“I’m sorry,” Aamir whispered. “I know it was a stupid thing to do. I should have just told you, but I was ashamed of the things I did when I was Professor Escher. When they brought me here, I was trained in so many foul things. I was taught how to keep students in line, how to manipulate them using mind techniques and magic that made them experience pain and suffering like you wouldn’t believe. Those post-curfew punishments we were all so worried about? We had a right to be scared. They trained me in how to lash students, how to curse students, what to do if they broke the rules—it was a death sentence… and I was expected to dole it out.” He drew in a breath, his throat tight as sorrow gleamed in his eyes. “So many awful things were expected of us. We were told to use whatever means necessary to hold our positions as teachers. They taught me so many vile spells, to hurt and punish and emotionally scar students. They taught me all of that here, and I didn’t want to think about it—I didn’t want you to think of me that way. I wanted to bury Escher for good, and I went about it in entirely the wrong way.” His brow furrowed as he held his head in his hands.
This tale seemed to placate the others, who rushed to embrace the softly weeping Aamir, but Alex knew the tears were rooted in something deeper. The shame he believed, but the teachers had a choice; they had seen as much with the likes of Gaze and Lintz. Yes, there were bad eggs, but it didn’t mean they didn’t have a choice.
Alex had a feeling that it was this that lay at the root of Aamir’s shame. Through fear or uncertainty or not knowing, Aamir had done the bidding of the Head, being too naïve or too frightened not to. It made sense—Gaze and Lintz were older, with less to lose. Aamir had gone along with it, perhaps because he had seen no other option. Alex could understand that; he just wished he could hear Aamir admit to it, just once. The raw, honest, vulnerable truth. He could have truly respected his friend for that, because it wasn’t easy to say. Still, Alex believed the hurt in Aamir’s words and the meaning behind them and knew it was enough. His friend had been through enough, and the trust between them had been restored, however tentatively. It wasn’t an easy thing to admit, when a person was wrong, and so he looked to Aamir, realizing that, if this was all he was going to get by way of an apology, then that was fine by him. It was just nice to have the old Aamir back, or as near to him as it would ever be possible to get.
As Aamir regained his composure, Alex brought out the book Elias had given him and began to read. Ellabell shot him a curious look. She wandered over to where he was and sat on the armrest, peering down.
“What are you reading?” she asked.
“A Spellbreaker book,” he replied.
The sight of it seemed to perk up her interest. “Any good?”
“I’m still finding out,” he whispered. She smiled back at him, making him feel close to her as a warm, conspiratorial moment passed between them, reminding him of the last time they had bonded over stories from Spellbreaker history.
“It makes sense now, your sudden interest in battles.” She grinned. “Did I help at all?”
He nodded. “You helped more than you know.”
“I’m glad.” She nudged him lightly, leaning close as she tried to read some pages over Alex’s shoulder.
The moment was disturbed as Helena appeared, looking flustered.
“There you are!” she cried. “I’ve been trying to find you.”
She froze, her pale eyes snapping toward the book in Alex’s hands. Her expression morphed into one of shock as she read the title, Leander Wyvern: The Last Spellbreaker, and leveled her gaze at Alex.
“Where did you get that?” she breathed.
He shrugged. “It was just in the stacks.”
“Don’t play the fool, Alex! I know every book in this library, and that does not belong here,” she hissed. “That is a very rare book—rarer than you know. It has always been kept in my mother’s office, not here. You didn’t simply find that in the stacks, so I’ll ask you again—where did you get it?” Her eyes burned with annoyance.
“Why does it matter?” remarked Alex, genuinely curious to know why it did.
His comment seemed to soften Helena’s angry expression. “I suppose it doesn’t,” she said through gritted teeth, her words lacking conviction. “I was just surprised to see it in your hands, is all.”
Alex frowned, his suspicions piqued that she was no longer on their side. Her startling reaction had been unexpected to say the least, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Even as she got back to the reason she had been seeking them out, her eyes kept flitting to the cover of the book in Alex’s hands, her expression anxious.
“I come bearing good news,” she explained, a forced brightness in her voice.
“You do?” asked Natalie hopefully. “We have not been having much luck.”
Helena nodded. “I couldn’t find the book I wanted, with all the portal magic inside, but I did manage to find something else,” she whispered, as the others leaned in to hear.
“What did you find?” Jari asked, instantly doe-eyed in her presence. No lie could suppress his adoration for the girl.
“I managed to find a portal to another haven,” she said softly.
They looked at her in surprise. The only reason Alex had contemplated traveling to other havens was to seek out more bottles of essence, but the renewed idea was pleasing to Alex’s ears. It could maybe lead them to an abandoned site where they might have a lot more time to think, unburdened by the pressure of being pursued or used for ulterior purposes. Besides, if the black bottles were in Alypia’s office, he knew he might need to find essence elsewhere.
“Which haven is it?” Alex asked, remembering the note with the names of the remaining four havens upon it: Falleaf House, Kingstone Keep, Spellshadow Manor, Stillwater House.
Helena shook her head. “I don’t know. I just know it’s a portal to somewhere else.”
“How do you know?” he pressed.
She sighed, narrowing her eyes at him. “You really do have endless questions, don’t you? I know because there is a still, unmoving image through a door in one of the rooms in the deepest part of the school—it looks out onto a castle courtyard. Now, I don’t know about you, but you don’t tend to find many castles sticking out of subterranean rooms, do you? So I’m guessing it’s a portal,” she remarked, flashing a look at Alex. “Nobody goes down there. It’s close to the derelict quarter, so people tend to keep away. There’s nothing much to see there, and I saw in a book that portals can often be found in that kind of location—isolated, quiet, mostly empty places.”
“Which book?” asked Alex.
“I don’t remember—look, time is ticking. We need to get going, if we’re going,” Helena said. It didn’t escape Alex’s notice that she was pointedly ignoring his question. “The longer we stay, the less chance we have of being successful,” she added.
“What do you think?” asked Alex, looking at the others. Helena had a very good point, echoing what Gaze had said about them needing to step their plans up if they were to have any hopes of leaving.
“I think it could be our best shot,” Jari said eagerly, jiggling in his seat. It was definitely the most proactive plan anyone had come up with so far.
“I think we need to get as far away from the Headmistress and this weird magic air as soon as possible,” Aamir agreed.
“There is something not right here—there is something that keeps distracting us.” Natalie nodded, though there was a touch of reluctance in her voice, quickly masked with a smile.
“I think we should give it a try,” Ellabell said.
Alex paused. “We should go sooner rather than later though, yeah?”
The group agreed wholeheartedly. There was no point in staying somewhere that had such bizarre control over them. Besides, who was to say the magic in the air wouldn’t try to make them forget their plans, if they stayed a while longer? They had to believe Gaze; they had to get out as fast as they could, before anything could stop them.
; “Then we’re going,” Alex said, pleased with the conclusion.
Helena cleared her throat. “May I come with you?” she asked.
“You can come, if you take us to see the room with the portal in it,” he bargained.
Helena smirked. “I’m not an idiot, Alex. After all your talk of distrust, I don’t think I’ll be taking you there unless you truly promise to bring me with you.”
She had a point. Alex wasn’t happy with the idea of letting Alypia’s daughter follow along. It made him feel guilty, to be called out like that—to have his honor called into question. And yet she had been right to do it. His need to protect lay only with those who had come with him from Spellshadow; it did not fully extend to the silver-haired girl, but she couldn’t help her heritage.
“Then you’ll have to take us, and come with us,” he said quickly, before he could change his mind.
She grinned excitedly. “I’ll come and fetch you all at midnight, and lead you to the portal! You won’t regret this, I promise,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for not telling you about my mother, but I swear upon everything I hold dear that you can trust me.” A glimmer of emotion flashed in her gold eyes, letting Alex know he had done the right thing.
“Why do want you to leave?” said Jari suddenly.
She sighed. “It’s complicated… I don’t want to be a royal. I never wanted to be a royal. I want more from life than what I can expect if I stay—there are duties and expectations, and I don’t want any of them. I never asked for them, and I want the same choices and opportunities that I’ve heard people can have out in the real world,” she explained sadly. “That is what I long for—to be normal. No magic, no royalty, no title, no pressures. Just me.”
It was the most genuine Alex had ever seen her, with her soul bared and her expression vulnerable. There was a lifetime of hurt and remorse in her voice, but there was hope too—they were the hope. They had turned up at just the right moment for Helena to hold onto her dream. Without them, he wondered what her plan might have been.
Whatever it was, he began to understand that they had more in common than he had realized.
He, too, just wanted to be normal again.
Chapter 37
Alex sat in his room, anxiously waiting for night to come. The others had gone down for something to eat, but he knew he couldn’t stomach a mouthful. Excitement and nerves made it as impossible as sitting still.
Gazing out the window at the rolling, emerald fields that shone dimly beneath the evening sky, he knew he couldn’t just sit there anymore, twiddling his thumbs. His muscles were tense and in need of stretching; he needed to not be surrounded by the echoing voices of students and people, clamoring through the corridors outside, which were only serving to increase his anxiety. He needed peace, to get the plan clear in his mind, like preparation before a big game. He needed room to go over some spells, to calm his nerves. It made him think about what Helena had said about the abandoned quarter of the school and nobody ever going there—he knew firsthand how quiet it could be out there. It was the perfect spot to get his head clear. Plus, if they made it out, he knew this would be his last chance to explore that part of the school, and he liked the idea of saying a fond farewell to the bell tower that had kept them safe in those early days.
Slipping out of his room, he headed cautiously through the hallways and corridors of the school, moving toward the abandoned courtyard with the bell tower in the corner. From there, he would spread out and explore the derelict section of the villa, going over a few defensive spells as he walked through the halls.
Nobody bothered him as he slunk from shadow to shadow, putting up a shield whenever somebody came too close, the crackle of it prickling the hairs on the back of their neck if they got too near, like an unseen breath in the darkness. Spooked, the intruders quickly moved away, leaving him to advance onward.
Stepping out into the familiar courtyard, piled with rubble and dust and forgotten debris, Alex spun on his heel and turned to face the shaded façade of the villa’s exterior. Ahead of him lay the corridor that the Head and Headmistress had vanished into, that night he had listened to them talking in a windowless study, thinking themselves alone. Seeing it, an impulse tugged at his mind, making Alex want to head toward it. He could see the bookshelves in his mind’s eye, and they made him curious—perhaps there was something in them that might prove a useful addition to his collection.
He gave in to the impulse, following the half-remembered route through the dim hallways, the torches sputtered out and gathering cobwebs in their brackets. Turning this way and that, he hoped he was going the right direction; otherwise, he knew he’d never find his way back out. It was like an old Greek story he’d loved as a kid—Theseus and the Minotaur. He was Theseus, holding one end of an imaginary ball of golden twine as he wandered through the labyrinth in search of a mysterious creature that could well kill him. A real ball of twine would have been nice.
Alex turned down a short corridor that seemed gloriously familiar. It was the same one he had followed Alypia and her brother to, that night—he was almost certain of it, though most of the hallways in this place looked alike. Checking both shadowy ends of the hallway for anyone who might sneak up on him, he stopped in front of the door he had once crouched beside. Drawn by curiosity, he ducked down and peered through the keyhole, seeing the same windowless study beyond. It brought back troublesome memories, but it was definitely the same spot where he had seen Alypia and her brother talk. Wanting to get a closer look, feeling convinced that those bookshelves on the back wall contained something of use, he placed his palm on the lock and let the silvery black of his anti-magic flow through, building a spell around it, trying to break it with force. Nothing happened.
Frustrated, Alex poured layer after layer of strong energy into the mechanism instead, closing his eyes to try to visualize the system within, using it like clockwork to lift and move the bolts with his anti-magic. It was a tough job, taking all his concentration, but the bars slid backward. With a satisfying click, the door unlocked. Alex had never felt such relief, not knowing how much longer he could stay out in the hallway, exposed like that.
Ducking quickly into the room, he did the same trick to lock the door behind him. A broken lock, he knew, was always a telltale sign of trespassers.
Glancing around, letting his heartrate return to normal, he saw the study looked exactly the same. The sleek wooden desk and the high-backed chair. The promising bookshelves running along each wall. One thing that was definitely different, however, was the sight of another door, tucked into the wall at the far right side of the room. It was too far away to have been visible from the keyhole, which would explain why he hadn’t been able to see it until now.
Fear and anticipation gripped his heart in a vice, quickening his heartbeat once more, until he thought it might jump from his ribcage as he approached the narrow wooden door. This had not been what he was expecting. It didn’t seem possible that it had been within his grasp, all this time. It looked much like the one in the chamber at Spellshadow, only not so unpleasant. Here, it was far away from the terror and viscous byproducts of the actual extraction.
Holding the black iron ring that hung to one side, he twisted it and felt his stomach sink as it gave, the door pushing open with relative ease. Beyond it, in the dim glow of torchlight, he saw shelves upon shelves, stacked with smoky black bottles no bigger than pepper shakers, glowing with the familiar red pulse of somebody’s life essence. Acrid bile rose up his throat.
Suddenly, he heard the mutter of voices and the sound of a key turning in the lock, not far from where he stood. His heart was in his mouth, fear freezing him to the spot for a moment before action kicked in. Quickly, he pushed the door shut behind him as he ducked and rolled beneath the wooden shelving units, dust getting in his mouth and nostrils, scratching at his throat. He hoped the glowing life magic of many hundreds of mages would hide the strange, angered crackle of his own anti-magic.
Every
flurry of dust made him want to sneeze, and he imagined all kinds of creatures crawling over him, in the grimy darkness beneath the shelves. It took everything he had not to reach up and rub the dust from his nose, instead staying perfectly still as he listened for the new arrivals. The muttered voices had definitely entered the study, but they did not come toward the antechamber where Alex lay. Straining to hear, he could make out the clear, crisp sound of the Headmistress’s voice, but he couldn’t determine the intonation of the other voice with her. He didn’t think it was the Head, but he couldn’t be sure. The voice was too distorted, too fuzzy.
After what seemed like an age of listening to the two speakers drone on in a hardly coherent buzz, his chest burning as he struggled to take small breaths, the sound of the lock turning again granted him a desperate reprieve. Still not daring to inhale deeply and clear the muck from his airways, he rolled out from under the shelving and crawled toward the door. Opening it a crack, he peered tentatively out into the study, but there was nobody in the room beyond. Whatever they had come to discuss, they had done it and left. Only then, stepping away from the antechamber, did he gasp for air, filling his lungs as he coughed the debris out of his croaky throat.
Moving toward the door, he unlocked it and let himself out into the corridor, running as quickly as he dared back to his bedroom. The sands of time were against him, but he wasn’t about to give up when he had come so close to the prize. He refused to be foiled by something as insignificant as lacking a bag.
Reaching his room, he dove toward the wardrobe and pulled out boxes and drawers he had barely opened, seeking out a bag of some sort—something suitable he could use to carry as many of the bottles as possible. He didn’t need to take all of them, but a hefty sum would be good. Raking through the piles of clean clothes, and shoes he’d never worn, his hands clasped around a black satchel. It was perfect for what he needed.
Checking the clock on the wall, he saw with astonishment that it was almost ten. By the time he had returned and found the satchel, he had left himself barely any wiggle room if anything went wrong—it was down to the wire now, with two hours to get in and get out with as many bottles as he could lay his hands on before they left with Helena through the portal.