Manor (Spellshadow Manor #1)

“I mean before that. In the nurse’s office at Middledale High.”


“No…I don’t remember very much from that time,” she said, sounding rueful.

“Well, I’m thinking that must be ‘Finder’. He finds magical people and enchants them to come here. That’s another creepy thing about this so-called school.”

“But he’s supposed to be invisible, isn’t he?”

Alex paused, and she nearly bumped into him. “Is he?”

“That’s what the girls in my dorm said. He’s supposed to be invisible, and nobody has ever seen him.”

They started walking again, Alex mulling this over. What did this mean?

“Alex,” Natalie said, stopping suddenly on a chunk of cracked pavement. “If we find a way to escape, if we succeed…We can’t just leave the other students here, can we? Haven’t they all been taken from their homes too?”

He sighed. He hadn’t yet asked Aamir or Jari for details about their personal history, though she was probably right. But a mass escape? How would they pull that off?

“Let’s just focus on how to escape at all first,” he said as they approached the gates.

The great gates of the manor were much as Alex remembered them. Rusting bars of iron as thick as his arm, covered in so much ivy that he couldn’t even see the world beyond through the slits. On either side, tall brick walls rose high above the garden, topped with treacherous curves of barbed metal.

He strode over and reached through the ivy, seizing one of the bars with both hands. It was strong, immovable, and freezing cold. Thinking to climb up it, he steadied his grip, but the cold intensified, shooting down his arms, sinking into his bones. He grunted and let go, leaping backwards and rubbing his arms vigorously. The cold lingered, and he shuddered.

“Let me try,” said Natalie, stepping forward through the ivy.

“No, don’t!” said Alex quickly. “It’s so cold it hurts.”

“I will just try,” she insisted, brushing past him.

After testing both gates’ strength for herself, not even flinching from the cold, Natalie stepped back again, closing her eyes in concentration. Just as it had in class, her golden aura came to life, flicking lightly all over her skin. She frowned and extended her arms, pushing the magic away from her, toward the gates. It didn’t quite reach, seeming to sputter and rain down upon the ivy, where it disappeared.

She tried again, this time with her hand directly on the metal. Her hand looked wreathed in golden flame, but the flame died quickly, dropping down to the ivy once more. It was the same on the third try, and on the fourth she could not muster an aura of the same strength.

“I don’t see how we’re going to do this,” Alex murmured. Aamir’s words rang in his ears, and he racked his brain for a solution. Maybe he could construct something they could climb, or something that would propel them…The ladder in the cellar was much too short, but maybe he could use it somehow. Building something would probably attract a lot of attention, though. How could he go about it in secret? And what kind of defensive spells might be at the top?

But then he looked to Natalie, and he forgot his plans and the freezing cold permeating his body.

Natalie had slumped dejectedly to the ground and buried her face in her hands. Alex sat beside her, putting an arm gently around her shoulders. She leaned slightly into him, crying softly and pulling her knees up.

“Hey,” he said gently after a minute. “Don’t lose hope. We’re going to find a way out of this mess. I promise.” He wasn’t sure how he’d fulfill that promise, but he could never give in.

She stopped crying after a moment, gathering herself quickly and wiping at her eyes. “My family must be so worried about me,” she said with a quiet sniff, sitting up a little. “My sister Elena…she is just starting middle school. We were going to talk every day.”

Alex thought again of his mother and felt pain in his chest.

“You’ll get back to them,” he said firmly, as much to reassure himself as to comfort her. He managed to smile. “I’ve got no choice in the matter—I promised your little sister I’d look after you.”

She sighed. “Yes, you did.”

A few more moments of silence passed between them, and then she tensed and set her jaw, looking again at the gates. “I have a plan,” she announced, rising to her feet. “We will stay here, just until I get strong enough. I’ll practice all the time. And then we’ll come back here, and I’ll use magic to blow the gates away, and we’ll tell all the students and get everyone out.” She looked at him, her eyes glinting. “You can help me practice, and learn the way out here.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute, trying to think of another approach. It couldn’t be that simple. Countless students must have tried that. If Natalie were the one leading the escape, she would be the one facing punishment, or possibly worse.

“It is a good plan,” she said a little defensively, watching for his response.

“Yes, it is,” he replied, not wanting to deflate her. “Let’s start practicing right away.” There was no harm in her strengthening her magic.

And in the meantime, he had to come up with something else.





Chapter 17