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

the last time; it was a far subtler affliction than that. It was hunger. Not the gnawing hunger of an empty stomach, but something far more sinister—he could see it in her vacant stare and agitated manner.

“Yeah, I can’t either. Sorry, man,” added Jari guiltily.

“What do you mean?” replied Alex with as much serenity as he could muster, despite the frustration running through his veins.

“I forgot,” Jari admitted quietly.

“Well, what else have you got going on?” Alex asked, exasperation slipping through his mask of calm.

“I’ve got a few things I need to look over while I have the chance. The library is usually pretty empty at lunchtime, so I’m afraid I have a lunch date with some dusty old pages.” Jari flashed a hopeful grin, but Alex was in no mood for humor anymore. He had been looking forward to spending some time with his friends, if only to find out more about how they were and to see if he could be of any use to them.

With them keeping very much to themselves and their personal projects, Alex couldn’t help but feel out of the loop with them both. Jari had his scheming, but never seemed inclined to ask Alex to join him. Natalie had her extra work, but never wanted to talk to Alex about it, shunning the issue if he brought it up. He saw them mostly in lessons, and, though they didn’t say anything to confirm it, Alex felt like they had begun to view him as a hindrance, needing them to cover for him. Slowly but surely, Alex felt himself being pushed away, constantly held at arm’s length.

“Can’t you just leave it for one lunchtime?” asked Alex tersely, trying to keep the hurt from his eyes, not wanting to let on how wounded he felt by their apparent ambivalence toward him.

Jari shrugged. “It’s too important, man. Sorry.” He at least had the decency to look ashamed as Alex scraped back the legs of his chair and stood sharply.

“If you need me, you know where I am,” said Alex, discarding his apple. He turned and walked from the mess hall. The temptation to look back at the small circular table was compelling, but he managed to resist as he strode out into the hallway without so much as a glance over his shoulder.

It was a lonely walk toward the entrance of the manor. The corridors were empty of students, all of them still eating in the mess hall or catching a moment to themselves in the library or study hall. Alex did not pass another living creature as he walked along the familiar route, his footfalls echoing between the cold, damp stone of the walls.

Each day, the duty rested on a member of staff to remove and replace the golden line around the steps into the manor, to give students the opportunity to go out into the gardens. Hardly anyone took the offer up, but Alex liked that. The gardens were still a place of peaceful retreat from the restraints of the manor, and though they weren’t exactly classically beautiful in their gray desolation, Alex loved to roam the ruins of what must once have been an exquisite feat of horticulture.

With a wry smile, Alex recalled the stern, displeased expression on Aamir’s face as he had shown Alex the gardens for the first time, before accusing Alex of not taking magic seriously. Alex couldn’t help wondering if Aamir had been right; perhaps he still wasn’t taking it seriously enough. Elias’s sour words of reprimand crept in, leaving Alex with a sudden surge of motivation as he walked across the scorched earth, the skeletal trees bowing against the strong breeze whipping up around the gardens. He refused to be left behind.

Overhead, the sky was an even, dull gray, the monochromatic shades blending into one another without much definition. It felt as if it might rain.

Uncovering the hatch in the ground, Alex dropped down into the familiar subterranean vault. It was chilly at first, but the room warmed up quickly once Alex lit the torches that stood in the brackets on the earthen walls. The flames flickered and danced, casting lively shadows across the hard-packed floor.

Without Jari or Natalie to help, Alex knew he’d need something to practice on. As he wandered over to the crumbling wine racks at the back of the cellar, he could still make out the indentations in the floor where they had sparred last time, and felt the returning pang of disappointment that his friends were not there with him. Pushing it stubbornly away, he brushed a finger over the remaining bottles that lay within the disintegrating honeycomb of shelves until he found one he liked the look of.

Carefully, he pulled the dusty wine bottle from the rack, sending up a puff of dirt as he did so. A small brown tag was tied to the neck of the bottle. Curious, he turned the card over and read the name. Fields of Sorrow, 1908.

Alex felt a sudden pulse of fury as he turned the bottle over and read the label, which bore the same foul name as the tag. He had seen it before—he knew he had seen it before. It was all coming back to him. He had seen the name when Aamir had brought him down here and left him alone that first time, when Elias had appeared to him. The name had meant nothing then, but now it meant everything.

The sudden realization made Alex feel sick with disgust. The Mages had celebrated the genocide of his people, had even named a vintage after it. Blood-red wine to toast the blood-soaked battlefields that had wiped out his kind. He wanted to smash the bottle then and there, but, breathing deeply, he moved it into the center of the room.

Pulling the slim notebook from his pocket, he formed the familiar square screen between his palms and read over a number of the techniques, wanting to put them into practical use on the