The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)(80)

“You were there the whole time?” asked Alex, his stomach twisting in knots.

She nodded, wiping away tears with the palm of her hand.

The news of this attack stung Alex afresh, a wave of guilt washing over him as he looked toward the scared faces of those still with them. They had relied on him, and he had let them down. He hadn’t been there when they had needed him—but he knew who truly deserved the blame.

“Where are they?” he growled.

“Esmerelda is dead,” Ellabell said, the anger in her voice mirroring Alex’s own. “A second group came to our rescue with Professor Gaze, but it was already too late to save everyone. They took out Esmerelda, but Renmark was nowhere to be found. I think he had already escaped by the time we went searching for him.”

All too easily, Alex could imagine the bodies of his peers spread across the library floor, could picture their glassy stares and silenced screams. The grief and guilt and horror were overwhelming. Students were dead because they had followed his lead. They had been ambushed, and he hadn’t been there to save them. He should have known Renmark and Esmerelda couldn’t be trusted, with how they had teamed up after the Head’s disappearance. He should have done something to stop them, but he never thought they’d do something as evil as kill the students. He knew Renmark relished power, and Esmerelda seemed to look up to Renmark, but he had never thought them capable of cold-blooded murder. Injury and punishment, perhaps, but nothing as horrifying as what they had done.

The should haves and what ifs charged through his mind, deafening his thoughts to anything else. It was all he could think of, but there were eyes on him, begging him to lead them—to tell them what to do next. They were terrified and grief-stricken, and so was he.

Gaze sat at the side of the corridor, perched on the edge of a windowsill that showed a vast, exotic desert of shifting golden sand with a hot sun baking down on the dunes. Her head hung low between slumped shoulders, and there was sadness in her eyes.

Alex walked over to her. “Professor Gaze?”

She looked up with clarity in her expression, as if she already knew what Alex was going to say.

“I need you to take the rest of the students and put them somewhere safe. Myself, Natalie, and Jari will cause a diversion to lure the Head away,” he said softly, just out of earshot of the other students. He didn’t want them to argue. He wanted them away, where they would be safe. He didn’t want anyone else’s death on his conscience.

He understood now that they were too few and too weak, but there was a glimmer of hope left—they might stand a better chance if they tried to fight on the Head’s own turf, where the narrow corridors and darkened shadows could work to their advantage. Just himself, Jari, and Natalie. They could be enough, he hoped. They could be strong enough to overcome the Head at close quarters. He was just a man, after all. A powerful one, but still just a man beneath the cloaks and mystery.

Plus, Alex thought darkly, he could always use the essence within himself, if it came to it. He was prepared to make the sacrifice of creating a tear in the fabric of his soul. From what Alex had been able to garner from his brief brush with death magic knowledge in Leander’s notebook, the enormous pulse of pure destructive force was in the same style as the life magic used by Mages, just the opposite version—the inverted form of his people. It seemed a small price for their survival. If the fight called for it, he would use his death magic; he would deal with the pain and disjuncture in the aftermath.

Gaze reached out and took Alex’s hand. A silent moment of understanding passed between them. “I will take them, but I don’t wish to leave you here to fight alone,” she said, frowning. There was grief in her ancient eyes.

“I won’t have another death on my conscience,” he replied quietly. “It has to be this way. We know how to protect ourselves, and I’m… not exactly like the others.”

“I know what you are.” Gaze met his eye with a soft smile. “If I cannot dissuade you, then I will lead them to safety and do what I can. For them, I have one last trick up my sleeve.”

“Where will you take them?”

“I can move and scramble the hallways behind me so that none of them will lead to this section of the manor, and we’ll be harder to reach. Once I have done this, you will be on your own—I must know that you understand that?” she said hurriedly, her tone sorrowful.

Alex nodded. “I understand.”

“Then we will go,” she sighed, the weight of the world on her old shoulders. “And if I come across that snake Renmark, he will get what is coming to him. You mark my words,” she added bitterly, her eyes shining with angry, heartbroken tears for all the lives lost.

She gathered the remaining students and explained what was about to happen. A murmur of confusion rippled through the group, but Gaze would not take no for an answer. It seemed she was not ready for any further losses either. As the news of the new plan settled, many of the students’ expressions shifted to anxious relief, clearly grateful for a way out of this mess. Alex was pleased to see that; at least he could grant them a faint flicker of hope.

Ellabell stepped up beside him.

“Alex?”

Alex turned with a sad smile. He wasn’t sure he’d see Ellabell again, and the thought made his heart ache. “What is it?” he asked kindly.

“I was wondering if I could help in any way? I can shield you and protect you, if you need,” she said slowly.