The Secret of Spellshadow Manor by Bella Forrest (classic english novels txt) 📗

familiar features: the stone desk, littered with papers; the bookshelves; the tree-filled fireplace; the great window overlooking a frozen lake.

Alex let himself in, his breath catching with anticipation. This was it. What he had come for. He was almost there.

He made his way over to the bookshelf.

Most of the words on the spines were in Latin. While Alex knew some basic roots, he didn’t know nearly enough to understand half of what was before him. He recognized a few books of what must have been anima magic, something that read Monstrum Dica, a few books of what may have been more pyromancy. He was starting to wonder just how he was supposed to locate his objective when he spotted a small black book shoved into a corner of the shelf. Dust covered its spine, where faded words read:

Nobilitum Mortem.

Alex reached out, fingers ready to brush the ancient leather cover, when his eyes caught sight of a thin crimson line on the interior of the bookshelf. He cursed under his breath.

Alex would have bet anything that he was looking at another curse. He stared at it with hard eyes. His bones still felt icy after the last piece of magic he had recklessly flung himself through, but the book was right there, within his reach. They could stop Finder with it, free a trapped soul and prevent any more students from being dragged to this place. Alex clenched his fist, drew in a breath, and seized the book.

A spark of energy started in his toes and crackled up him, sending him twitching to the ground. He only just managed to close his fingers around the book and yank it free before agony rolled through his being, his vision washed away by a blur of multicolored sparks and pain. He must have cried out as ice erupted within him with the sensation of being impaled upon countless spears. His body convulsed, and he felt bile frothing up into his mouth, his eyes wide, mouth gaping like a fish out of water, hands clinging desperately to the book in his hands.

He was only dimly aware of it when the door opened and a dark figure stepped inside. He heard the shuffling of rags, smelled the scent of grave dirt.

Through his pain, he heard a voice.

“There was a puddle of water by the entrance,” it said softly. “A puddle of water. How strange is that?”

Finder.

No, not now…

There was the soft tread of boots as the man in rags crossed the room to the window. Alex bit back a groan as his spine convulsed, arching in pain.

“That spell does not make water,” Finder continued. “And yet there was water. There was ice.”

He turned, sweeping the room, but once again seemed thankfully unable to see Alex. His robes hung in tattered streams at his sides, dragging over the ground in his wake. In the midst of the pain, with his whole body tense and burning, Alex couldn’t help but think how very real the man looked. He didn’t look like any ghost he had ever heard of—Finder looked solid, present, as he dragged one finger along the windowsill, sending a cascade of dust spinning through the air.

Alex tried to keep himself from crying out as another crackle of energy ran through him.

“I bet you’ve been so very cold,” Finder said. To Alex’s surprise, the man crouched, sitting against the wall and looking toward where the stone desk stood at the end of the room. Could he sense Alex? “Your kind are supposed to feel magic’s touch so keenly.”

Alex’s back slumped to the ground, the magic finally seeming to relent, and he drew heavy, quiet breaths as he watched the ghost. Finder’s hood was drawn low over his face, and he sat in a position which Alex would almost have described as dejected.

“So cold that it enters your blood,” Finder said. “So cold it crackles through your bones.”

Alex shoved himself to his knees, shaking. The biting, icy touch of the manor had infested him, drawing pale lines across his bumpy skin. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering, looking at where a little curl of blue magic was looping down his arm, the occasional spark of power straying to nestle, burning cold against his skin.

Finder rose.

“If I had found someone here,” he said, voice careful, “I would have taken them to him. However, I see nobody. And so I take my leave.”

Alex watched as Finder reached out, his fingers seeming to slip into the handle of the door for a moment before they found a hold and gripped it. He paused.

“I used to kill your kind,” he said. “Long ago. They hunted me to this manor, and I slaughtered them. Threw the bodies in the lake, and let the fish gnaw on their bones. But then he came.”

Alex clutched the book of necromancy to his chest, shuffling away from where Finder still stood in the open doorway.

“He told me I had a duty,” Finder continued. “That I had hidden for too long, and he was right. I had to help. I watched the last dragon die. Did you know that, Spellbreaker?”

A bitter note crept into the old ghost’s voice, and he let out a long sigh. Wisps of ghostly magic curled in the air around him, pale mist pooling about his feet.

“I watched,” he said. “And I did nothing. Now I wonder if I have done too much.” He shook his head, throwing the door aside with a sudden, savage motion that made it bounce off the wall with a sharp bang. “I wonder if you can do any better, magic-killer.”

He vanished, and Alex was left standing alone. He swallowed, shivering. He was so cold. He looked out the window and saw the great frozen lake as if for the first time.

Threw their bodies in the lake.

Spellbreaker.

Magic-killer.

Feeling sick, Alex made his way quickly out of the office, running through the overgrown, decaying hallways toward safety as fast as he could.

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