The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)(63)

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” he asked suddenly.

She turned her face away, hiding her expression. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

“In the corridors, in lessons, you seem to want to do anything to get away from me,” he said, hoping she couldn’t hear the wounded tone in his voice. “Did I do something to offend you?”

“I guess it’s because of what I saw and the things I know,” she whispered, turning back to him with a stern expression in her bright blue eyes. All traces of fear had gone, as if she had placed a mask over her face.

“What?” Alex drew back from her, alarmed by the sudden shift in mood.

“I know what you are, Alex,” she announced, her voice hushed. “I saw what you did. I know you’re one of them,” she added, a note of something close to displeasure in her voice.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, playing the nonchalance card.

“You’re a Spellbreaker, Alex. I saw you,” she hissed.

Alex laughed. “That’s ridiculous. You said so yourself, there aren’t any of them left… You must have hit your head harder than you thought.” He felt his throat tighten up as he lied through his teeth, hating himself for using her bruise against her. It felt strange to hear himself called out for what he was, and he wasn’t sure he liked the sensation of hearing his secret out in the open.

Ellabell sighed, her disappointment evident. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret, and maybe even help you out if I can. But I meant what I said. I want you to leave me alone from now on. I don’t want you near me unless we absolutely have to be in each other’s company, do you understand?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Alex knew he had been caught in a lie, and no amount of subterfuge would convince her otherwise. She knew the truth; he could see it in her eyes that she knew. It was out there, and Alex hoped fervently that Ellabell could be trusted with the secret. She seemed keen enough to keep her own, so perhaps it would be safe with her.

“Do you understand?” she repeated gently, her face oddly sorrowful.

Alex nodded. “I understand.”

“It’s for the best,” she whispered as she leaned in toward him and kissed him softly on the cheek.

As she stood up to go, Alex reached out to grasp her hand and squeezed it lightly. Squeezing it back, she flashed him a sad smile, then turned and walked toward the barrier of the walkway, leaping over it in one easy movement.

For once, Alex didn’t follow her to watch her leave.



In the pitch black of the dormitory, something awoke Alex with a start. He rubbed his eyes, checking the clock on his bedside table; it read two in the morning. Wondering what on earth had awoken him, his eyes fixed on a flash of gold and silver darting across the end of the bed, weaving and ducking behind the folds of the sheets as the creature made its way up and over the bent limb of Alex’s leg.

Curiously, he checked the top drawer of his bedside table to find it already open, the motionless mouse inside missing. A shiver shot up Alex’s spine. He turned back toward the scuttling clockwork creature. His heart pounded loudly in his chest as he waited for it to make its way up the rest of his body, once it recognized the familiar shape of him with its glittering black eyes. It was the same mouse that had been tucked away inside his drawer.

On the golden hind leg, Alex saw the small shape of a curled note, attached with a thin piece of twine. He gulped, holding out his palm for the mouse to run onto. Its feet were light on his skin. He lifted the creature up and carefully untied the miniature scroll from the back of its leg. Settling the mouse down on the mattress beside him, Alex lifted up the scroll and unrolled it slowly, squinting to see the words in the moonlight that glanced in through the curtains above his head.

Fear prickled at the back of his neck. His blood ran cold.

I warned you, was all it said.

Turning swiftly back to the mechanical creature on the mattress, he saw that the eyes had already gone dead.





Chapter 24





Alex sat alone at one of the tables in the mess hall, trying his hardest to eat a bowl of gristly, bland stew that left a greasy residue on his lips with each forced mouthful. Natalie and Jari had been up to their old tricks again, still off doing their own things without him. He tried hard not to feel annoyed by their disappearing acts, but it was starting to wear thin on him. He missed the old days, when they would all gather for lessons and lunches and dinners and in any spare moment they had, to laugh and joke and chat together, as friends should.

Since the night in the Head’s quarters, Jari seemed to have redoubled his work, whatever it was, even though his reasoning for visiting the Head’s abode had been resolved. They knew the Head had gone. In fact, if they had simply waited a day longer, Alex thought bitterly, they’d have found that out without any harm or risk to anyone. He was still paranoid that the new Deputy would call him up at any moment and make an example of him, but so far, the new professor had been quiet. The masked man had yet to take up his teaching duties, leaving the extra sessions still in Renmark and Gaze’s hands, but he had begun to make some changes within the manor. Good ones, as far as Alex was concerned.

The morning after his dramatic arrival, a new noticeboard had appeared announcing that the extra evening lesson would be removed in favor of independent study. Alongside it, to encourage exercise, the golden line would be lifted from the manor’s entrance between the hours of six and seven in the morning and six and seven in the evening, for the students to have access to the gardens. However, the curfew of nine p.m. would remain, as would the golden line at all other times. Tardiness and the skipping of lessons, and any bending of the rules, would remain a punishable offense.