What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I read this book about seven years ago, I think. It was a fantasy book, and probably YA since it was in the 12-18 year old section of the library.

I specifically remember a certain story arc within the bigger story line of the book. This boy with magical powers somehow gets tricked by the bad guy, winds up captured and is then used as a sort of back up battery for magical power.

There are two scenes within this arc that I remember very vividly.

1. When the boy gets tricked, his mind is a bit fogged and the bad guy places this contraption in front of him. He tells him to stare at it as it begins to spin around. The boy starts to feel nauseated and is gratefull to te bad guy when he lays his cool hand on his forehead. That's the point where he is enchanted so that his magical power becomes linked to the bad guy and the bad guys son (I think?) and he becomes unable to leave the house or use his magic.

2. At some point the boy does something stupid so that the bad guy stops 'protecting' him from the earlier mentioned son. At that point the son starts abusing the connection to torture the boy. I especially remember one scene in which the boys hands start taking of his belt and hit himself across the back with it untill he bleeds.

I used to think it was Lev Grossman's The Magicians, but when I flipped through a copy looking for this arc, I couldn't find it. It's possible the arc was shorter than I remembered and I just missed it, but it's more likely to have been a different book.

Also, I read the book in Dutch, but I'm pretty sure it was not originally written in Dutch.

Jessica, is the location Earth or a fantasy world (can you describe it)?

Can you tell us more about boy - his age, family/friends, rich/poor, hobbies, etc.?

It was not on Earth, but that's pretty much all I remember.
I don't remember if the boy's age was named, but in my imagination he was 16 ish. I think he attended this school for magicians, after which he became kind of arrogant. Which made him stupid enough to walk into the bad guys' house.

EDIT: I just remembered more. I think the main group of friends was this boy, his best friend (male) and another girl that might have been just another friend or his love interest, I'm not sure. There might have also been other people in the group, but at least the three of them. More about the boy's best friend in the message below.

I just remembered something about the end of the book that might help. The rest of this message will contain spoilers. You have been warned.


At some point the boys friends attack the bad guys place where he is captured and I think the first attempt fails. I don't remember how he gets out in the end, but I do remember that when he's out, there's this weird magician woman who is trying to seperate his life force from the bad guys spell (she described it as two threads of yarn hopelessly entangled with each other, I think). I also remember that either in his rescue or in the process of getting the tangles out of his life force, his best friend dies. In the epilogue it said something like him starting a school (?) back on Earth that he named after his friend.

I hope this gets identified -- and I hope there's an English translation, since I'd like to read it and my Dutch is non-existent :(

I thought I'd bump this post up in hopes someone sees and recognises it.
I don't know if it's any help, but it might be possible that he got to that other dimension through the crawlspace under his house, though I've read a lot of this sort of books, so I might be getting them mixed up.

Jessica, are you still looking for this or did you find it?