The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)

Alex felt the collective pause of everyone’s breath being held as the four scouts crept closer to where the five of them were hidden. After hurrying to get as much detritus over them as possible, Alex hoped fervently that the thick blanket of moss and branches and gorse bush would be enough to keep them from sight. He didn’t know what these unearthly creatures were or what their mission was. Were they friendly? Alex wasn’t sure.

Edging ever closer, the scouts were almost on top of them. Nobody dared to move. One of them, the brown-haired young man, walked right beside Natalie’s head, but he failed to make her out among the camouflage of the undergrowth. Beside Alex, Jari clung tightly to Aamir, holding him still and keeping him silent as the scouts continued their search.

For almost half an hour, the scouts came and went. Each time Alex thought it was safe to come out of the hiding spot, he would catch sight of them again, creeping around the back of the ramshackle hut or appearing once more through the tree-line. A few times, they came close to discovering the five fugitives. One kicked a branch, watching it skitter away, not realizing he had unearthed a small portion of Ellabell’s curly brunette hair. Another almost trod on the back of Aamir’s head, where he sat up against the earthen wall of the hollow, missing him by mere centimeters. A third, the one with the flower in her hair, reached down to pick up a miniature wildflower that had fallen from one of the bushes, almost coming eye to eye with Alex himself. If her focus hadn’t been on the flower, he was fairly sure they would have been toast.

Finally, after doing one last lap of the area for good measure, as if to make sure the fugitives’ heart rates stayed up, the foursome departed. Alex watched intently as they walked back the way they had come, disappearing from sight. He waited a while longer, just to be sure they had definitely gone, before he clambered out of the hollow and crept across the ground, following the four scouts as closely as he dared.

He tailed them for quite a way up the shoreline, before ducking behind a thick tree trunk as they came to a halt. From behind a rocky outcrop, they dragged a sleek blue and white rowboat they had pulled up onto the beach. Alex peered cautiously from his vantage point, watching them step into the boat and set off across the lake toward a faint rise of ground in the distance.

He hadn’t been able to see it from the clearing, but it was more visible from where he now stood. There was definitely something out there, looming on the horizon, and he wanted to know what it was that called to him from beyond the glittering waters of the lake.





Chapter 4





Alex remained beside the tree, staring out at the water, wondering how they were supposed to get over to where the four people had disappeared. He wasn’t sure what had spurred him into following the scouts, after the near miss of discovery, but the compulsion had at least pointed him in the right direction. It was becoming abundantly clear that they were going to need a boat of some sort, and, as far as he knew, there weren’t any boats just lying around willy-nilly for strangers to hop into and use as they pleased, as much as he might have liked there to be.

He was almost certain now that it was Stillwater House that lay on the other side of the lake, drenched in shadow. It had to be. Yet the only way to get there seemed to be by water. He supposed they could walk around the lake to reach the shadowy rise on the other side, but that would take days, by Alex’s estimation, if not longer. It was no good—they needed to get there sooner rather than later, if they were to stand any chance of reaching it undetected. Already, he could feel time slipping away from him. Even as he was standing there, he thought, the Head might have found a way through the portal and be in hot pursuit.

The sight of the rippling expanse of water frustrated and astounded him; it had all seemed so much smaller from the office window.

The vast distance made him think about magical travel for a moment, wondering if he could transport himself to Stillwater House via anti-magical means. Glancing back along the shoreline, he knew he couldn’t just leave the others, especially with Natalie and Aamir in weakened states. Then again, perhaps this world didn’t have the same barriers against travel that Spellshadow had.

Curious, he held his hands up to the empty air and fed his anti-magic upward, toward the atmosphere. There were some small sparks of resistance from the thrumming magic all around him, but it didn’t have the same cold, deadening feel as the ivy at the manor. It didn’t try to stop his energy—it merely seemed inquisitive. His interest was piqued, but he knew he’d have to get one of the others to test for an actual barrier, just in case it wasn’t responding to his particular brand of energy. After all, he hadn’t been able to sense the one that had sent Natalie tumbling from the sky, and he didn’t fancy a repeat of that. However, he knew he’d have to shelve the idea for a while, until everyone was functioning at full capacity; they couldn’t very well leave Aamir and Natalie behind.

Mulling over their options, Alex returned from the shoreline. As he neared the clearing, he saw that the others had moved back into the main space, though their eyes looked up in alarm as his shoes crunched on the pebble beach, signaling his arrival.

“They’re gone,” Alex announced, as his friends sighed in relief. “I followed them to see where they were headed—there is something on the other side. Only thing is, it’s pretty far away, and the only way over seems to be across the water.”

“Do you think we can do the shield trick and make a boat instead of a bowl?” asked Jari.

“I think that’d be a pretty tall order… I was thinking we could build something,” Alex replied. “I mean, we have a forest, right? And forests have trees. We can… cut some down, strap them together with vines, or something.”

“There might be something in the hut,” suggested Ellabell, pushing her spectacles back up the bridge of her nose.

Alex looked from her to the ramshackle hut, which was still locked. Even if nothing was inside it, they could try to do something with the wooden planks it was made of.

He made his way over to the structure. The padlock was a beastly thing, covered in flaking red rust. He fed silvery tendrils of energy through the inner mechanisms, opening his hand sharply to explode the decaying metal with a loud crack. What remained of the padlock fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

As he pulled the creaking, rotting door open to see what was inside, he became aware of Ellabell next to him, standing close.