The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)

“I thought that might be the case,” said Alex, trying to calm the girl.

She nodded. “As soon as I knew they had taken you, I tried to get the guards to let me down to the cells, but they wouldn’t, no matter how much I begged. They’ve never said no to me before, but this time they wouldn’t do as I said, and then someone came for me too—I was taken away and punished for hiding you,” she explained woefully.

On her pale, porcelain skin, just below the sleeves of her t-shirt, she bore the livid, deep purple bruises of whatever that punishment had entailed. It looked painful, though she didn’t show it on her face. As soon as he saw the bruises, Alex felt guilty for what she had suffered, musing grimly how guilty he felt about everything these days.

“Do you know where Jari is?” pressed Alex.

She nodded quickly, lowering her voice. “I know where they’re keeping Jari, but I won’t be able to get to him to set him free—not today, anyway. He is under heavy guard. I’ll need a couple of days to come up with something, but in the meantime, I need you to keep your heads down and do as you’re told. It’ll give him a better chance.”

It was a warning as much as a suggestion, and sounded kindly meant. She seemed genuinely sad about Jari, and Alex could see she shared their concern for him.

“For now, you should rest, clean up, and come down to the refectory for something to eat if you’re feeling hungry,” she encouraged brightly. “You won’t be put onto the schedule for a few days, while you get settled in and recover fully, but you might find you have a guard or two show up if you wander too far into the school,” she told them apologetically. “The key places are easy enough to find though—the refectory is down the stairs, through the square, into the building opposite and down the corridor. You can’t miss it. Everything you’ll need is pretty much signposted, and if you get lost, just ask somebody. I’ll meet you at the refectory in a few hours, if you’d like?”

“Thank you, Helena.” Alex smiled kindly.

They watched her leave.

When she was gone, the foursome sat around Alex’s room, saying very little, though their faces spoke volumes. It was clear they were all thinking about Jari, feeling guilty about their decision to take Alypia’s offer.





Chapter 23





After a long bath, unable to relax much thanks to the worry he felt for their still-absent friend, Alex slept for a while, waking as the afternoon was at its peak. It seemed the others had the same idea, as he found them coming toward his room just as he was leaving it to search for them. Though they were all still anxious for Jari, they had little to do with their schedules empty and their bodies rested, and so they decided to explore the school a bit.

As they walked the hallways and sauntered across the piazzas, trying to get to grips with the gigantic villa, Alex noticed that the beautiful students of Stillwater eyed them with a certain wary curiosity, as if they had not seen strangers in a long time. It made Alex think back to Helena’s comment about other Stillwater students not being as welcoming as her, but he shrugged it off as they came to a beautiful water garden at the far end of the school.

The air was heavily scented with floral perfume, and vibrant butterflies flitted from flower to flower under the steady hum of unseen bees. A large pond glistened in the center of the garden, koi fish twisting and weaving beneath the water’s surface, darting away from streams poured by the hands of expertly sculpted statues into the pool below.

The four of them sat for a while on stone benches, in the shade of a delicate willow, though Natalie stretched out on the slate tiles by the pond like a cat, bathing peacefully in the sunshine as she trailed her hand in the water for the fish to nibble at. Not long after, a Stillwater student came running up with a tray of cakes and drinks. Alex figured this wasn’t normal behavior, but he was hungry, and the snacks looked so tempting. They tasted as delicious as they looked. The cakes, moist and light and flavored with lemon, washed down easily with a cup of some exotic red juice that tasted somewhere between cherry and strawberry.

Outside, the architecture could be truly appreciated. All along the archways and levels of the villa, Alex saw tiny details that could only be noticed if you were really looking, like the ornate carvings above the windows, and the clusters of stone grapes, complete with vines, twisting around the eaves of the domes and spiraling towers. Everything at Stillwater House was exquisitely crafted, taking from contemporary and Renaissance influences. Alex knew the villa had to be ancient, yet it didn’t look dated—it was fresh and bright, gleaming in the dazzling, hypnotic sunlight.

As the heat became too intense, making the perfume of the flowers seem almost suffocating, the quartet moved back inside to explore the interior some more. They passed several classrooms and saw glimpses of the lessons going on within, led by teachers of beauty equal to that of the stunning students, and who seemed to encourage the talent of their pupils. It was curious to watch the teachers shout out the sections of each spell, assisting students with a firm but friendly hand, so that nobody got left behind. They seemed to genuinely want their students to do well, which surprised Alex. He guessed it must have been because their jobs weren’t on the line, as they were at Spellshadow; the teachers in that grim place lived in constant fear of being usurped and having their essence torn away from them. Here, he supposed, if they Ascended and chose to become teachers, their survival and position were surely guaranteed.

Moving down some stairs into a section of subterranean corridors, Alex was pleased to see a mechanics’ lab, with a lesson on clockwork taking place within. It meant the students here had a much more varied education than the one at Spellshadow, if clockwork was an actual fixture on the class schedule, as it appeared to be. The sight of it made Alex smile with the bittersweet memory of Professor Lintz, tinkering away at the delicate husk of a clockwork owl, though that thought led his mind back to the students of Spellshadow, and how they were faring. The boatful of guards hadn’t returned, as far as Alex knew, but he wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or a bad one; it simply meant the matter hadn’t been resolved, one way or the other. He only hoped they were okay, whichever way things were going.



On their second day as actual residents of Stillwater House, a message came for Alex, instructing him to attend an introductory lesson in the Queen’s Courtyard at ten a.m. As he washed and dressed and stepped out into the corridor, he saw that the others had received the same message. They walked toward him with anxious looks on their faces.

“Introductory lesson?” he asked.

They nodded.