The Secret of Spellshadow Manor (Spellshadow Manor #1)

As January dragged on and February drew ever closer, Alex found himself spending more and more time in the library researching the history of Spellbreakers. He stayed up late, sitting up amid the books under the soft light of a hundred paper lanterns, reading and hoping to find answers.

In book after book, however, he met with the same eerie discrepancy. Every time he drew toward what appeared to be the end of magical history, the books would simply stop. Chapters upon chapters of empty pages, the words all vanished as if they had never existed.

Alex let out a groan as a particularly promising-looking tome turned out to contain the same problem, and jammed the book back onto the shelf where he had found it. He wondered if the other students, or teachers for that matter, would be able to shed some light on the issue, but somehow, it seemed like a bad idea to ask. Standing, he made his way down the steps of the library-tower and back to the little table where Natalie was transcribing a line of Latin onto a piece of paper.

She looked up as he approached.

“Anything?”

Alex shook his head.

“Perhaps you should focus on figuring out anti-magic,” Natalie said. “It may help you win against Aamir.”

Alex sighed. While his Spellbreaker skills were improving, they were still nowhere near enough to fight a proper mage. Aamir still smacked him around with relative ease.

Natalie, on the other hand, still managed to put up a good fight against Aamir. Her technique, which she called ‘grabbing’, continued to be a thorn in Aamir’s side, and the boy persisted in demanding that she show him how it was done. Natalie, however, seemed delighted to put him off, insisting that he work for it.

“Why do you read so many histories?” Natalie asked, tilting her head. “What are you looking for?”

“Answers,” Alex muttered. “To any of this.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “answers would be useful.” But she didn’t seem to be fully listening, concentrating instead on her magic.

She made a couple quick motions of her hand, and magic flared about it. Then she turned green as a dull red throb ran through the golden fire, and she put her hand back down, panting slightly.

Alex watched with a frown. “I really wish you’d talk to someone about that.”

He’d been trying to get Natalie to speak with a teacher about her illness for about a week now, but she was strangely reluctant. Alex was sure at this point it was something magical, but Natalie insisted on pretending nothing was wrong.

“I am fine,” she said, wiping at her brow. “I just didn’t sleep enough last night.”

“You’re falling apart,” Alex replied, perhaps more sharply than he had intended.

Natalie glared at him. “Don’t tell me what I am feeling,” she snapped.

Alex held up his hands in surrender, but irritation churned his gut. He looked up toward the library-towers, wondering if there was anything about magical illnesses up there. He was sure there would be.

“I’ll be back,” he said, rising and departing again. Natalie only grunted at his retreating back.

There was indeed a section on magical maladies, nestled up by the ceiling. Alex found himself standing on a platform high above the rest of the library, scanning through a small collection of books with titles such as Rotstone and Surviving Glithering. He opened the latter out of curiosity, then shut it instantly upon seeing a diagram inside. He decided that if he ever contracted glithering, he would rather just die. It certainly wasn’t what Natalie was dealing with.

He glanced through a few more books, but nothing seemed to have what he was looking for. The things described in the volumes were all sicknesses of the flesh—none of them had anything to do with infecting a person’s magic. He sighed, replacing his most recent disappointment on the shelf.

“Alex?”

He turned to see a head of brown hair poking up the stairway that led to his platform, a pair of glasses shining in the lantern light. Ellabell stepped up, giving him a curious look. “What are you doing here?”

Alex lifted his chin in greeting, gesturing to the rows of medical texts.

“Looking for something that might help Natalie.”

Ellabell smiled faintly. “You too?”

She walked over, pulling a book from the shelf next to him and opening it, adjusting her glasses with a prod as she skimmed the index. Alex watched her with interest.

“You’re here for Natalie?”

Ellabell nodded. “Whatever she has isn’t going away,” she said in a distant voice, her attention clearly on the book in her hands. “But she’s too bullheaded to deal with it on her own, so I figured maybe I could do something to help.”

Alex pulled a book of his own down, feeling reinvigorated. As Ellabell reached for another book, Alex said, “Tried that one already.”

Ellabell paused, glancing over at him, then nodded.

The two of them worked in silence for a time, occasionally comparing notes. Alex found the quiet studiousness of the girl to be soothing. There were no demands, no duels, no undead mice scrabbling at his chest. Just the two of them, and a silence that was not uncomfortable so much as it was natural, focused.

“You know,” Ellabell said as she turned a page, “I’m not convinced she’s sick at all.”

Alex glanced over. “She’s not faking it.”

Ellabell made a face. “I know that much,” she said. “I meant, I don’t know if what she has is natural.”

“How do you mean?”