The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)

She sighed softly, pushing her spectacles nervously back up the bridge of her nose. “Well—many mages had died during that war between the mages and the Spellbreakers, and they had this ‘Great Evil’ to contend with too—the one released on that last day. So, naturally, somebody had to take charge and try to protect those who were left. That job, as you would imagine, fell to the royals—the rulers of the magical world,” she began, her eyes glittering with intellect as she spoke. “Now, it has never been confirmed in any of the books I managed to get my hands on—I mean, there weren’t all that many to steal at Spellshadow—but there was a rumor that, in order to protect the rest of the magical community, the royals took charge of magical institutions after the battle, as a means of… Well, I don’t know why they did it, and I’ve never found any other information on it. It was just one page in one book, saying that is what they did, but it didn’t really go into much more detail. Curious though, right?”

Aware of other eyes watching them, Alex turned to see Aamir staring at them intently. The older boy shifted his gaze away with awkward swiftness as soon as he realized he’d been seen, but Alex had caught the expression.

Alex turned back to Ellabell, nodding slowly. It certainly was curious.





Chapter 19





Four days passed, and Alex’s newfound optimism quickly turned to dread as Helena did not return to the lighthouse. Nor did she send a note, to placate his fear. The others did not seem to think much of it, but Alex was beginning to panic.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, pushing away his uneaten breakfast. They still had food left from Helena’s last visit, since she had brought a particularly large box, but he knew that didn’t mean anything. “She should have been back by now.”

“There is nothing to worry about, Alex—Helena is coming back,” Natalie replied calmly. “Maybe you should rest today. You seem a little tense, and perhaps it is making you react in a way you would not, if you were not already so on edge.”

Alex shook his head. “I’m not on edge. I just feel there’s something wrong.”

“You’ve taken on too much, and it’s messing with your head,” Jari chimed in, smiling warmly. “You’ve gone to such huge trouble to keep us safe, and so many terrible things have happened that it must be really hard to get out of that mindset—but we are safe. Just relax.”

“Helena is busy with duels and trials and studies. She said herself that things ramp up in their final year here, and she wants to be ready. That is all,” assured Natalie.

Alex had trouble accepting that as a viable excuse for Helena’s no-show. He couldn’t help getting up every hour to check the windows, making sure there was nobody sinister rowing across the water toward them. Each time, he was relieved to see nobody was.

As night drew in, Alex moved up to the smallest room, just beneath the lamp-room, and pulled up a chair so he could sit by the windowsill, peering out toward where he knew the school to be in the distance, though the torches had been extinguished as the hour grew late. He couldn’t help but wonder at the peacefulness of the place, despite its grim purpose. It was certainly the most beautiful slaughterhouse he’d ever seen.

Alex looked up as he heard the sound of footsteps on the staircase. It was only Natalie, creeping up from the floor below, concern etched on her forehead.

“I thought you’d still be up,” she said softly, as she sat down on the floor beside him.

He nodded. “I can’t sleep.”

“Mind racing?”

“About a hundred miles a minute,” he admitted wryly.

“I thought so.” She smiled. “I just wanted to come and check on you.”

“I’m fine—just struggling to relax is all,” he explained. “After everything that’s happened, I’m just not sure I can quite accept the luxury of safety.”

She nodded. “I do not blame you. We have all been through so much. But honestly, I believe us to be safe now. Helena will come back—you will see.”

“Even so, I’m just going to stay up a while longer,” he murmured.

She smiled sadly. “Very well… Just please get some rest, Alex. Promise me you will sleep?”

“I’ll try.”

“You will break if you continue this way. We must all try and put what has happened behind us and look forward, to our path home,” she said, turning back to him with a sorrowful expression on her face. “Goodnight, Alex.”

“Goodnight, Natalie,” he replied. He watched her wander back down to the room below.

He heard her shuffling about for a while, before everything went quiet. The others had gone to bed some time ago, Ellabell in the same room as Natalie, with Jari and Aamir in the one below. Gazing back out toward the lake, Alex was drawn to the mesmerizing sight of the water rippling beneath the moonlight. His thoughts sank below the dark liquid, focusing in on something entirely less pleasant—the bodies trapped underneath. The ones he had seen on their exodus over the lake. Looking down, he swore he could see ghosts floating, just beneath the surface, though it was likely just the shift of the water being whipped up by the evening breeze. Still, he could not shake the image of their pale, haunted faces.

He considered, not for the first time, that he didn’t belong. Mages had wiped out an entire race. His race. He only existed because of some loophole.

Alex’s brow furrowed as he pondered the meaning behind his life more deeply, looking at it from an angle he hadn’t noticed before—did that mean he was a descendant of Leander Wyvern? The grandchild or great-grandchild to the progeny of the legendary Spellbreaker and some non-magical woman?

Unless there were other Spellbreakers who indulged in non-magical affairs, he thought grimly. Just because it fit, didn’t mean it was true, and unless Alex could be certain that Leander Wyvern was the only Spellbreaker to create a child with a non-magical woman, he was no closer to being certain of his heritage.

Dejectedly, Alex stared into the water and wondered if Leander was beneath the glittering surface of the lake too, forgotten by everyone except him and a few dusty history books.





Chapter 20





In the middle of a restless sleep, Alex became aware of a strange sound filtering up the narrow staircase from the floor below. His eyes snapped open; it was a familiar, eerie sound. Glancing around, he realized he must have fallen asleep beside the window—he could see the stars twinkling beyond the sill, but he couldn’t figure out where the sound was coming from. As he stood and walked quietly toward the top of the staircase, the whispering noise grew louder.

For a moment, he thought it might be another of Elias’s shadowy beacons, intended to lead him to some new, enticing information, but the sound was decidedly more human than that. Peering into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs, he saw subtle movements, as if there were something shifting in the shadows below. Tentatively, he placed his hand on the banister, not knowing whether to step into the unknown or stay at the top of the stairs, until his eyes had at least grown accustomed to the dimness beneath.

The sound of Ellabell’s scream made the decision for him. It pierced the air, and Alex flew instinctively down the stairs, knocking shoulders with something solid in the darkness as he raced toward the spot in the corner where she usually slept, his anti-magic jumping into defensive action as he tried to make out her figure in the blackness. Desperately, his eyes scoured the room, until they rested on two shapes tussling in the center. One of the figures had her, though Ellabell was fighting to get free.