The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 4 by Bella Forrest (life books to read TXT) 📕

easily coming away to reveal a complex mechanism of gleaming clockwork within. It was truly a work of art, and Alex gasped as he leaned closer, wanting to inspect every cog, every bolt, every delicately placed bit of solder. Sure enough, the whole inner structure glittered with the threat of a protective shield, moving liquidly across the surface. Alex paused, wondering how to get around it.

Carefully, not wanting to set off something terrible, he fed delicate strands of his anti-magic through the glittering shield and let it flow through the mechanisms. As it took hold, he realized he could manipulate sections of the clockwork, making certain pieces stop, and other pieces work backward. However, controlling the entire mechanism was near impossible with the shield in place, making Alex realize they would have to come up with a way of breaking down the shields first, before they could even begin to think about manipulating the clockwork. Looking at the mechanism itself, he could also see that feeding Lintz’s jammers into the system wouldn’t work; it would help, but they were going to have to overload the mechanisms too, if they wanted to destroy the modules. Simply stopping them wouldn’t be enough.

Jari will be pleased, Alex thought. He’ll get his explosions.

However, they still had the protective shield to contend with. Alex could get around it using thin slivers of anti-magic, but that wouldn’t be nearly enough power to overload the system. Just as he was about to lose hope, becoming frustrated with the device, his eye was caught by the sight of something at the very top of the cylinder. Running along the top and bottom edges were two thin golden lines. It was a sight he recognized.

Reaching tentatively toward it, careful to avoid the glimmering shield, Alex paused. He wasn’t sure if it was the focus on barrier magic or the blazing fire or the thick walls, trapping the heat in, but the room had grown very hot all of a sudden, making him feel strange. His back was drenched in a cold sweat. Careful not to lose his footing, Alex moved toward the window that stood beside the golden module, to try to get at some of the fog-filtered air drifting feebly in, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it. He was going to faint, and it was going to happen any moment.

Awkwardly, he stumbled, reaching out for the nearest thing, which happened to be the top of the golden cylinder. His hands clamped around the edge of it, the sharp metal sides digging into his palms, as his knees buckled beneath him. Managing to keep upright, he leaned forward into the wall, resting his head against it until the woozy feeling went away. He stood there, swaying slightly, his head throbbing, the cold stone soothing against the bare skin of his forehead. It took him a while to notice the flakes of snow that flurried around him, but by then it was too late, and he felt the prickle of a different heat on his skin—the heat of intense eyes on him.

As his own eyes cleared from their hazy, semi-conscious fog, he became aware of a figure lunging in his direction. He moved out of the way just in time to see Agatha hurl herself at the spot where he had been, with a savage, enraged grimace of hatred on her formerly kind face.

“SPELLBREAKER SCUM!” she screamed, her face contorted in a mask of pure loathing. She rounded on him with lightning speed, clearly intent on doing him real harm.

It shocked Alex to witness the split-second change in Agatha, who had seemed so sweet and nice mere moments before. He ducked as she twisted magic toward him, powerful magic. The next onslaught he managed to bat away, though he could feel the strength of her magic as he made contact with it, swiping it from the air, all the while continuing to duck and dive away from her vicious attacks.

“HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU!” Agatha roared.

It seemed to him as if she were everywhere at once, and he wasn’t sure how long he could fend her off, in his current state. Adrenaline had come to his aid again, but it was close to running out.

Suddenly, a spell hit him square in the chest, precisely against the point that had been giving him so much trouble, where the raw edge of his essence still pulsed painfully. The agony was instantaneous, and his body doubled over in an attempt to quash the searing burn of it. She had found his weak spot.

Alex lifted his head to see Demeter stepping quietly up behind Agatha, placing his palms on either side of her head as his lips moved silently, his fingers weaving golden magic into her skull. Agatha froze, and her eyes went blank. Alex watched as Demeter carefully picked her up, carrying her to the largest armchair, where he laid her down.

Fear gripped Alex again as he saw Vincent coming toward him, but the eerie man’s face didn’t denote any hint of a threat. Rather, there was an expression of sympathy upon his strange, pale face.

“Come with me, dear boy,” the necromancer urged, taking Alex gently by the arm as he led him past the still figure draped across the armchair, and out into the hallway. He took him to the vestibule at the top of the corridor, and leaned him against the wall by the open window, encouraging him to catch his breath. “Breathe, breathe. Good, heavy, deep breaths.”

“What just happened?” Alex gasped, doing as Vincent said, drawing in breath after breath as evenly as he could. It was becoming increasingly evident that he could not escape the curse of people wanting to kill him. If it wasn’t Alypia, it was someone else. And yet, he had never expected such a reaction from one as seemingly sweet and kind as Agatha.

“I apologize for the actions of my friend,” Vincent said. “You must understand, it is not easy for