“Right, then, shall we get to it?” Aamir grinned.
They set up the cellar for a sparring session, placing a few ancient bottles in the center and drawing lines in the dust.
“What kept you?” Jari asked lightly as he dragged one of the racks out of the way, searching for more bottles behind it.
Aamir sighed more heavily, and not out of relief. “Things have changed. I can’t just be at your beck and call all the time anymore. I have duties, responsibilities, restrictions. I can’t get away on a whim, whenever I like.” A sudden bitterness tainted his voice. Aamir opened his mouth, his brow furrowed, as if he were about to apologize, but he didn’t say the words.
Alex was surprised by Aamir’s coldness toward his friend—toward all of them. It had been easier to understand in the classroom, but they weren’t in the classroom anymore. There was something unmistakably different about him; he seemed weighed down, his temper quick and the lines around his eyes showing the first telltale signs of unspoken exhaustion. Alex longed to reach out to Aamir, to ask what troubled him, but didn’t feel like getting the same snappy response Jari had gotten.
“Then let’s just get on with it, shall we, if you’re in such a rush?” Jari retorted, returning Aamir’s frostiness, as they moved to either end of the cellar, behind the drawn lines.
“Jari, don’t be—” Aamir began, but Jari had already sent a spiral of liquid gold searing toward Aamir’s face.
Aamir ducked just in time, watching the magic explode into a shower of glittering dust against the far wall of the cellar. Jari fired another, twisting his hand to conjure up a ball of energy that pulsed in his palm before he launched it at the unprepared Aamir.
Aamir quickly sidestepped the magical missile as it sailed past his head. When Jari turned his hand to create a more solid javelin of magical energy, Aamir was ready for him, moving his hand slightly to one side, flicking Jari’s magic away. He conjured a shield around his friend, trying to keep Jari’s energy hemmed in. Jari raised his palms and twisted both hands counterclockwise, sending a violent pulse out from within the shield, shattering it. There was a flash of fury in the younger boy’s eyes.
The pulse knocked everyone in the room backward, Natalie and Alex included, as Jari regained his stance, breathing heavily. Sweat beaded on his forehead, dampening his blond locks. He sent wave after wave of magical artillery at Aamir, who swiped them away, snatching the magic from the air and diffusing it against the walls of the cellar, dirt and dust and splintered wood flying everywhere. Aamir was sweating too, trying to defend himself from the barrage of attacks.
Jari drew streams and spirals of magical energy from within himself. The ripples curled and weaved about his fingertips, golden and powerful, before he hurled them at Aamir.
There was such rage, such anger, behind the blows that Aamir’s face had gone pale. The magic was powerful because it was driven by emotion, but it was spiraling out of control. They could all see it, bristling around Jari like static electricity, sparking and pluming from his body as if he were on fire. The entire surface of his smooth skin seemed to be alight with golden flames, rippling through his veins, the glow visible beneath his flesh. His blows were erratic and fearsome, his hands twisting and turning so fast they were barely visible, one after another in quick succession. Each narrowly missed Aamir as he tried desperately to cast them all aside, not wanting to hurt his friend in retaliation.
Suddenly, Alex saw Jari conjure up a solid blade of golden light in one hand, the boy’s hands shaking from the strain of molding it. Jari’s eyes were ablaze, as if drunk on the power. He raised his hand and sent the golden blade directly toward Aamir’s chest, sparking a wispy trail of magical energy as it soared through the air toward its target. It would have hit Aamir, too, had Alex not seen and realized what was going to happen. Thinking quickly, Alex focused his anti-magic on the fast-moving blade of magical matter, and deftly turned his hands, feeling the weight and texture of the magical weapon as he exploded the object from within into a flurry of harmless snow.
Alex stood, stunned, as the fight came to an abrupt halt. He stared down at his hands, still covered in rapidly melting flakes of snow. He had managed to look at an object and a person and form the right anti-magic to defuse the magic, without even having to close his eyes. Natalie gave him a thumbs-up from across the room, though it seemed a peculiar moment to feel pleased about his success. Jari was trembling on his side of the room, his face drained of color. Aamir was much the same on the other side, and seemed to have realized the blade had been intended to inflict actual, savage pain on him.
“Jari, calm down. You need to calm down,” Aamir said softly, moving across the room to stand with his friend. He placed a hand on Jari’s shoulder, rubbing it gently to try to soothe him. Jari’s breaths were labored and rasping in his throat. Sweat dripped from his brow, pooling across his shirt as he tried to regain control, his hands shaking, his knees knocking, his whole body shivering.
Aamir sat Jari down on the floor, beckoning the others to join them in a circle.
“I’m sorry,” Aamir began. “I’m sorry that I don’t seem like myself. Believe me, I don’t feel like myself. You are my friends, and I have been unkind to you all,” he continued, his face downcast. “It’s this thing—you have to believe me when I tell you, it is all this thing,” he confessed, pulling back his sleeve to reveal the golden band, glinting wickedly in the low torchlight of the cellar. A look of pain passed across Aamir’s expression, his forehead furrowing.
“What does it do?” Alex asked.
“Hurts, mostly,” Aamir said wearily. He looked far older than his nineteen years.
“What sets it off?” Natalie asked, examining the thing cautiously.
Aamir shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. I don’t know exactly how much power it has. All I know is, when I say things, it sends a shock of pain through my body. I don’t know how much it can do—whether it hears what is going on around me, whether it monitors me as well as keeps me from saying things it doesn’t want me to.” Aamir’s face screwed up into a grimace, and he winced in pain. “You should be careful of what you say and do around me. Exercise caution. Don’t say or do anything that could get you in trouble.” He glanced at Alex intently for a moment, conveying a silent message. “I’m not even sure I’m supposed to be doing this, with you.” Aamir gestured around the room, his shoulders sagging.
“Do you want me to try and…” Alex trailed off, remembering not to say anything condemning. He pointed to his wrist instead and waved his hands about in the air, hoping Aamir understood the charade.
Aamir shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Too risky.”
“I don’t mind,” Alex insisted.
“I mean, they will notice if it isn’t there anymore. They will see,” Aamir explained, his eyes wide.
“You could at least try,” Jari muttered sullenly, shaking Aamir’s hand off his back.
“I’m sorry. It’s like I said, things have changed. Everything has changed,” Aamir replied. “Even if you could get this thing off, it wouldn’t mean I was free. I still wouldn’t be able to come here as I pleased, and run about with you guys the way I used to. Even if it was gone, I’d still have to act as if it were there. Do you understand?” Aamir’s voice was heavy with sadness as he sat back against the cellar wall, glancing up at the ceiling. He looked so very tired. “The risk is too high, for all of us.”
“Aamir?” Alex said.
Aamir tipped his head forward again, leveling his gaze with Alex. “What is it?” he asked.
“Would you mind if I tested the… in case it comes up later on… down the line?” Alex pointed at the band on Aamir’s wrist.
Aamir looked down at the line, watching it pulse and fizz and crackle against his skin. He looked to Alex, and nodded slightly. “Just to check—to touch and no more,” Aamir warned.
Alex agreed and moved closer to Aamir until he sat cross-legged in front of the older boy. Slowly,
he reached out toward the golden band, and had barely touched a fingertip to the ripple of energy before it began to retaliate against Alex’s anti-magic. The power was immense, sending a pulse of frozen tendrils up Alex’s arm, numbing his fingers. He snatched his hand away and drew a sharp breath. The golden line was more powerful than Alex had imagined. He felt the shiver of it still as it snaked through his veins toward his stomach. Trying to break it would be futile, Alex realized, but he couldn’t bring himself to reveal this to Jari, who watched him with quiet hope.
“It’s not too bad,” Alex managed. “I imagine, with practice, I might be able to come up with something. Maybe a pair of scissors.” He laughed stiffly, the humor not reaching his eyes. Natalie chuckled softly and Jari broke a smile, but Aamir’s face remained stoic.
“Thank you for trying,” Aamir said quietly. He reached out to shake Alex’s hand, drawing him into a hug as he did so. Alex understood. Aamir knew what Alex knew—that it was useless trying to remove the thing.
“I’ll work on it, Aamir. I promise I will,” Alex murmured close to Aamir’s ear. “Somehow, we’ll get you back.”
When they drew apart, Alex could see the misery in Aamir’s eyes, though he covered it swiftly as Jari asked if he wanted another round. A mask of bravado fell across Aamir’s face, smothering the vulnerability, as he glanced over to his friend.
“I can’t stay,” Aamir said apologetically. “And you should all be thinking about heading back.”
“Let’s call it a night,” Alex agreed.
There had been more than enough excitement for one evening.
Chapter 5
Alex stirred in his sleep, waking suddenly to the darkened room around him, the soft sound of his roommate breathing the only noise. The curtains above him billowed slightly, but that was not what had awoken him. Rubbing his eyes, still scratchy with sleep, he propped himself up onto his elbows and glanced around.
Part of him expected to see Siren Mave, furtively removing the last traces of Aamir from the room—gathering up the folded pile of his bedding from the mattress nearby, stealing away with pillows and duvets and sheets, into the night. But that part of the room was still, the bedding undisturbed, everything neat and in its place. Jari was splayed out in a bizarre position, one leg hanging off the side of his bed, arms stretched out on either side of him, snoring into his pillow.
Something else had woken Alex.
His sleepy eyes caught a glimpse of a shiny blur that darted across the bottom of the bed. It moved quickly, with a quiet whirr. Alex sat up a little higher, squinting to try to make out the object running to and fro across the blanket. Whatever it was ducked and rolled, barreling into one of the wrinkles in the sheets made by Alex’s leg. He felt it knock into his knee with an ungainly thud.
Peering around the corner of the wrinkle were two small, beady eyes, glittering black in the darkness of the room. The creature crept out from its burrow, moving stealthily toward Alex, across his stomach and up onto the rise of his chest, the tiny feet barely making an indent. Alex could see that it was a mouse, delicately crafted in silver and gold panels of different shapes and sizes, all working together in perfect unison. The clockwork parts were intricate and beautiful to behold as they powered the small legs forward, one at a time, its impossibly fine tail whipping from side to side as the precise, bronze, half-circular discs of the ears twitched. Even the nose, a painstakingly applied triangle of gold inlay, seemed to sniff the air as the mouse approached, those glittering eyes watching Alex cautiously—the behavior so skillfully lifelike. The creature paused on the upward incline of his ribcage, and Alex saw the glow of pale amber light flowing easily through the mechanisms, keeping the pieces moving.
The mouse twitched its ears at Alex, turning sideways a little. Alex could feel the pad of the mechanical feet on his chest, which brought an awestruck smile to his face. The smile turned to a frown of curiosity as he caught sight of a small scroll, rolled up and tied to the mouse’s delicate metal leg with a thin ribbon of silver twine. He reached over gently, expecting the mouse to dart away from him—the creature was so realistic—but the mouse stayed put, allowing Alex to remove the small roll of paper from its hind leg.
He unrolled it slowly. On the minuscule sheet of paper was a message, written in the tiniest hand. Alex had to strain to see it in the darkness as he brought it closer to his eyes, using the sliver of moonlight that strayed in through a gap in the curtains to read. There was a lot written, for such a small scroll.
The note was a warning.
You ought to be more careful with your secrets, Alex. Not everyone can be trusted with them. Think twice before you speak. Your lack of discretion is disturbing—I would have expected more from you. Be careful. You never know who is listening.
Alex turned the paper over for some clue as to who the sender might be, but it wasn’t signed.
Frustrated, he read the note again, its vagueness irking him as he tried to make sense of the warning. The tone was definitely threatening. Almost accusatory, Alex thought as he paused on his ‘lack of discretion.’ What lack of discretion? Racking his brain, he tried to think who might have sent it. Who might want to warn him, or at least chastise him like that? His eyes darted to the shadows that draped from the rafters.
The suggestion in the note annoyed him too. He wasn’t quite certain who it was he was supposed to be suspicious of—these non-trustworthy individuals whom he had to keep his secrets from. Natalie and Jari would never breathe a word if he told them. Aamir was a bit of an anomaly, but Alex had been careful not to say too much around the new teacher. Did it mean Ellabell?
Alex scrunched the note up in the palm of his hand. Who did the sender think they were, anyway, telling him whom he could and could not speak to? He knew his own mind, and it had steered him okay so far. Besides, how was he supposed to gather any information on all those glaring gaps in his knowledge if he couldn’t speak to anyone? He tossed the note onto the floor, watching as it skidded away under a chest of drawers.
Slowly, he reached toward the clockwork mouse, feeling the resistance of the golden magic within as he closed his hand around the mechanical creature. He felt the icy anti-magic flow eagerly from his palm, encircling the mouse, working its way into the intricate design and dispelling the warm glow from within until the shiny clockwork lay still in his hand, the current of magic gone from its limbs. The glitter dimmed in its eyes, and the moving parts ceased to twitch. Dead, for all intents and purposes. Alex felt a twinge of remorse as he held the mouse up to his eyes, running his thumb gently across the impeccably constructed mechanics, feeling the smooth metal, cold beneath his fingers. Even with the magic sucked out of it, the mouse was beautifully lifelike—a true work of craftsmanship.
He placed the creature on the smooth wooden surface at the top of his bedpost, as if the mouse were standing guard over him.
The note raced through his thoughts as he lay back, knowing sleep wouldn’t easily come again. The absent spaces in the shelves of the library still bothered him, and the note’s message had only increased his irritation. Who else was he supposed to ask for information? He thought of the still-missing Elias, wondering silently if the shadow-man had sent the clockwork. But it didn’t seem like Elias’s handiwork. He seemed to prefer paying Alex an actual visit whenever he had some vague message to impart. A secret, unsigned message was too subtle for Elias.
The ghost of Malachi Grey plagued Alex’s thoughts. Finder, with all that information tucked away—that fountain of knowledge, now dried up. A low sigh escaped his lips. Jari stirred in his sleep, and Alex froze, not wanting to wake his roommate.
“Who sent you?” Alex asked the mouse, even though he knew it wouldn’t answer. Frustration gripped him, and he wished he’d asked that question before he’d sucked out the magic. Not that the clockwork creature had a voice, necessarily, but Alex wondered if magic itself was traceable. If it was, it was too late to investigate now.
A crawling, creeping sensation pri
ckled beneath his skin as he looked beyond the mouse, up to the shadows gathering across the ceiling and snaking down the walls, hunched in corners with an inky mystery that Alex found suddenly disturbing. The darkness seemed to move like something living, shifting liquidly where it pleased, shrouding unseen eyes from view. The hairs on Alex’s arms stood on end as he became intensely aware of a familiar feeling—the feeling of being watched. He sat bolt upright, straining into the darkness, and tried to peer into the impenetrable mist of shadows.
“Elias?” Alex hissed, willing the shadowy being to waltz from the dark. “Elias, I know you’re there,” Alex spoke a little louder, anxiety constricting his throat as he stared into the shadows, utterly unconvinced that the penetrating eyes belonged to Elias. “Elias?” Alex whispered, one last time, a shiver rippling through him.
If Elias was there, he wasn’t being forthcoming.
Alex shook his head, telling himself quietly that it was all in his mind. He forced himself to settle back down beneath the covers. The shadows were just shadows, the feel of eyes on him merely a figment of his overwrought imagination. It was the note that had spooked him, that was all, conjuring up beasties and ghouls where there were none. Either that, or it was Elias playing tricks on him.
Alex turned from the far wall, where the shadows were deepest, and closed his eyes tightly, willing sleep to come as the tingle of something sinister continued to creep through his veins, chilling him to the very core, as if a nightmare had found its way from the safe confines of sleep and crept into the waking world.
Chapter 6
Hanging from the stone wall of the mess hall, written on a tapestry in great, sprawling black letters, was a message for the first-year students of Spellshadow Manor. Each day at the school was much the same, so any break in the staunch routine was met with a hum of curiosity.