The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 5 by Bella Forrest (book series for 10 year olds .TXT) 📕

of the others’ magic, and it exploded with an ear-splitting blast as it hit the charging assailants, sending them sprawling back. To Alex’s relief, they stayed down, utterly disoriented. All they were missing were little birds spinning around their heads.

Heading down another hallway, which appeared silent and safe, a shrieking woman shrouded in a black cloak jumped down from the rafters, knocking Aamir flat on his back. She pummeled his chest, howling close to his face, her eyes spooked.

“You traitor! You betrayed me, you coward!” she screamed, clawing at Aamir’s neck. The older boy fought to defend himself against her, but her strength was borderline supernatural.

The others jumped into action, trying to haul the screaming woman off their friend. Alex reached forwards and touched the side of her head, feeding his anti-magic into her skull, but the images that came back to him were too upsetting and too alarming to stay there for long. He saw the betrayal of which she spoke. A lover had persuaded her to perform a heist, and she had done as he had asked, only for him to run away when the authorities came, leaving her to shoulder the full weight of the law. Her grief was overwhelming, and Alex could feel it melting through into his own veins as he struggled to find a happy image to distract her with.

Vincent stepped in just as Alex was losing his grip on her mind. It was impossible to sift through the tangle of misery, and try as he might, Alex couldn’t find anything happy within the woman’s head. It was all tainted with heartbreak. With a flicker of white light, the necromancer twisted his energy into the screaming woman’s mind, replacing the tendrils of Alex’s. With a final howl, she fell limp in Agatha and Ellabell’s arms.

With no time to waste, they dragged her off Aamir and placed her gently down in one of the nearby cells. It would be a long while before she awoke, and Alex just hoped that Vincent had given the poor girl something good to dream about.

That was the thing that constantly surprised him about the keep and its inhabitants. Around every corner, he found himself faced with another dark recess of the human condition, and the struggles people had experienced. It showed him how people continued to endure, even in the hardest circumstances imaginable, when everything else had been taken away. The world either broke a person or made them unbreakable. Alex wondered which side of that he’d be standing on, when all of this came to an end.

Aamir got up, brushing himself off. “I know I have a certain magnetism, but that was too close for comfort,” he murmured, though there was a tremor of fear in his voice.

Alex and the others moved onward, their eyes and ears more alert than before. It seemed like a never-ending barrage of attackers and retaliation, Alex’s palms growing strangely itchy from persistent use. Each time his anti-magic rippled from his hands, it felt like pins and needles, and yet he forced himself to continue.

Finally, they reached the doorway that led to the spot where Lintz had built the portal to Falleaf. Quickly, they darted inside and closed the door behind them. The whole room held bad memories for Alex, and they came rushing back into his mind. Gulping, he pushed down a rising nausea as his eyes rested on the place where Caius had lain with specters circling around him. Vincent flashed Alex a look of understanding.

“Where did you put Caius?” Alex asked.

“He is in what was formerly my cell,” Vincent replied. “The door is locked, on the off chance he rises from his ailment.”

“Then we should get on with this,” said Alex, opening the bag of essence. Everyone took a bottle, and they began to weave and shape the gateway that would lead them through to Falleaf House, and the veritable sanctuary that lay there. Anywhere was better than here.

They made swift work of building the new portal, made easier by the fact they were opening up an existing connection once more, but Alex’s head kept snapping over his shoulder at the smallest sound coming from the corridor beyond the door. He kept expecting someone to burst in, wielding a blade or something worse.

Alex and the others stepped backwards as the portal expanded outwards with a burst of light, revealing the familiar scene of the bronzed forest canopy, the leaves falling softly to the ground. Agatha shrieked in delight as she saw it.

“Is this where we’re going?” she asked.

Alex nodded. “This is where you’ll be safe.”

“Can you believe this, Vincent? We are leaving, at long last!” she cried, tears shining in her eyes.

Alex smiled, not quite realizing until that moment what freedom might mean to Agatha and Vincent. The necromancer wasn’t nearly as open with his emotions, but Alex could tell there was a sense of happiness brimming beneath the serene surface of Vincent’s face.

“Indeed we are, dear heart. Did you ever think you’d see the day?” Vincent asked, his voice calm.

“I thought I’d die in this hellhole,” Agatha cackled. “Even now, I’ve managed to defy them all!”

“You should hurry through,” Alex insisted. “Ellabell and I will follow, just make your way to that willow tree there. Aamir, you know the way, right?” he said, pointing to the draped fronds of the willow where Storm had camouflaged herself. Aamir nodded.

“Why, where are you going?” Vincent wondered.

Alex smiled. “You’ll see.”

He waited until Agatha, Aamir, and Vincent were safely through the glowing gateway before pressing his palms into the center, drawing the fabric of the threads apart. They crumbled, floating to the stone floor. It was too bitter a memory for Alex, as he envisioned the way Caius must have done exactly what he had just done, blocking his exit.

It’s in the past. Caius paid for his betrayal, Alex thought to himself grimly, wishing it hadn’t had to be that way. He had longed for the old warden to be as true as