The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)

Only when enough time had passed did he chance a peek at the walkway below. Scanning the area briefly for any changes, he caught sight of several small objects flashing at the corners of the platform, that had not been there before. Squinting for a better look, he couldn’t work out what they were, but he knew the searchers had placed them there for a reason. A recollection flashed in his mind; they looked a lot like the clockwork traps he had read about in a book Ellabell had recommended to him once. If that’s what they were, thought Alex, he’d be caught the moment he set foot on the ground.

Rolling back into the crevice, he waited, trying to come up with a solution from his hiding place. Suddenly, he remembered the clockwork mouse, still buried in the papery depths of his pockets. He had transferred it from his Spellshadow pants into his Stillwater ones, almost without thinking; he had grown so used to the weight and feel of it that he had almost forgotten it was there.

Retrieving it, he held the delicate, metal creature in his hand, knowing the message he needed it to carry. Without paper, it was going to be difficult, but he was hopeful the mouse would let the others know what to do.

Cupping his hands around the intricate, detailed clockwork, he let his anti-magic flow into the tiny being, feeling the cogs begin to whirr and the metal eyes light up with a silvery glow, as he willed it to find Helena and bring her back to where he was hiding. As he set it down on the wooden shelf-top, he wasn’t sure if it would work, but within seconds the mouse had scurried off. Staring back up at the ceiling, he hoped it would. Otherwise, he would never be leaving this library prison.





Chapter 17





As the sun came up, glowing with hazy warmth through the huge library windows, the world around Alex fizzed with chaos. It seemed the news had traveled fast, and Stillwater had gone on high alert following the suspicion that there was an intruder among their ranks. With dwindling optimism, Alex awaited Helena’s assistance, though he was beginning to wonder if it was ever coming.

From his perch in the library, he listened to the hushed, worried whispers of students talking about the intruder, all of them oblivious to his presence. Each time someone passed close to where he lay, his ears pricked up with curiosity. There was a childish glee in eavesdropping unseen, Alex thought, although the stakes of him being discovered were somewhat higher than when he was a kid.

“Aurelia told me the guards were sent out last night to investigate some kind of disturbance,” a pretty female voice said.

“Did they find anything?” replied a rich baritone that made Alex immediately picture a musclehead with a chiseled jaw and perfect teeth.

“Not really,” the girl sighed. “But I think there is someone on the loose, although heaven knows where they’ve come from or what they’re doing here in the first place. Everyone is talking about it!”

“Well, what if there’s more than one? There could be a handful of intruders lurking around, for all we know. A whole flock of them.”

“Don’t joke about that, Lars! It’s scary.”

Many students had colorful guesses about the intruder’s motives, and Alex smiled as he listened to the long list of what he might be. Some said the intruder was an escaped prisoner from a neighboring community; others said it was the crazed remnant of a student who had survived their Gifting Ceremony or a spurned ex-lover of the beautiful Princess Alypia who had come in search of revenge for a broken heart. Alex sensed this last speaker had read one too many romance novels, but it amused him nonetheless. Another said it was probably just Siren Mave, messing around, setting off alarms by accident as she wandered the school in the middle of the night. This last one caught Alex’s attention, making him wonder how they knew who she was. Surely, it had to be the same toady woman as the one from Spellshadow—there couldn’t be too many women with a name like that.

The day stretched on. Alex’s muscles ached, and his eyes itched. He didn’t dare fall asleep in case he rolled off the bookshelf, so he stayed awake, his body cramped into the shallow recess of the wall. Eventually, every appendage felt numb. From his dim hiding spot, he watched as the bright sunlight moved across the sky, deepening to a burnished orange glow as the day began the slow move toward sunset.

Around early evening, when all of the other students had abandoned their studies in pursuit of more pleasurable activities, Alex heard a creak on the ladders.

“Alex?” whispered Helena.

Alex breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he rolled across to the edge of the stack and gazed down. “Up here!”

His muscles had seized after so long spent in one position, and the sudden movement of his roll along the bookshelf sent jolts of dull pain ricocheting through his nervous system. Seeing Helena looking up at him, he was more than pleased to see her; he was hungry and thirsty, and she had come to get him out of there. Scanning the walkway, Alex noticed that the clockwork traps were no longer there—Helena must have disabled them, he presumed, as he shuffled his body toward the edge.

He clambered awkwardly back down, before trying to jiggle some life back into his muscles as he stretched and flexed, steadily regaining the feeling in his toes and fingers.

Helena held up the glinting mechanical mouse. “I believe this is yours?”

Alex grinned. “I’m just glad it worked,” he said, taking it from her.

“It was Ellabell who told me about it, actually,” she explained, as she waited for Alex to stop his latest stretch.

Alex frowned. “Ellabell?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it went to her, and she figured you’d sent it because you were in trouble—trouble seems to follow you, doesn’t it?” she mused, though there didn’t seem to be any malice in her words. It was merely a truthful observation; trouble did seem to follow him. Or maybe he just followed trouble.

Alex smiled with a touch of embarrassment, realizing it must have been Ellabell he was thinking of when he sent the message, instead of Helena. Still, he was glad Ellabell had managed to decipher his message and pass it on to Helena, though he knew he’d definitely be in for a reprimand when he got back to the tower. Not that he’d be able to blame Ellabell; he’d put them all at risk.

“I suppose.” Alex shrugged. “Thanks for coming to get me—I don’t know how long I could’ve lasted up there.”

“You should thank the mouse,” she quipped. “That’s quite the little piece of clockwork. Did you make it?”

Alex shook his head, lifting the mouse to his eye-line. “Sadly not. The magic is mine, though.”

“I meant to ask you about that. How come it has that strange color running through it?” Helena asked, trying to get a closer look at the inner workings of the creature.

Alex shoved the mouse swiftly into his pocket, keeping his hand over it as he sucked the anti-magic out. “I changed it to that color so it would blend into the clockwork better.”

Helena frowned, and Alex could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced.

“Well, whoever made it must have been very skilled,” she said finally, the frown lifting. “We’d better go,” she announced as she led the way toward the banister of the walkway and rested her palms on it, readying herself to jump over the edge. She paused as she saw Alex’s hesitation.

“I’ll take the ladder,” he insisted.

She flashed him a puzzled expression. “Why?” she said flatly.

He shrugged. “It’s embarrassing.”

“What do you mean?”