The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)(45)

The disappointment in Elias’s voice stung. Alex was startled by the truth rolling from the shadow-man’s contorted lips. He had suspected Natalie was wandering into dangerous territory, but to hear it confirmed stunned him. Jari, too, going above and beyond. What on earth did he need to break locks and cloak himself for? Alex couldn’t help thinking that perhaps he was getting left behind.

“That’s not fair,” murmured Alex.

“Nothing is,” sighed Elias, the sharp edge to his words softening slightly.

The silence stretched between Alex and Elias. A low, musical whistle trilled from the cavernous depths of the shadowy figure’s form as he moved forward a step or two, held back only by the gathering sunlight. Listening to the tune pierce the air, Alex got the not-so subtle hint that Elias was waiting for him to speak.

“Did you bring me something else?” Alex asked, still confused by Elias’s early visit. Was he just there to chastise him?

Elias scowled, the expression terrifying on his fluid face. “No, I did not bring you anything else. Do you see what I mean? Always expecting the answers on a silver platter—hand delivered in a box with a ribbon on top, no doubt,” he grumbled. “You have done little enough with the books I have already given you. Perhaps I will not be so generous in future.”

“I’ve read the Battles book,” said Alex tersely.

“And done nothing with the other!” cried Elias, the sound vibrating through the walls and up the very bones of Alex’s body.

“What am I supposed to do with it? I can’t read it!”

“Figure it out, without having to be spoon-fed,” Elias said coldly.

This wasn’t the Elias Alex was used to, and he couldn’t help feeling a tremor of fear as the room grew cold around him, Elias’s voice pressing in from all around. There was menace in Elias’s face, and Alex could not ignore it.

“It belonged to Leander Wyvern, right?” said Alex quietly, running his thumb once more across the faded lettering of the name he had feebly hoped belonged to his own heritage.

“It belonged to a great warrior,” replied Elias, giving his usual brand of slippery answer.

“Wyvern was a Spellbreaker?”

“That depends—what do the books say?” Elias remarked tartly.

“That he was,” said Alex, resisting the urge to snap.

Elias clapped the viscous extensions of his hands together, the motion making a thudding sound that quaked through the ground, as his starry eyes rolled in dramatic exasperation.

“Now what?” Elias taunted.

“I have to figure out a way of reading it?” Alex shrugged, feeling victimized. It was like a flashback to middle school—the teacher asking him an exceptionally difficult question he didn’t know the answer to and watching him squirm regardless.

Elias gave another sarcastic clap of his wispy hands, and Alex glowered at him. The shadow-man only seemed amused by Alex’s annoyance as he swooped as close as he dared to the edge of the sunlight’s boundaries.

“How might you unravel such a puzzling mystery?” Elias whispered.

“It’s a code,” said Alex suddenly, the markings making sense. He still couldn’t read them, but he had an idea what they were. It was obvious, thought Alex. If a Spellbreaker wanted to write notes or secret entries, it was only natural they’d want to use a cipher of some sort. A code only another Spellbreaker could crack…

Elias grinned. “Now you’re getting it,” purred the rippling figure, his expression twisting into one of glee.

“A code,” mused Alex.

“I’m certain you’ll figure it out,” whispered Elias as he reached for the edges of his cloak. “And perhaps there will be a reward. There are so many other books, Alex. Books you could not even dream of,” he said euphorically. “Oh, such rare tomes, filled with spells nobody should see… spells that helped me, long ago,” he breathed, the last part barely audible as the air bristled with mystery, Elias seeming to withdraw into himself as he spoke the words.

“Wait! You’re not going yet, are you?” said Alex, not finished with the shadow-man. There were questions he wanted answers to, that nobody else seemed able to answer. The time was now.

“Why should I stay?” Elias shrugged the cloaked slopes where shoulders should have been.

“I have questions for you.”

Elias’s face crumpled into a frown. “I’m not sure I can help,” he said simply, “but go on.”

A thousand thoughts raced through Alex’s mind as he tried to figure out what to ask first. This was his opportunity, and he did not want to blow it. Elias was rarely so openly amenable, but Alex found he could not quite focus once the spotlight was on him. It was hard to find the question he wanted answered the most when he wanted them all answered.

“Who are you?” asked Alex, finally settling on a line of inquiry. There was a niggle in the back of Alex’s mind that had been there almost since the first moment they met—a curiosity to know more about the peculiar, impossible being that made up Elias. He had always wondered what Elias might have been before he was the shadowy homunculus. There was undeniable humanity in the way he spoke, and in the fluid mannerisms of his apparent limbs, until he turned into a cat and Alex’s whole understanding of him went out the window.