The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 2 by Bella Forrest (top ten ebook reader .TXT) 📗

morphed into a ball of energy. Move that ball of magic from where you are to where you want to be, and then decompress it back to your full form.” It sounded a lot like gibberish as he spoke the words aloud. More than that, it sounded potentially dangerous. “Does that make any sense to you?” he asked.

“Not much,” admitted Natalie. A sheen of golden energy rippled through her body and lay slickly against her as if it were a second skin, her whole self glowing. Alex watched, focusing on Natalie’s steady glow, ready to step in with his anti-magic if something went wrong. She radiated light, the image an ethereal one, but she didn’t seem to be going anywhere or turning into the proposed ball of light.

A few moments passed before Alex realized something was wrong.

“Are you all right?” he asked, kneeling.

“Yes, it’s just not working,” said Natalie, her face scrunched up in concentration.

“In what way?” he pressed.

“I keep trying to draw my magic upward, but I cannot. I keep focusing on the stairs, willing myself to move, but… it is like something is pressing back against me,” she explained, the golden sheen fading from her skin as she ceased her efforts.

“What does it feel like?” asked Alex. He skimmed through the manual to see if it said anything about environmental resistance.

“It burns,” she muttered.

“It burns?”

“Yes, it is hard to explain,” she said quietly.

“How about some flight?” encouraged Alex. He flipped to another section of the book he thought they might try.

Scanning the list, he eliminated the travel techniques that required any equipment they didn’t have, such as a standard-issue cape, a pair of griffon’s wings, the scales of a dragon, or the tail feather of a ‘Thunderbird,’ to name a few. That left only a handful that needed solely magic, but enough for Alex to be hopeful of success. He wondered if that was how the book had slipped past the Head’s notice: the students had no access to any of the things required for most of the travel methods.

“Is it not simply like in the library?” Natalie frowned, reminding Alex of the graceful leaps from the towers that everybody except him seemed able to do.

He shook his head. “No, I think that’s more like jumping and falling. This is a bit more of a long-distance thing,” he explained, reading quickly through the “Introduction to Flying” section. “Okay, so you need to force your magic into your feet, while holding streams of magic in your hands, sort of like a marionette puppet. Turn the streams in your hands with your index and middle finger in opposite circles, until you create a cushion of air beneath your feet. Then raise your thumb with the other fingers and control up and down by pinching your two fingers against your thumb,” he rambled, holding up the diagrams to Natalie so she might see better.

This one seemed a little easier, Alex thought, as he watched her begin to move her fingers in the correct motions, her feet glowing amber as rippling streams of golden energy lifted from her toes to her hands. Slowly, she lifted from the ground, floating a short distance above it. Alex flashed her a thumbs-up as she glanced over to him, an anxious smile playing on her face. As she moved her three fingers into the right position, she pinched them together slowly.

Nothing happened, the cushion of air holding her just above the singed grass of the lawn. Alex pointed upward with his fingers, gesturing what she should do. Natalie nodded, swiftly moving her fingers apart, breaking the circle of the pinch. The effect was immediate as she soared into the air at hurtling speed. Alex’s heart was in his mouth as he watched her shoot upward, almost as high as the roof of the manor. She was doing well, moving smoothly, seemingly in control.

Then, in a split second, everything went wrong. Natalie smacked hard into a barrier, invisible to the eye, running parallel from the tallest spire of the manor house across the grounds. Her body crumpled against it, frozen for a moment, before she began to tumble from the sky, the golden aura around her feet falling away like glittering dust.

Alex jumped to his feet, focusing on the falling figure as he sent a stream of black and silver toward her, trying to snatch her out of the sky. But he knew his anti-magic wasn’t strong enough to catch and hold her, and he was unable to latch on to anything. Thinking quickly, he raced toward the point of her imminent impact, placing his palm down against the ground, squeezing his eyes closed as he formed a cushion beneath his hand. The familiar cold smothered his fingers, and he pushed the anti-magic higher and higher, inflating it.

Plummeting fast, Natalie collapsed into the deep drift of snow created by Alex’s hands, the soft substance breaking her fall. Rushing to her aid, Alex couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder to make sure nobody had seen the act. The grounds were empty, save for a few spiny bundles of tumbleweed that bounced lightly along the barren earth.

“Natalie! Natalie, are you okay?” He dug through the snow to get to her, though it was melting quickly in the sunlight.

“Ow.” She winced, sitting up, showing surprise at the sight of the snow around her. She looked to Alex. “This was you?”

He nodded. “I had to improvise.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, holding a hand to the back of her neck.

“Are you okay?” asked Alex, watching his friend as she checked her limbs for broken bones.

“I think so. A few bruises.” She smiled feebly, though her sudden, sharp intake of breath when Alex reached out to help her up told him that she was putting on a brave face.

Indeed, a purple welt was coming up beneath the apple of her cheek, and her upper lip was cut, fresh blood welling to the surface as Alex got her to her feet, the snow now a