The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)(33)

“So why isn’t Spellshadow more like this place?” Alex asked. He despised the beauty of Stillwater now that he knew the price of it, but he questioned why the Head hadn’t tried to create a paradise to entice students to stay of their own free will. One caught more flies with honey than vinegar, after all.

Aamir smiled. “Even if Spellshadow were heaven, would you have really wanted to stay, knowing that some form of graduation was inevitable? The students here are all the sons and daughters of noble mages from the magical elite. Sacrifice is expected of them. They do not need to be forced to comply.”

“How do you know that? About the students here being nobility?” Alex asked.

“I overheard that girl,” he replied quickly—almost too quickly.

Suspicion plagued Alex as he leveled his gaze at Aamir, wondering if he had caught the man out in a lie. He could not shake the feeling that there were still residual threads tying Aamir to the Head and a continued loyalty to Spellshadow. It was clear to Alex that Aamir knew more than he was letting on, but the older boy was clever and knew how to evade the questions he didn’t want to answer. Alex wondered if a day would come when he’d be able to get the whole truth. Unfortunately, today wasn’t that day.

“Please, may we stop? I am tired,” announced Aamir. “We can continue another time, when I am feeling stronger.”

“We will continue this,” Alex assured him.

Leaving Aamir alone, Alex headed up toward the top room of the tower with his head swimming. There was certainly plenty to think about. As he walked over to the open window to feel the cool rush of a breeze on his face, Alex’s eyes rested upon the arena. Fear and horror twisted in his heart as he thought about all the ways in which the magical elite were taking the lives of so many young mages. Not just noble ones who expected it, but ones who never asked for it. The ones who were taken against their will. As the dread seeped into his bones, he found himself thinking about the other two havens that were out there somewhere, Kingstone Keep and Falleaf House. Were they being used for the same purpose?

As he gazed out at the empty arena, he realized the stakes had been raised, whether he liked it or not. His future, and that of his friends, had become about more than simply getting home—he owed the other young mages, at Spellshadow and Stillwater, and beyond, the same hope.





Chapter 13





It was early evening, and the others had turned in for an early night. The events of the previous days had taken their toll, and nobody seemed to feel much like socializing.

Alex had retreated upstairs to the bell tower and was watching the stars beginning to shine overhead when the sound of strange, whispered voices floated up through the window on the opposite side of the tower, distracting Alex. He rushed over to the slim sill and peered cautiously down into the courtyard below, trying to make out where the voices were coming from. It was dark in the abandoned section of the villa, keeping the speakers shrouded.

Only when a figure emerged from the shadows at the far side of the courtyard did he see that it was the beautiful woman from the night at the arena, though she was not quite as elegantly dressed now as she had been then. She still wore a gown of sorts, in white and gold silk, but it was more modest than the gauzy, dazzling dress she had worn for the Ascension Ceremony. Her white hair, too, was held back simply with a plain silver band.

Her voice was stern and irritated as she became more visible in the dim evening light. She kept glancing furtively over her shoulder, as if to make sure she was alone. Alex’s chest clenched in alarm as he saw her gaze turn briefly to the tower behind her. He hoped the others were being quiet in the rooms below, though he stopped short of calling out to them in case it drew any further attention from the glowering eyes of Princess Alypia. After a moment, she turned back around.

Alex’s heart thundered as another figure stepped out into the courtyard—the speaker Alypia seemed to be snarling irritably at. Shrouded in dark robes that swamped the spindly body beneath, the long, skeletal fingers of the figure reached out toward her from the ends of wide sleeves, gesturing wildly. The hood of the robe was pushed backward to reveal a sunken, otherworldly face and lank, white hair that ran down the back of the speaker’s skull in thinning strands. The new arrival was as familiar to Alex as his own reflection.

The Head had finally caught up.

Alex marveled silently at Natalie’s skill in moving the portal; it had clearly taken the Head some time to physically reconnect with Stillwater, but he had done it—as Alex had known he eventually would.

It was strange to see the Head without the hood obscuring his face. He was a thin, skeletal creature with a vulture-like neck and a gleaming skull. A vision of the younger Head, given to him when he touched Finder’s rotting skull, rushed into Alex’s mind. The Head had looked younger then, standing in the sunlight with a yet-to-be ghostly Malachi Grey, his white hair thicker, his eyes a stormy blue instead of the eerie, dull hollows they were now. Alex wondered how the years could have wreaked such havoc on the man. Despite what had gone on between them, Alex couldn’t help but think the Head looked almost pitiable.

The feeling only intensified as he watched the peculiarity in the Head’s actions—the figure was talking in a soft voice, and the long, skeletal hands were held up in a gesture of surrender. The Head seemed almost cowed by the chastisement of the beautiful woman before him, and he shuffled uncomfortably beneath the stern gaze of her glittering eyes, which shifted from stunning to ice-cold in an instant. Alex didn’t think he’d like to be on the receiving end of her displeasure either.