The Breaker (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #2)(88)

Though what they were running into, Alex wasn’t sure.





Epilogue





Elias slunk furtively from shadow to shadow, battered but undefeated, licking his wounds with the lashing tongue of his shadow-cat form. He pouted with remorse, knowing he could have fought for longer, but the Head had almost clasped his skeletal fingers around the dull red glow of his essence once more, reaching straight into the starry abyss of his chest. And he hadn’t been about to let that happen again, not after he had just gained it back. Running away would seem cowardly to others, but Elias wasn’t bothered by others. He had the glowing particle back, and it burned inside him, though he couldn’t feel its warmth.

He slithered in the darkness, peering down upon the grim aftermath of the uprising, looking over the wreckage, sliding from corridor to corridor to seek out the remaining students, his curiosity piqued. He was amused by the higgledy-piggledy state of the hallways, left in a jumbled mess by one of Gaze’s powerful spells.

Very clever, he thought, though it didn’t much affect him. He could still go where he pleased. It just took a bit longer.

Eventually, he found the rest of the survivors huddled in the mess hall, as safe as they could be beneath the protection of Professor Gaze. He had always liked Gaze. It was sad to see her so old and still here, all that power wasted.

He purred with amusement as a weary Professor Lintz entered the room, his large figure covered in deep lacerations from the magical beating he had taken at the Head’s hands. He was limping slightly, too, but he was, surprisingly, alive. Elias wasn’t sure how happy he was about this turn of events. Though Lintz had never given him reason to dislike him, Elias had found him guilty by association. A sniveling weasel by association. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a touch impressed by the sight of the old codger still standing.

He watched a while longer as Gaze moved from student to student, trying to fix up as many as she could with the limited tools she had. It bored him. He smiled sardonically, stretching his shadowed mouth across starry teeth as he tried to force an insincere pang of sorrow for the students—they had simply jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Stretching languidly, he slipped down the empty, scorched corridors and passed curiously over the library. Unmoving figures lay curled up on the floor and sprawled among the stacks, glassy eyes staring upward into nothingness. Energy tickled at the edges of his shadowy form as his sensitivity felt the low, pulsating thrum of the coiled-up mass of wasted essence, trickling from the dead students, gathering together in one sad pool before it faded into the ground, with nowhere else to go but be reabsorbed by the earth beneath. Unusable. Elias smirked, even amid such vile tragedy.

At least this way, Elias thought smugly, the Head can’t have it.

Thinking bitterly of the Head, his wounds still smarting, he swept effortlessly back through the hallways and paused for a moment in the Head’s office. He laughed as he saw that the door had been blown off entirely and the Head was still inside, launching things around the room in a fit of fury, his voice rising to a howling scream of rage. It felt delicious to Elias, to watch the Head so riled up.

The Head turned, as if sensing Elias’s mocking presence.

“This is all your fault, Elias! You let him get away! I needed him, Elias! I would not have killed him, and yet you stood in my way! You are responsible for what is going to come, you—”

Elias didn’t stay to hear the rest, making a swift exit as a train of expletives followed him. The words made their mark on Elias, however, as he glided over the desolate grounds.

Night had drawn in, giving him the freedom of the manor as a whole, not batted back by petty rays of sunlight. He manifested himself as a man on the hillside overlooking the Fields of Sorrow, watching over the vast expanse with its smoking heart and still-scorched earth. He grinned coldly, teeth flashing, as he convinced himself he could already feel the tremors of something beneath the earth, rising up.

What will happen now? he wondered gleefully.

“You can’t keep the evil at bay forever. A void must be filled,” he whispered to the emptiness, closing his eyes in delight at the prospect of its coming.

The only wrench in Elias’s plan was that the Head was still alive. He had been relying on Alex to surprise him, but had been left disappointed. Elias was certain the notebook he had given to Alex contained some mention about death magic, and yet Alex hadn’t delivered the goods. All that talk of silver light and shining heroes, and Alex still hadn’t called on a little death magic.

Elias felt dissatisfied, but blamed himself; he knew he had not given Alex the chance to play the martyr. He knew he had let the echo of his human feelings get the better of him. He had felt anger and gotten carried away, and now he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. With the stolen part of his essence back within his possession, he supposed he could go after the escapees if he wanted, since he was no longer tied entirely to the manor. He could see what else he could get them to do. But they had already done so much.

Alex had proven an excellent pawn, if a bit slower than Elias had hoped. He would think about it—after all, he had plenty of time. Where they had gone, they wouldn’t find much joy, Elias thought smugly as he stretched out his shadowy limbs. The magical world frowned upon fugitives.

In the meantime, he decided, he would revel in the Head’s misery and the glimmer of hope for what he wished to come crashing down around the manor.