The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)

He sat in there, using the spare time to pull the slim notebook of Leander Wyvern from the back pocket of his new, clean black jeans. It had been a while since he’d had the opportunity and energy to look over it, but just holding it brought him a strange feeling of comfort. Contentedly, he opened up a thin panel of anti-magic between his hands as he went over the old ground written within the notebook, to see if there was anything he had missed. He knew there wasn’t, but the book soothed him. They still had a few of the books they had stolen from the Head’s office, shrewdly pilfered by Natalie, who had placed the books about her person as she had jumped from the office window, but none of them had proved useful so far. For starters, half of them were written in languages even Natalie couldn’t read. He wondered with amusement whether they had gotten it all wrong and those books weren’t magical at all—they were just cookbooks or self-help manuals, to keep the Head busy when he was in his office. The thought made him smile.

After an hour or so, Alex felt the need to stretch his legs. Standing up, he walked over to the window of the top floor and gazed at the view beyond. It looked out onto a wide stretch of field within a vast clearing in the shadows of the hills, which guarded behind in a long-reaching wall of lush greenery that ended in the rise of a low mountain. Within the field was an amphitheater of sorts, built from a pale sandstone, curving in a semi-circle on the side closest to the mountain. Raked seating ascended upward, and there was a large circular pitch painted in white on the neatly kept grass before the spectators’ stand. Four silver posts stood up tall at each quarter of the circle, with a golden statue of a bird of prey perched at the top of each one, their savage beaks facing downwards at the pitch below.

The peculiar setup made Alex curious and eager to be back out in the open, but he knew he couldn’t leave the tower. He wouldn’t put any of his friends at risk just to make himself feel more comfortable. Instead, he moved back over to where he had left the notebook, folded open on the flagstones, and let his eyes run over the familiar terrain once more.



Later on, as twilight arrived, so did Helena.

Alex’s mood had greatly improved after a late-afternoon nap at the top of the tower, and a jovial feeling had settled over the group.

“I swear you’re a vampire,” joked Alex as Helena entered the room. It was true—she did only seem to appear at night.

She laughed heartily. “Don’t be silly. Vampires died out centuries ago!”

Alex frowned at her, not sure whether she was serious or pulling his leg. But if mages and Spellbreakers were real, why not vampires?

“It’d be funny if I was, though, wouldn’t it?” She winked, leaving him uncertain.

Jari had been pouring water, but it was spilling out over the edges of the glass as his attention snapped to Helena, his eyes bugging out. She chuckled as Ellabell quickly tipped the bottle upright, bringing Jari back into the room. Alex could understand what had caught the blond-haired boy’s eye so intently. Helena was dressed in a beautiful bluish-silver gown that seemed to be made of liquid rather than fabric as it rippled gracefully around her with each movement. Her gleaming blond hair had been braided in sections and intricately twisted up onto her head in an elegant style. A thin silver band wove within the strands of hair before meeting across the smooth skin of her forehead. On her wrists, simple silver bracelets jangled.

“You look beautiful,” said Ellabell, speaking the words the boys couldn’t.

“Thank you.”

“How come you’re so dressed up?” asked Alex.

“Questions again?” she teased. “I told you—you have arrived at a very exciting time at Stillwater House!”

“What’s going on?”

“Tonight is the Ascension Ceremony,” she announced.

A chill ran down Alex’s spine. It didn’t sound particularly exciting to him at all. In fact, it sounded an awful lot like ‘graduation.’

“What’s the Ascension Ceremony?” he asked, dreading the answer, though he tried to keep his voice calm.

With a gleeful smile, Helena gestured for them to follow her up to a higher floor. She held the front of her dress so as to not trip as she skipped up the staircase. Gracefully, she moved across to the far side of the third floor, to the window set within the masonry. With an elegant hand, she gestured out toward the amphitheater Alex had seen earlier. Except now, instead of being empty, it was beginning to fill with row upon row of people. Huge fires raged in broad, basin-like torches at various intervals around the amphitheater and up the raked seating, lighting the place with a warm, enticing glow.

For the first time, Alex noticed a large, elaborate chair in the very center of the amphitheater’s seating, almost throne-like. He wondered who had the honor of sitting there.

“The ceremony is when the final-year students at Stillwater House get to test their mettle against one another—a competition of sorts,” Helena elaborated, gazing out upon the scene. “The Headmistress chooses the students at random from a scroll of names she has. She sits there.” Helena motioned toward the throne Alex had noticed, answering his silent question.

“Who are they?” Natalie asked, pointing at the people filling the seats of the amphitheater.

Helena grinned. “They are the families of the students. They all sit in the audience and watch, hoping their child will be Ascended,” she said wistfully.

“Ascended?” prompted Alex.

“Oh, yes—sorry, I was getting distracted.” She chuckled lightly. “The students fight, and the victor is congratulated with the title of ‘Ascended.’ It is the highest honor that can be bestowed on a student. If a student wins, they get to go home with their families and take their rightful place among the magical elite, moving back into society to find a partner and a role among their people in order to prolong the magical lineages.”

Alex sighed, feeling unsettled. “And the loser?”

“The loser is taken away to perform the Gifting Ceremony,” she replied simply.

Horror gripped him. “What’s that?”

“It is where the student’s life essence is extracted and used for the benefit of their magical betters—a gift from the loser to those they have disappointed by failing their final test,” she explained, so matter-of-factly that Alex worried she didn’t even realize what she was saying.

The others stared at her in utter shock, as understanding dawned. Even Jari’s admiration had morphed into an expression of abject horror.

It was graduation, though there was one subtle difference—these students knew what they were getting into, and, bizarrely, they didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they seemed thrilled at the prospect of such a great ‘honor’.

He wanted to shake Helena and make her understand what she was really saying.

“Are the students scared?” he asked instead, hoping to spark some human emotion in her.

Helena pondered the question. “I suppose they are,” she muttered with a shrug. “But they know they have to bring their best on the day of the ceremony. You have to understand, we train for this day for years. If we don’t bring our absolute best to our last match, the consequences are what they are. It is drilled into us from an early age: we must honor our families and win, or pay the price for our failure.”

To Alex’s disbelief, a smooth mask of calm still lay across her face. She could not hear the chilling message in the words she spoke—he was certain of it.

“Doesn’t anyone try and escape the Gifting Ceremony?” he pressed, hating the term. It wasn’t a gift. Gifts were things that were willingly given, and Alex was pretty sure life essence didn’t fall under that category.

She nodded. “Some have. There is sometimes one in a class who will try and run.”