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

trepidation he’d felt leaving her there, not even knowing she’d have to deal with the chaos that had ensued, he was just glad to hold her again. At every turn, he was reminded how treacherous the magical world could be. And she was right, the stakes were improbably high now, and the moment for action would soon be upon them. Two days would go by in an instant, and then… who knew if any of them would come back in one piece? There had never been a guarantee. As much as Alex pined to see home and his mother again, he knew there was a decent chance he might never set foot in the ordinary world again, let alone see his mother’s face once more. He had chosen this path—the only thing left to do was walk it.

He kissed her hair gently, a freshly washed, jasmine-like scent filling his nose. “I saw Elias—he stopped me,” he explained.

She pulled back to look at him. “Elias stopped you?”

Alex nodded. “He said the survivors of Falleaf won’t be of any use to us. They’re… broken, to use his word. I think Hadrian might’ve been right; they aren’t strong enough to join our ranks, and I don’t think I’d feel right asking. Not now.”

“Those poor things,” Ellabell whispered, kissing Alex’s shoulder.

“We’ll free them soon enough,” Alex murmured, unwilling to listen to the niggling voice in the back of his head that said otherwise. There was still ample time for them to fail.

Ellabell smiled against his shirt. “Well, I’m off to bed. We’ve got a big day of planning ahead of us tomorrow,” she said, pulling away from Alex’s arms.

“Could I be cheeky and ask for a goodnight kiss?” he asked, locking eyes with her. She smiled gleefully, and Alex wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a more beautiful sight than her standing there, smiling at him in the romantic glow of the lamplight.

“I thought you’d never ask,” she whispered, and their lips met in a tender kiss.

Just for that one moment, that joyful bubble of frozen time, everything seemed right with the world. With Ellabell in his arms, his mind consumed by her, he had no room to think of vengeful royals, or cannibalistic silver mist, or the intricacies of a spell in which one false move signaled failure. It was just him and her, feeling the heartwarming glow of first love.

Chapter 30

As the end of the first day came to a close, Alex wished he’d told Helena to meet earlier. They had gone over the plan of action, with Hadrian promising to fetch another bagful of essence to replace the bottles that had been used in portal-building. After that, there hadn’t been much else to do, and the mood quickly became fractious. Adding to it was the fact that Agatha had taken ill again, which set Alex on edge. He kept expecting her to burst from the flimsy doors of her chamber and chase him down. Vincent was patiently seeing to her, with the assistance of Hadrian, who was feeding her a potent concoction the color of violets at regular intervals.

All Alex could do was pace and worry, and pace some more, and wait for the next day to be over. Keeping to his room for the most part, he went over and over the counter-spell until he couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. Even then, he kept going, forcing his eyes to move across the page, absorbing the text. No matter how many times he read it, he knew he could never prepare himself for the enormity of what was to come. At this point, there were still a lot of “ifs” flying around, and until they were cemented in reality, they were still at the starting line.

Finally, the next day dawned.

With two bulging sacks of essence, one refreshed, one being the spare that had never quite reached Helena and the others, they made their way down to the forest. Alex had the Book of Jupiter stowed safely away in a satchel, but he could not let go of it as they walked, his hands insistently clamped on the straps. Nerves were running high, nobody speaking much as Hadrian led the way, though he wasn’t coming with them. Nor was Agatha, who was being left in the capable hands of the nervous royal. Alex had been surprised that Vincent hadn’t attempted to stay too, but the necromancer had insisted he join the main group.

Vincent and Agatha had shared their farewells sitting off to the side, by one of the windows of the pagoda, where Alex had heard the woeful snuffle of Agatha’s tears. Regardless of the old woman’s hatred for Spellbreakers, she was a good person, and it was hard to hear the sound of her heart breaking as her best friend left her behind, potentially forever.

“I have lived a good old time, Agatha dearest, and if it is finally my moment to go, then I shall embrace the grim reaper with open arms,” Vincent had murmured to her, trying to soothe her.

“I will die a second later, if you’re to leave me,” she had wailed.

“Then, let it be so, and I shall see you on the other side, dear heart,” Vincent had promised. “You have been beside me for more years than I care to count, and death shall not change that. The universe guides everything, and it shall liberate the both of us.”

Vincent had put on his calmest face as he had emerged from Agatha’s sick room. The stoic expression was still on his face when he joined the others on their journey to the spot where they would open up the portal to Spellshadow Manor.

“Let’s agree to meet on the perimeter of the school, where the trees meet the smoking field. Aamir, you remember where that is, right?” Alex asked. Having come down through the pagoda and run to the safety of the trees, they had reached the point where they had to part ways, with Aamir,