The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)(41)

Elias sighed. “You’re not very sharp today, Webber—this place has made you so slow,” he remarked, pulling a rude face. “That other one of yours. The French one.”

“She’s not my ‘other one’,” muttered Alex defensively.

Elias grinned with amusement. “I meant your other friend—I’ve no idea what you’re referring to,” he mocked playfully, apparently delighting in Alex’s discomfort.

“What about her?”

“She has been sick, right?”

Alex nodded slowly.

“You’re not stupid, Alex. Well, not all the time,” goaded Elias. “You’ve been told about magic that moves things. Now piece it together. I will not be getting my silver platter out today!”

Alex frowned as fear gripped him. He looked to Elias for further confirmation of the suspicions he’d had about Natalie, but the shifting, shadowy features gave nothing away. He loathed how vague Elias could be.

“It takes a lot of magic?” ventured Alex.

Elias moved the misty fronds of what should have been hands together in a silent, mocking clap. Seemingly, Elias’s favorite gesture. It irked Alex every time, which he guessed was the point.

“She used life magic?” he asked, wanting his thoughts confirmed once and for all.

“Ding, ding, ding! Give the boy a prize—how about the giant hippo for the lucky lady?” Elias smirked, his shadowy mouth curving up into an eerie smile.

“But she got better.”

Elias rolled his mysterious eyes in exasperation. “So, as long as it doesn’t kill you, that means it’s okay? I think I’m some sort of proof that’s not true.” A flash of something strange moved across his face, as if he had said something he hadn’t intended to, but the expression disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “Anyway, that’s not the point. I’m just saying, books can be dangerous. Your power-hungry pal read that spell in a book and made herself ill because of it. Mind you, she was doing it to save you all, so maybe we shouldn’t be too hard on her,” he retorted. “And hey, she’s okay now, so that spell wasn’t any of the really, really bad stuff—but this stuff, in that book, is stuff you don’t want anyone you care about touching.”

“How do you know what’s in it?” asked Alex.

Elias paused. “I just know,” he breathed, his voice suddenly drenched in a sadness so heartrending, Alex wasn’t sure he could take it. From within the starry, shadowy form of Elias, a thousand echoed sorrows seemed to surge forward, whispering all around Alex’s head, creeping through him with shivering tendrils, until they had seeped into every cell within his body. “I know, firsthand, what that book can do, and I didn’t want her to have it.”

Elias made me, and I am Elias, the universe within the shadow-man whispered.

Alex wasn’t sure if Elias meant he was trying to stop Ellabell from reaching for a book on strong, terrible magic in order to protect her from it, or because he simply didn’t want anyone to know about such dark magic. As much as his suspicions told him it was the latter, there was an internal battle that Alex couldn’t balance. It was the sadness in Elias’s voice that made him think twice about the shadow-man’s intentions with the book—the sound haunted him. Yet, he could neither forget nor forgive what Elias had done to Ellabell. No matter what the reason, there was no excuse for the bruising and trauma that girl had suffered. Anger flared inside him once more.

“You can’t win me over with your sob stories, Elias. What you did to Ellabell was unforgivable. There were ways you could have done it that didn’t involve attacking her, but you chose violence and fear. You use them as weapons, to control people—it’s cruel and twisted, like you!” he shot back.

Elias’s eyes flashed with anger. “After all I have done? I expected better from you, Spellbreaker. Everyone turns their back on Elias, blinded by the tattle-tales of others,” he seethed, his supernatural voice making Alex’s bones tremble.

“You hurt her, for no reason but to keep her from saying something to me,” Alex hissed, his heart pounding. He thought of how Ellabell had avoided him all those weeks after the attack, of the bruises on her face, and he wanted to tear Elias to pieces. The shadowy figure wasn’t nearly so fearsome when he was struggling to hold himself together. Alex’s anger seemed to break him apart much faster, somehow. Rippling fronds snaked away from Elias’s body, fragmenting it sliver by sliver.

“I protect you, Alex—I help and I serve and I get stabbed in the back, every time,” breathed Elias, his voice somehow omnipresent. The black pools of his eyes glimmered with starry grief and sparking rage. “I didn’t mean to hurt her; I just wanted to stop her. It may have escaped your notice, but my motor skills aren’t exactly on point.” He flapped his shadowy arms almost comically, though Alex was in no mood for amusement. “What I’m saying is, I can’t always control what I do or how I do it—touch isn’t always easy, and sometimes I can overdo it, by accident. I know you won’t believe me, but I do not lie. If you knew what that book did, you would not be so quick to speak this way to me—you ungrateful little boy.” He paused, his inky teeth curled up in a grimace. “Well, when you’re no longer blinded by love, you’ll realize the mistake you have made. You’ll see—you will need me, Alex. You will need me.”