The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 3 by Bella Forrest (i can read book club txt) 📕

had been on the blond-haired boy’s face a lot since Aamir’s apparent return to normality. And it was so close to the memory of how his friend had been, that Alex could just about pretend to believe Aamir was entirely Aamir again, despite their encounter the other night.

Aamir definitely seemed more buoyed up; that was undeniable, with some energy and color restored to his demeanor—enough for him to want to indulge in a bit of playful sparring with his old friend, anyway. Jari looked thrilled that he was about to spar with Aamir again, like old times.

Alex and Ellabell sat to the side, sipping from brightly colored bottles of fizzy juice that Helena had brought, as they watched the two old friends. They went at an easy pace, the exertion of more than the basics making Aamir tire quickly, but it was a pleasant match to watch. It seemed to be more of an excuse for Jari to talk about Helena, who had gone back to the school, rather than a chance to actually improve his magic skills.

“Don’t you think she’s the most beautiful woman in the entire world?” he asked, as he sent a twisting spiral of golden energy in Aamir’s direction.

“I think she is very beautiful,” the older boy admitted, “but I have not seen every woman in the entire world, so it would be unfair of me to give her that title.” He grinned playfully.

“Very funny. I know she is the most beautiful. She is more beautiful than any supermodel—you can keep your Kate Mosses and your Naomi Campbells, I’d rather have Helena,” he replied wistfully. “And, she’s super smart and really powerful. You should see her; she’d put the Head to shame, she’s that strong,” he gushed.

“So, what is it you would bring to the relationship?” teased Aamir.

Jari pouted. “Humor, good looks, charm, adoration… The list goes on.”

“I think you’ve definitely got ‘adoration’ down—you might have to work on the others,” laughed Aamir, the sound rippling pleasantly across the room.

They sparred a while longer, sharing their lighthearted ribbing of one another, until Aamir visibly began to tire. Stopping, the group decided to head up to the room above, to eat some lunch and see what Natalie was up to.

As they climbed the stairs and entered the next room, Alex saw that Natalie was tucked away quite happily in the corner with her blanket wrapped around herself, engrossed in a red, canvas-covered book that Helena had brought for her, entitled The Juggling Act of Multi-Magic by Salome Rothschild. He presumed it was an education in how to operate a number of consistently strong spells all at once, just as Helena had done, most impressively, when she had removed Aamir’s curse.

It seemed a safe enough avenue of learning, and it made Alex happy to see his friend back to her usual self, her nose buried in a book, studying intently. In fact, everybody seemed to be happy, and it was a nice feeling to know they were safer now than they would have been back at Spellshadow. Here, they were doing things on their own terms, with good food, clean water, warmth, and company, giving them the chance to learn and grow and mend, without death looming over them in an unspoken whisper of dread. Companionship and camaraderie had returned to the group, however fragile they might be.

Sitting down beneath the sill of one of the windows, Alex pulled out his pilfered book on The Royal Households and began to read. Ellabell sat down beside him, peering over his shoulder, her eyes flickering over the sentences.

“Why are you reading that?” she asked quietly, her eyes still following the words on the page.

He shrugged. “I picked it up the other night—figured it might tell me a bit more about who the magical royals are and what they do within the magical world,” he explained, letting on a little more than he usually would have.

“Who they are?” questioned Ellabell curiously.

Alex nodded. “The Princess Alypia—that beautiful, terrifying woman from the arena—is the Headmistress here at Stillwater, and I was just wondering whether all royals were at the helms of these magical schools,” he ventured, keeping Alypia’s utterance of the words “little brother” to himself, until he could be more certain of the relation between Alypia and the Head.

A look of contemplation passed across Ellabell’s face. “There were some books back at Spellshadow,” she mused. “They had information about the royals in them.”

“What kind of information?” asked Alex.

“Well, you remember that battle I was telling you about, when you came to see me in my dorm?”

Alex flushed slightly. “Yeah.”

“Well, it’s interesting—the royals, after the battle came to an end, had to make a decision. So many mages had died during that final war between…” She trailed off, looking him guiltily in the eye.

“It’s okay, you can talk about it. It was a long time ago,” he said. To him, it was still a fresh wound, but she didn’t need to know that.

She sighed softly, pushing her spectacles nervously back up the bridge of her nose. “Well—many mages had died during that war between the mages and the Spellbreakers, and they had this ‘Great Evil’ to contend with too—the one released on that last day. So, naturally, somebody had to take charge and try to protect those who were left. That job, as you would imagine, fell to the royals—the rulers of the magical world,” she began, her eyes glittering with intellect as she spoke. “Now, it has never been confirmed in any of the books I managed to get my hands on—I mean, there weren’t all that many to steal at Spellshadow—but there was a rumor that, in order to protect the rest of the magical community, the royals took charge of magical institutions after the battle, as a means of… Well, I don’t know why they did it, and I’ve never found any other information on it. It was just one page in one book, saying that is what they did,