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

“Damn it,” Jari was saying. “He’s so cold. Why is he so cold?”

“Move over,” said Aamir. “I can warm him up.”

“The hell you can. You did this.”

“We did this.”

A silence. Alex felt warmth spreading over him as someone blessedly conjured up a heat source and began to draw it over his skin. His friends’ murmuring voices continued to sound out above him as he shivered.

“Why is he so cold?” Aamir muttered.

“I was just saying that.”

“It’s just…he wasn’t struck with ice. The only thing that would cause this is…”

More silence. Alex managed to open his frost-covered eye-lids. Aamir was staring at him, his hand emitting a warm light, Jari looking between the two of them.

“What?” Jari said.

Alex looked imploringly at Aamir, and flinched inwardly when he saw the understanding in the other boy’s eyes. While Aamir didn’t stop warming the ice away from Alex’s skin, Alex recognized that the look in his eyes might be fear.

“How have you been doing it?” Aamir asked, his voice soft.

“D-Doing what?” Alex asked through his shivering.

“The magic, in class. How?”

Jari’s frown deepened. “Hey, what? What are you getting at?”

“Natalie,” Alex whispered, letting his head fall back against the snow. It was like a warm pillow against his frigid neck. The edges of his vision were blurry. “Natalie has been helping me.”

Aamir’s eyes grew soft with understanding, and he nodded. “So that is why you are so inseparable,” he said wonderingly. “I thought…but I never would have guessed.”

A lick of electricity reemerged to snap angrily between Jari’s brows. “If somebody doesn’t tell me what’s going on,” he said, “I’m seriously going to—”

“I’m a Spellbreaker,” Alex choked out.

Jari paused, then looked between Alex and Aamir with sudden clarity.

“No way.”

Alex nodded.

“It’s the only way he could have survived what he just did,” Aamir said, his voice distant. “Even so…” He trailed off.

Jari swore under his breath.

Aamir nodded. “Indeed.” His hawk-like eyes seemed to bore into Alex. “We need to talk.”

Alex, though uneasy at Aamir’s expression, silently agreed. He tried to say something, but there was ice in his mouth, under his eyelids, and he could find no words.

“Give him a minute to warm up,” Jari interjected, and Alex felt a surge of gratitude for the boy. “We still need to settle things.”

Aamir’s eyes grew hot as they darted to Jari. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you said,” he said, “but I think we have more pressing matters to attend to.”

Jari snorted. “What, the matter of Alex being strange and keeping secrets? That’s hardly new. I didn’t come here to talk to Alex. I came here to talk to you, and the result is that we both nearly killed a friend. We need to talk. Then we can talk to Alex.”

Aamir hesitated, looking down at Alex’s frost-covered body. Alex made an effort to smile reassuringly up at him.

“You two sort things out,” he said. “I really could use a minute.”

They moved to a place some twenty yards distant. Jari propped Alex up against a tree to keep him from sprawling in the snow, then Jari and Aamir stood, staring at one another with wary eyes.

“I apologize,” Aamir said first. “I never intended for things to get so out of hand.”

Jari raised an eyebrow. “Are you willing to start coming back to class?”

Aamir’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you have something you want to say to me first?”

Lightning streaked the clouds above, and a rumble rolled over the gardens. A light rain began to fall, pattering little holes into the snow all around them.

“Jari,” Alex said. “Don’t be a jerk.”

Jari looked over at him, then released a heavy sigh. “Fine,” he said. “I was an ass. I have the social graces of a pole-dancing T-Rex, and I’m sorry. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

A rare smile cracked Aamir’s lips. “It’s a good start,” he said.

“Look,” Jari said, “it’s not that I don’t get it. Please don’t think that I don’t get it. You’re my best friend, and I need you to understand that you aren’t the only one afraid about your graduation. I’m terrified of losing you.”

Aamir blinked. “To be honest, I hadn’t even considered what my graduation might do to you,” he said slowly. “You seemed so opposed to my efforts to prevent it that I didn’t really think you cared.”

“Of course I care,” said Jari, stomping his foot and throwing up a little spray of slush that clung to his pant leg. “It’s only…If you become a teacher, you’re one of them. I lose you anyway.”

Aamir stood, stunned. “Jari…”

“Don’t do that,” said Jari. “Don’t condescend to me. You think I haven’t been searching for a way out? Hunting for every minute I’ve been here? I miss my family, Aamir. I miss my brother, my mother, my stupid prank-pulling father. But if I became a teacher, I’d be just as stuck, and what’s worse, I’d be responsible for what happens to the students. I’d have to watch.”

“I don’t intend to just—”

“Do you think any of them did?” Jari snapped, cutting Aamir off. “Do you think any of them were committed to luring pupils to whatever fate awaits them at the end of this road? Something is seriously wrong with this place, and you have to be an idiot not to notice it. The teachers know what it is, but whatever they are hiding is so serious that none of them have ever talked about it, not a single one.”

Aamir was silent. Sitting against the tree, Alex stared at Jari. Feel-good, cheerful Jari, who now stood with tears in his eyes, his hands balled in frustration, his cheeks pink with ire. Alex hardly recognized him.

“I never considered that,” Aamir said, staring at his feet.

“Of course you didn’t,” said Jari. “You didn’t listen.”

The two stood, staring at each other for a long time. Then Jari spun to face Alex.

“And what the heck is up with you!” he cried, waving his hands in the air. “You’re a Spellbreaker!”

“Seems that way,” Alex replied.

“I’ll put that on the ‘things