The Secret of Spellshadow Manor by Bella Forrest (best way to read ebooks TXT) 📕

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

But, a week later, Alex had not thought of a better plan any more than he had mastered even the simplest of magical exercises. He had at least become more familiar with the hallways, but was feeling increasingly trapped, and growing increasingly closer to despair. When Alex had first arrived, Aamir had said he had a few weeks before he would seriously be expected to start performing magic, but the days were slipping by at a worrying speed.

Natalie, for one, was progressing beautifully, and believed that in just a little more time she would be ready to try the gates again. He felt he had no choice but to continue pursuing their current plan, as worried as it made him. After managing several more solo trips to the gates, he was convinced they were impenetrable. He couldn’t even touch them for more than twelve seconds, and he couldn’t imagine they were unguarded by more dangerous magical means.

At Natalie’s suggestion, Alex had started making a sincere effort to befriend Jari and Aamir. She pointed out that they probably knew lots of things he didn’t, and even suggested they might want to help.

“Don’t you think everyone here must want to escape as much as we do?” she had asked earnestly.

“They might be too afraid,” he had countered, thinking of Aamir. “They might decide to rat us out to ensure their own safety.”

“Just be careful, then,” she had insisted.

Now, he found himself following Jari and Aamir into the mechanics’ lab. The two of them were working on a project, the scope of which was mysterious but intriguing to Alex. He sat on a stool beside their workbench, watching the two boys bickering as they stared down at a minute piece of machinery through magnifying glasses strapped to their heads, each holding a delicate pair of instruments in their hands. The room was full of little clicks and whirrs, the sounds of clockwork all around him.

Indeed, the walls of the large, yet crowded room were hung with clocks of every shape and size. What was more, they all seemed intent on telling a different kind of time. One ran between “start” and “finish,” and seemed to be stuck on the latter. Another had been carefully calibrated to chime five minutes before class would begin. And another, rather