The Secret of Spellshadow Manor (Spellshadow Manor #1)

Aamir stood on the other side of the room. He had stripped off his shirt, and his lean frame glistened with sweat. He turned toward Alex, showers of sparks rolling off his body to cascade over the ground, then paused and blinked when he saw Alex standing there. With a flick of his wrists, he shot through the air, landing in front of Alex with a dull impact that made the ground roll under Alex’s feet. Overhead, Jari shut the door.

“Jari is making you check in on me?” Aamir asked.

He was radiant. Wisps of magic flickered around him, gathering in pools on his coffee-colored skin. Staring at him, Alex realized that this was what magic could be. Maybe should be. Not the strange, monotonous routines of the classes, but this raw, burning power.

“Yeah,” he said. “So what’s going on?”

Aamir let out a snort and did not answer. The energy around him faded, and he reached out a hand, his shirt flinging itself from a dark corner of the room and landing on his outstretched palm.

“Jari worries too much,” Aamir said. “I’m just practicing.”

“I can see that,” Alex said, sweat still running down the back of his neck from the heat. “I think he’s worried that you’re overdoing it.”

Aamir’s eyes went flinty. With a complex twist of his fingers, he drew a chair of earth up from the ground, and then a second behind Alex. He motioned for Alex to sit as he slumped down.

“I am graduating in a few months,” Aamir said, his voice hollow. “Just a few months, and then…well, who knows? We spoke of it before; what do you think happens?”

Alex licked his lips. He looked around at the dusty, abandoned cellar, sighing and leaning back in his earthen chair.

“To be fair, we don’t know—”

“Alex.”

Alex looked up, his face grim.

“You disappear like the rest,” he said finally.

Aamir nodded. “At least you admit it,” he grumbled. “Jari, he seems to want to carry on like nothing is wrong. Like I will be able to invite him over for coffee at my New Delhi apartment and we can chat about his studies. But that is not how this works.” Aamir stared at Alex, and his stern mask broke to reveal the pleading face of a boy not much Alex’s senior.

“I am afraid,” Aamir said, his voice cracking. “I do not know what happens, but I do know it will be bad.”

Before Alex could say something reassuring, Aamir was talking again. “I have a plan.”

Alex sat forward, interested. “Tell me.”

Aamir drew in a deep breath, as if trying to decide whether or not to let it out. Then he spoke. “I’m going to challenge one of the teachers for their position.”

The room grew very still. Overhead, Alex could hear the storm still pattering away against the hatch.

“Challenge...?” he repeated.

“A teacher, yes,” Aamir said. “Jari thinks I have lost my mind, but there is precedent. The only permanent staff here are the Head and Finder. All others come and go. The woman who tended the gardens, the men in the pictures on the walls, they are all gone. Students who surpassed them took their places.”

Alex shook his head slowly. “But that’s not a solution. You’ll still be stuck here. I mean, the teachers don’t leave, do they?”

Aamir shrugged. “It’ll buy me time. That’s what matters,” he said, looking tired.

“Who do you plan to challenge? How does it work?”

“Derhin, probably,” Aamir said after a moment of thought. “As for the how, I don’t know. I’m preparing for everything I can.”

Professor Lintz’s terrified face crept into Alex’s mind.

“I wouldn’t recommend Derhin,” Alex said quickly.

Aamir raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“I spoke to Lintz recently, and he seemed afraid of him. I think there’s more to Derhin than it seems.”

Aamir tipped his head in contemplation. “I will think about it,” he said. “But I still think he is the best choice.”

The two boys sat in silence for a long time.

“Jari seems very worried about you,” Alex said at last.

“He is an idiot,” Aamir muttered. Alex was silent, sensing that Aamir wasn’t finished. “He just doesn’t get it. He thinks things will work out, and they just…won’t. I can’t just sit around and wait for my fate to find me. I need to do something, you know?”

Alex thought of Natalie, led away by Finder. The black cat made of shadows. The Head, surrounded by impossible amounts of inky power. His own foot, crossing over that thin, forbidden golden line.

“I know,” he said, looking Aamir in the eye.

The weather changed with its customary abruptness, the rain fading away and leaving only the sound of the two boys breathing. They stared at each other for a time, then Aamir rose, throwing his shirt aside. Golden lines of power wrapped around him, and as Alex watched, he began to draw snow and ice out of the air. He swirled his hands, the storm gathering around him with little crackles of blue light.

“Tell Jari he is wasting his time,” Aamir said. “My mind is made up. There is no other option.”

Alex knew that feeling, and could not bring himself to dissuade his roommate. Perhaps it was a bad idea, and perhaps it would lead to Aamir’s failure, even his death. But if it were Alex, if he could, he would likely do the same.

Alex watched Aamir as power gathered around him. Then he turned, and clambered up the ladder and out onto the grounds.

The rain had been replaced by a gentle, wintry breeze, suffused with the smell of pine resin and salt. Alex drew in a deep breath as he looked around at the ruined gardens. Jari, it seemed, had left. With a heavy, worried sigh, Alex headed toward the nearest door into the manor.

He’d gone about twenty paces and was crossing under the crooked corpse of a half-fallen tree when he had the sudden feeling that he was being watched. He stopped, glancing around, but around him there was only the wind blowing, cool and sharp.

“Hello,” a voice purred from above him.

Alex jumped back, staring up at the tree’s tangle of leafless limbs. A shadow detached itself from the thicket, one claw dragging a thin black line over the rough bark.

“You again,” Alex said, narrowing his eyes and stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I’m in no mood for riddles today.”

The cat let out a cackle. “Feisty!” it exclaimed.

“Tell me your name,” said Alex, sticking his chin out. “Or I’m walking away.”