The Secret of Spellshadow Manor (Spellshadow Manor #1)

Not matured enough for what?

Alex snapped out of his reverie as Jari let out a roar of fury and punched his hand forward, toward Aamir, whose mouth was opening to continue his tirade. While the physical blow fell short of the mark, a bolt of electricity shot from his knuckles and caught Aamir’s cheek, sending the boy spinning to the ground. Aamir had barely hit the snow before he was up again, his own hand out, sending a wave of fire tearing through the air toward Jari. The smaller boy ripped it in half with fingers alight with energy.

“Stop it!” shouted Alex, alarmed, but his roommates ignored him.

“You dare tell me who I care about?” Jari said, his voice a frozen ruin of its usual cheer. “You dare tell me what I worry about?”

Jari batted aside another flame, then lashed out with a foot, sending a ripple of burning light through the air. Aamir stumbled back, but seemed to repel the blow, this time with sheer magical force. He snarled, stepping toward Jari, then heaving his fist upward. Mirroring the motion, the earth under Jari’s feet snapped upward, smashing into the boy’s jaw. Jari was pitched into the air and landed heavily in the snow with a cry of pain.

“Jari! Aamir, stop!” Alex tried again, now stepping toward Jari. “You hurt him!”

“Then show me!” Aamir bellowed, as though Alex had not spoken. “Show me you care! Because honestly, I cannot see it. You don’t try to support me. You merely hold me back.”

Jari rose shakily to his feet, wiping a line of blood from his mouth, and Alex froze before he reached him, apprehensive, looking up as the air shifted. The sky overhead darkened to an angry gray, and the wind grew sharp and fierce all around them, heavy with the metallic scent of a storm. In response, flames burst into life around Aamir’s arms and legs, sending a spiraling column of orange tapers skywards, the heat blistering even at a distance. Alex watched the two glaring at one another.

“Oh no,” he whispered.

They lunged at one another, and Alex moved without thinking.

Hurling himself between them, he spread his arms, one toward each of his oncoming friends, putting one hand into the storm, the other into the flames.

The cold took him at once, freezing the spit in his mouth, sending him toppling with a gasp into the snow, which felt warm by comparison. Everything grew violently frigid, and he spasmed, crying out, coughing up ice and snow and rolling uncontrollably back and forth.

If he’d been able to, Alex almost might have laughed. He could wield an incredible force to combat these magical energies, yet it led to him lying helpless in the snow, weakened and frozen half to death by his own legendary power.

His vision blurry with pain, he heard frantic cries above him. Jari and Aamir had extinguished their magic in an instant, and both boys were crouching down over him.

“Damn it,” Jari was saying. “He’s so cold. Why is he so cold?”

“Move over,” said Aamir. “I can warm him up.”

“The hell you can. You did this.”

“We did this.”

A silence. Alex felt warmth spreading over him as someone blessedly conjured up a heat source and began to draw it over his skin. His friends’ murmuring voices continued to sound out above him as he shivered.

“Why is he so cold?” Aamir muttered.

“I was just saying that.”

“It’s just…he wasn’t struck with ice. The only thing that would cause this is…”

More silence. Alex managed to open his frost-covered eyelids. Aamir was staring at him, his hand emitting a warm light, Jari looking between the two of them.

“What?” Jari said.

Alex looked imploringly at Aamir, and flinched inwardly when he saw the understanding in the other boy’s eyes. While Aamir didn’t stop warming the ice away from Alex’s skin, Alex recognized that the look in his eyes might be fear.

“How have you been doing it?” Aamir asked, his voice soft.

“D-Doing what?” Alex asked through his shivering.

“The magic, in class. How?”

Jari’s frown deepened. “Hey, what? What are you getting at?”

“Natalie,” Alex whispered, letting his head fall back against the snow. It was like a warm pillow against his frigid neck. The edges of his vision were blurry. “Natalie has been helping me.”

Aamir’s eyes grew soft with understanding, and he nodded. “So that is why you are so inseparable,” he said wonderingly. “I thought…but I never would have guessed.”

A lick of electricity reemerged to snap angrily between Jari’s brows. “If somebody doesn’t tell me what’s going on,” he said, “I’m seriously going to—”

“I’m a Spellbreaker,” Alex choked out.

Jari paused, then looked between Alex and Aamir with sudden clarity.

“No way.”

Alex nodded.

“It’s the only way he could have survived what he just did,” Aamir said, his voice distant. “Even so…” He trailed off.

Jari swore under his breath.

Aamir nodded. “Indeed.” His hawk-like eyes seemed to bore into Alex. “We need to talk.”

Alex, though uneasy at Aamir’s expression, silently agreed. He tried to say something, but there was ice in his mouth, under his eyelids, and he could find no words.

“Give him a minute to warm up,” Jari interjected, and Alex felt a surge of gratitude for the boy. “We still need to settle things.”

Aamir’s eyes grew hot as they darted to Jari. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you said,” he said, “but I think we have more pressing matters to attend to.”

Jari snorted. “What, the matter of Alex being strange and keeping secrets? That’s hardly new. I didn’t come here to talk to Alex. I came here to talk to you, and the result is that we both nearly killed a friend. We need to talk. Then we can talk to Alex.”

Aamir hesitated, looking down at Alex’s frost-covered body. Alex made an effort to smile reassuringly up at him.

“You two sort things out,” he said. “I really could use a minute.”