The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)(44)

Where the mouse had previously been, there was a deep scorch mark burnt into the desktop, and the smell of singed wood and spent fireworks permeated the room. The glittering ashes of the clockwork creature settled on the workbench. Alex hastily swept them up in case someone should walk in. He felt bad for blowing up the one mechanism he had managed to get working, but he had the successful instructions written out on the sheet beside him, should he desire to try again. Slipping the piece of paper into his pocket, he put the remaining mice back in their place on the dirty lower shelf and smiled to himself as he lined them up in a neat row, two spaces now empty.

Indeed, the possibilities were endless.





Chapter 17





As morning dawned, Alex awoke slowly, rubbing his eyes against the sunlight glancing in through the curtains. He was mid-yawn when he noticed the bed opposite was empty. Alex frowned; Jari hadn’t been there when Alex had gone to bed, either, though he had been disturbed at some point in the night by the sound of soft footfalls on the dorm room floor. It hadn’t been enough to fully awaken him, but Alex remembered the sound and the sleepy guess that it was his friend, returning from wherever he had been all evening. Alex had no idea what time that might have been.

He checked the ticking clock on the bedside table. It was early still, and he had an hour before breakfast. Yawning again, he moved over to the edge of his bed and hung down over the side, reaching underneath the bedframe for the notebook he had hidden away. Pulling it back up, he propped himself against the headboard and opened the thin pages.

Since he’d been to see Ellabell, Alex hadn’t had much of a chance to read through the notebook. But as he held it in his hands, he felt a wave of sadness flood through him, knowing the fate of the man who had once owned the book. To have come so close to winning a fight, only to be ambushed and strung up… It didn’t bear thinking about.

He flipped to the first page and noted the familiar jumble of sketched shapes and symbols. It made little sense to him, though he knew they couldn’t be random. Elias wouldn’t have given him a book of nonsense; it wasn’t the shadow-man’s way.

As if hearing himself being thought about, Elias appeared in the darkest corner of the room with a silent quiver of frosty air. He poured himself from the rafters in one slick movement, shaping into an almost-human form.

“Good morning,” greeted Elias, keeping to the shade of the walls, unable to get too close to Alex as the sunlight dappled the graying flagstones.

“Elias.” Alex nodded in the shadow-man’s direction, surprised to see him at such early hours of the day. He wasn’t sure if it was the light playing tricks on him, but Alex was certain he could see discomfort in Elias’s movements and the contortion of his peculiar human face. “What brings you here?” Alex asked, curious.

“Can’t a shadow visit his friend?” Elias’s mouth twisted into something resembling a grin, and his inky teeth glittered.

“It depends what the shadow is after,” said Alex.

Elias frowned. “Perhaps the friend should remember that I am only ever here to help,” replied the shadow sourly.

“Sorry, it’s early,” Alex said, raising his hands in apology.

The gesture seemed to appease Elias as he leaned fluidly against the wall, most of his body sinking into the shadows there, until only his face stood out against the darkness.

“I came to see how you were progressing with my gifts.” Elias nodded toward the notebook in Alex’s hands.

“Not too well. I can’t make any sense of it.” Alex shrugged, tossing the notebook onto the bedcovers in front of him. “I think it’s a dud,” he joked.

Annoyance flashed in the endless black of Elias’s eyes. “It is no dud, Alex. You are simply not trying hard enough.” He peeled his form away from the protective shade of the cold stone walls.

“It doesn’t make sense,” insisted Alex.

“It might,” growled Elias, “if you bothered to try.”

“I’ve tried. I’ve looked at it and looked at it. It’s just scrappy little patterns that don’t mean anything,” exclaimed Alex, exasperated.

“And so you give up?” Elias glared in Alex’s direction, irritation evident in the shadow’s voice.

“I haven’t given up. I’m just… figuring it out,” Alex explained, picking the notebook up again. He felt bad for throwing it.

“You should be further on with it by now,” hissed Elias, wringing the wispy tendrils that served as his hands. “You went to visit that curly-haired do-gooder yesterday, yes?” His impossible eyes flashed at Alex with borderline menace.

“What if I did?” said Alex defensively.

“She told you about that last battle?” Elias pressed.

“Yes,” Alex admitted.

“And off you ran to your little mice, when you should have come straight here. Perhaps I have misplaced my trust. Perhaps you are not as capable as I thought,” said Elias bitterly, running his wispy hand through the flowing locks of pure, liquid shadow that framed his face.

“This doesn’t make any sense, Elias,” snapped Alex, waving the little notebook at the shadowy figure in the corner.

“If only you had the same sense of urgency and dedication as your friends,” spat Elias, his eyes burning brightly as they made Alex squirm. “Day by day, they grow stronger, while you stay the same. The French girl is delving into deeper, more dangerous magical arts and cares not for the consequences, so long as she may have the knowledge. The other one—the Greek one—is forever in the library reading up on powerful magic and how to do useful things, like break locks and cloak himself. What do you do? You wait to be handed things on a silver platter.”